Idleness

Although largely neglected in Schelling scholarship, the concept of bliss (Seligkeit) assumes central importance throughout Schelling’s oeuvre. Focusing on his 1810-11 texts, the Stuttgart Seminars and the beginning of the Ages of the World, this paper traces the logic of bliss, in its connection with other key concepts such as indifference, the world or the system, at a crucial point in Schelling’s thinking. Bliss is shown, at once, to mark the zero point of the developmental narrative that Schelling constructs here (from God before creation, via the natural, historical, and spiritual world, to the fully actualized, ‘true pantheism’) and to interrupt it at every step. As a result, bliss emerges here in its real utopian force but also its all-too-real ambivalence, indifference, and even violence, despite Schelling’s best efforts to theorize it as ‘love’; and Schelling himself emerges, in these texts, as one of modernity’s foremost thinkers not just of nature or freedom, but also of bliss in its modern afterlives. At stake in Schelling’s conception of bliss, I argue, is the very relationship between history and eternity, the not-yet and the already-here, the present and the eschatological - as well as between Spinozian immanence and the Christian temporality of salvation, so important for modernity (with what is often called its process of ‘secularization’) - not to mention the complex entanglement of indifference, violence, and love or the ideas of totality, nonproductivity, and nonrelation that Schellingian bliss involves.

מאמר זה נכתב לנוכח משבר העבודה הפוקד את העולם בזמן הניאו-ליברלי והאופי העמוס והקטטוני של החיים כיום, כשהעבודה השתלטה על כל זמנו של האדם ובד בבד איבדה את תכליתה. אך המאמר אינו מתמקד בעבודה, אלא במה שהיא מנסה לברא מן העולם: הבטלה. הוא מציע דיון מושגי בבטלה כמושג היסטורי הפועל ביחס לקטגוריות של עבודה, פנאי, פרישות ושביתה. נקודת המוצא לדיון ביחסים בין בטלה, עבודה ופוליטיקה כיום היא הפוטנציאליות כאי-פעילות, מושג של ג'ורג'יו אגמבן שהוא חיוני להבנת הבטלה כצורה של פוטנציאליות פסיבית. משם המאמר פונה להראות כיצד הבטלה מתקשרת לסדר של העבודה והפנאי; כיצד היא פועלת ביחס לרצון לפרוש מהסדר החברתי הניאו-ליברלי המתיש; וכיצד היא קשורה לפעולה הפוליטית המז'ורית של השביתה. הוא בוחן את העתיד ואת ההווה של העולם הגלובלי כזמן של בטלה, של עבודה שתכליתה ייצור אינסופי של ערך עודף ומופשט – הון – אך היא נוגעת פחות ופחות לתכליות סופיות ולערך שיש לו משמעות מחוץ להיגיון הכלכלי של הרווח. כך העבודה מובילה בעצמה להתנגדויות לצו העבודה, שהופכות מקובלות יותר ויותר – לבּטלה. נקודת המוצא של המאמר היא אפוא פוליטיזציה ומשמוע רב-ערכי של הבטלה. כל יצרנות היא במהותה הפיכה של סימנים (חומרים, גופים, רעיונות) לבעלי משמעות. הדיון בבטלה – במה שמנוגד לפוליטי וליצרני ומבטל את עצמו בפניהם – הופך אותה לבעלת משמעות, כלומר ליצרנית (באי-יצרנותה). המאמר פועל בתוך המתח הזה ומתבונן ברגע שבו הבטלה הופכת ליצרנית ומאבדת את "בטלנותה".

Manuskript für Peter Seyferth: „Arbeitsverweigerung adelt. Bausteine einer negativen Arbeitsethik.“ In: Henning Ottmann/Stefano Saracino/Peter Seyferth (Hrsg.): Gelassenheit – Und andere Versuche zur negativen Ethik. Münster: Lit, 2014. S. 183–220. Für Zitate bitte das gedruckte Buch verwenden. For citation please refer to the printed book.

ABSTRACT Leisure and idleness in Sheridan's and Wilde's comedies of manners are not merely used as objects of satire. In Sheridan, idleness is presented as a highly productive state that brings forth the society that takes part in it. Idleness here is the prerequisite for social games like gossiping and play-acting, which far from being merely frivolous, turn out to have serious consequences for the characters. Idleness is also shown as potentially negative and detrimental for characters who do not master the game proficiently. In Oscar Wilde's plays, idleness is central in both content and dramatic structure. While on a thematic level, idleness is most explicitly addressed and condemned in A Woman of No Importance, all plays feature elements of idleness in their structure. In Wilde's three earlier plays, serious plots focussing on a moral dilemma are combined with idle scenes. The relation between these two aspects differs: the serious plot in Lady Windermere's Fan undercuts and threatens the idle backdrop, which nevertheless is restored in the end; in A Woman of No Importance rather extensive idle scenes form a background to the serious action without any points of contact and with a group of idle characters with no function in the plot at all; in An Ideal Husband, finally, the character of Goring crosses from idle scenes into serious plot and thus exposes the performative nature of idleness. Both playwrights, therefore, do not simply depict idleness but present it as central to the society they are portraying. Within the notion of idleness they are able to show the highly artificial and theatrical nature of upper-class existence, while – especially in the case of Wilde – also alluding to the artificiality of the comedy of manners itself.

