Against Work

In Christopher Clausen’s “Against Work”, Clausen argues about the unhealthy relationship of Americans and their work in comparison to the healthy relationship of the European countries and their work. He also addresses the questions that make the readers think about the essence of the work and the purpose of the work –why is the people over working so hard for? Clausen begins his essay with his dream jobs when he was a kid –at six, a cowboy and at twelve, a professional football player, and in high school, a writer. When he was young like 6 and 12, he wanted to have those professions because he wanted to be, and because he had passion toward those professions. But when he entered in high school, he wanted to be a writer not because he was interested in writing, but because the writing seemed to have no work involved in it. Then in a second paragraph, Clausen takes further step to support this “against work” idea by taking out a rhetorical quote from the George Bernard Shaw’s play, “Man and Superman”: “What is the use of having money if you have to work for it?” Nowadays, the word, work, is described as a mandatory thing that we should do for living for surviving the life, like breathing the air; it is not a thing that one do because of one’s interest, curiosity, or passion. In today’s busy world, the work is the duty that one should do to get paid. People only do work when they are getting paid. As Clausen says, “Today those of us with full-time employment typically put in several hundred more hours per year than western Europe. Our disposable income is correspondingly higher, though when asked whether we would prefer more leisure to greater wealth, most of us opt for leisure.” Although people prefer to have free time and relax in their home, they know that long American tradition has lead them define themselves not only by their work but also by the amount of time they put in to their labor or work, which makes them to become forced workaholic, an addiction, the compulsion. However, in today’s American society, the term workaholic is a compliment and considered as the expected attitude of the workers.