The Ableist, Racist, Classist Underpinnings Of ‘Laziness’ – The Establishment
Hello, I’m a lazy Millennial.
In other words, I’m from a generation
that has worked more hours for less money than any generation before
me, but occasionally I eat a granola bar for breakfast instead of pouring myself a bowl of cereal. According to some, including many writers of online thinkpieces, that’s enough to make me “lazy.”But the problem isn’t me, or young
people in general, or any group that’s historically been decried for its
idleness. Like Millennials, groups that are called “lazy” are often the
hardest-working people around. They’re just subject to ableism, racism,
classism, and other bigotry that codes exploitation or exhaustion as
“unwillingness to work.”I myself have had a very confusing
relationship with “laziness” from a young age, often being called “lazy”
for enjoying reading and video games by the same parents who praised me
for always getting my homework done on time.Needless to say, I became rather
confused about the quality of my work ethic. Was I lazy or not? In my
teens, I developed an anxiety disorder and a perfectionism that made
academic shirking impossible, but the constant state of worry disrupted
my sleep and left me so exhausted that I would often come home from
school and go straight to bed for a nap. Sometimes, all I could do was
lay in bed, awake, ruminating on everything I could possibly worry
about.But because I was in bed, this was called “laziness.”
I worked so little at that office
job, I couldn’t believe it. I could spend multiple hours each day
scrolling through Tumblr or playing on social media. My “work” time
involved reading articles vaguely related to my work — mostly because
there wasn’t much work for me to do. Compared to being on my feet all
day, being expected to work every moment on the clock, it was nothing.I worked three times as hard at my
food and customer service jobs as I did at any of my digital marketing
positions. And yet contemptuous thinkpiecers keep on describing people
who work in those industries as “lazy.” Why don’t you get a REAL job? Like reading Tumblr while sitting at a desk, instead of busting your ass at McDonald’s.According to Dr. Alison Munoff, a licensed clinical psychologist, “laziness” is nothing more than a value judgement.
“‘Laziness’ is not a personality
trait, it is simply a matter of a lack of proper motivation and
reinforcement, as it is a behavioral pattern rather than a part of who
we are,” says Dr. Munoff. “The ability to actively approach a task in a
time-effective manner changes depending on the task and its value in
our lives. For example, in a situation of obtaining limited resources,
people find themselves quite motivated and resourceful, meaning that
this task is simply a priority based on its value and necessity, and has
little to do with someone’s personality. Unfortunately I find that when
asked about the first time people were told they were being ‘lazy,’ it
was from a parent or caregiver who was unsuccessfully attempting to
motivate the child without a good understanding of the way this idea
would be carried forward.”In nature, animals spend a lot of their time being idle.
Most of the footage shot of big cats like lions are of them lazing
around. Part of this is because many of them are nocturnal, but it’s
also because animals will hunt, forage, and eat until they’re full, and
then most of the rest of their time is spent conserving energy. Laying
around doing pretty much nothing is completely natural. It’s adaptive.
Yet laziness has this negative connotation in many human societies. And
that negative connotation is often deployed in ableist, racist, and
classist ways.Today, we can all enjoy reasonably
priced produce thanks to the many exploited Latin undocumented immigrant
workers picking our fruit and vegetables — labor that is so intensive
that we “non-lazy” white people simply can’t handle it. And let’s not
forget that all of this land was stolen from the Indigenous tribes that
were here before we floated over and laid claim to it all. Isn’t
stealing other people’s hard work supposed to be lazy?Or is it just that it’s easier to call people lazy than admit that you exploited them?
Even if you’re not racist, you’ve
probably used the idea of laziness in a way that hurts a lot of people. I
still struggle with an anxiety disorder and go through bouts of
depression, and a lot of what’s involved in these mental illnesses looks
like what people call “laziness.” Depression saps your energy and makes
everything seem pointless. Anxiety is paralyzing, making even some of
the simplest tasks (like calling people on the phone) seem daunting, so I
avoid them.Combine the two and you’ve got me
huddled into a ball on the bed, unable to do anything but listen to
Netflix playing in the background. It looks like laziness, but I’m
actually engaged in an exhausting war in my own head. Anxiety is like
pushing a giant boulder in front of you wherever you go, and depression
is like dragging a giant boulder attached to your legs by chains.People with physical illness and
disability are also prone to being accused of laziness, especially if
that illness or disability is not visible to others. There are people
who are nearly constantly in pain or constantly fatigued, but you would
never know by looking at them. These individuals work much harder than
able-bodied and “healthy” people. Not only do they often have to work to
survive because disability payments (if they can get them) are not
nearly enough, they have to navigate a world that caters to able-bodied
people, and they have to navigate that world while their bodies work
against them. But article after article decries the “laziness” of people
who use motorized carts or take elevators up one floor instead of using
the stairs, not for a second thinking that there are people who
wouldn’t be able to shop or go up floors at all without these
“conveniences.”It’s easier to think of someone as
“lazy” than to face the fact that school costs too much, that better
jobs are inaccessible, that childcare is unaffordable, that people are
forced to work so hard for so little that there’s no way they could have
enough energy to attempt schooling or finding better work, and that
what we give to people who can’t work is insufficient to the point of
being shameful. I could say that calling people lazy is, in itself,
lazy, but it’s not just an intellectual shortcut. It’s a defense
mechanism.Everyone has a finite amount of
energy. Some of us have greater drains on our pool of energy than
others, whether it comes from the stress of racial microaggressions, the
stress of poverty, or mental or physical illness. Needing more time to
recover isn’t laziness. Having less time or energy to make breakfast
than the previous generation isn’t laziness. When you take a second to
look into the reasons behind the behavior, you’ll never end up finding
laziness. Because laziness isn’t real.^^^ THIS