The present paper is a result of a two-year intensive ethnography of an intercultural Japanese company. While most of the literature on the anthropology of work in Japan regarding foreign workers tend to focus mainly on two types of experiences - those of global companies in which foreign workers and expats take up on international careers in Japan; and those of low-skilled jobs in which foreign migrants usually take up undesirable occupations in Japanese society - this ethnography, however, focuses on a middle level company, in which white collar workers in precarious contracts seek for visa guarantees and some small income to help them sustain their lives in Japan without much chances of a career development. By situating this type of experience within the current discussions on precarity, 24/7 capitalism, and Japanese internationalization efforts, the present paper provides results that both confirm some of the assumptions embedded in these discussions, informs new pathways for potential developments, and challenges some mainstream images about foreign employment and labor in Japan.

No Ensaio sobre a origem das línguas, texto publicado postumamente, em 1781, Rousseau reflete sobre certos aspectos da conformação antropológica e social, tendo em vista as diferentes configurações climáticas e geográficas nas quais os homens se encontram. O objetivo do artigo será examinar a importância das noções de trabalho e preguiça sobre elementos que, no Ensaio, constituem a antropologia desenvolvida por Rousseau. Para isso, buscaremos demonstrar como as diferentes dificuldades impostas pela natureza exigem variadas respostas aos obstáculos do meio ambiente. Estabelecendo uma polarização entre o Norte e o Sul, através de uma descrição das múltiplas espécies de trabalho, veremos como tais atividades moldarão, à sua maneira, as diferentes línguas e paixões que caracterizam os indivíduos setentrionais e do merídio: se, no Norte, o trabalho recalca as paixões, no Sul, encontramos uma condição que melhor se harmoniza com a preguiça natural do homem, atributo antropológico essencial ao sistema natural proposto por Rousseau. Finalmente, salientaremos como a importância do trabalho como resposta às diferentes condições climático-geográficas também se faz sentir na formação dos povos, criando condições materiais e espaços possíveis de convivência, tornando-se um elemento essencial no composto que forma a gênese antropológica e social de Rousseau.

This book brings together theories of spatiality and mobility with a study of travel writing in the Victorian period to suggest that ‘idleness’ is an important but neglected condition of subjectivity in that era. Contrary to familiar stereotypes of ‘the Victorians’ as characterized by speed, work, and mechanized travel, this books asserts a counter-narrative in which certain writers embraced idleness in travel as a radical means to ‘re-subjectification’ and the assertion of a ‘late-Romantic’ sensibility. Attentive to the historical and literary continuities between ‘Romantic’ and ‘Victorian’, the book reconstructs the Victorian discourse on idleness. It draws on an interdisciplinary range of theorists and brings together a fresh selection of accounts viewed through the lens of cultural studies as well as accounts of publication history and author biography. Travel texts from different genres (by writers such as Anna Mary Howitt, Jerome K. Jerome and George Gissing) are brought together as representing the different facets of the spectrum of idleness in the Victorian context.

Abbas Kiarostami aplica em seus filmes e escritos certa técnica de produção de real a partir da observação de pequenos detalhes em contínuo movimento. Este artigo investiga como o cineasta elabora o ócio enquanto dispositivo para instalar no espectador um efeito de real. Esse mesmo procedimento de estudo do supérfluo e do ínfimo se codifica diferentemente quando subordinado às causalidades narrativas, resultando numa semiótica da ingenuidade. Com o suporte dos estudos de André Bazin, Christian Metz, Roland Barthes e Jacques Rancière, traçamos um caminho que apresenta personagens humanos e não humanos como vetores obstinados de uma política do ócio.

Following the work of Korean-German social theorist Byung-Chul Han, we can see that in his attempts to describe our current society, he builds the concept of Achievement Society through terms like tiredness, depression, burnout, restlessness, and so on. His choice to tackle society through such maladies is accompanied by plenty other social theorists such as Jonathan Crary’ s focus on the end of sleep or Paul Virilio’ s long time focus on speed. In fact, much of the political emancipatory literature and movements have tried to propose exits to similar problems. The anti-work authors on the left, the praise of idleness of Domenico de Masi and of Bertrand Russell, or even recent decolonial theories of Sumak Kwasai and Teko-Pora, based on the indigenous philosophies from South America are good examples of such a preoccupation. Meanwhile, in the case of Japan, where death by overwork (karoshi) has become part of the global imagination about Japan, the preoccupation from the social theorists, policy makers, and social activists seems to rest much more on access to work or worker’ s rights, rather than on the aforementioned consequences of contemporary forms of all-encompassing work. This paper will argue, however, that rather than being an exception to the case of Achievement Society, Japan is a great example of such categorization. In order to build this argument, ethnography with youngsters in Japan currently working or preparing to work will be examined, as well as movements and discourses on Work-Life Balance and the Slow Movement.  By the end, this paper will also examine the Japanese case in comparison to the global scenario.