flâneur

The Religion of Workism Is Making Americans Miserable - The Atlantic

theatlantic.com · 2,954 words · saved by 1 readers

For the college-educated elite, work has morphed into a religious identity—promising transcendence and community, but failing to deliver.

I n his 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted a 15-hour workweek in the 21st century, creating the equivalent of a five-day weekend. “For the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem,” Keynes wrote, “how to occupy the leisure.” This became a popular view. In a 1957 article in The New York Times , the writer Erik Barnouw predicted that, as work became easier, our identity would be defined by our hobbies, or our family life. “The increasingly automatic nature of many jobs, coupled with th

related reading