Another idle Interview...

... this one in the Stanford Progressive.

The Progressive metaphorically sat down with authors of “The Idler's Glossary” Mark Kingwell and Joshua Glenn. Kingwell is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and regular contributor to magazines such as Harper's who received a PhD from Yale University. He describes himself as a social democrat and “recovering Catholic.” Joshua Glenn is editor and publisher of the “irregularly published” philosophy and pop culture journal, the Hermenaut Magazine. Hermenaut Magazine is commonly described as “a scholarly journal minus the university.”

ROSS RAFFIN: First, the basics. What is an idler? How does the idler fend off boredom?

GLENN: An idler is a person -- historical examples include Socrates and Oscar Wilde -- who, despite the pejorative sense in which we often use the term, is neither lazy nor useless. Nor does she shirk work, duties, or other obligations; nor does she resent bosses and bossy family members who think she should be working. Instead, she has revalued the values of our work-centric culture; she has rid herself of those beliefs, attitudes, and constraints that limit our freedom (by making the 9-to-5 life seem natural, inevitable, and eternal). Far from being bored -- a paralyzing compound of restlessness and apathy that afflicts non-idlers, who dimly sense that they're trapped in an invisible prison -- she is energetic and engaged with life. Not that you can always tell, just by looking at her, you understand.

KINGWELL: It’s interesting how often boredom comes into the issue -- it’s thematized right at the beginning of my introduction, for example. The reason is that boredom is closely linked to the world of work and its norms of occupation, production, and consumption. Boredom is a kind of stall between first- and second-order desires: when I’m bored, I have a wish for a desire but find no particular desire worth desiring. The idler is never bored, because there is perfect attunement between his wishes and his desires.


RR: What is the difference between an idler and a slacker?

KINGWELL: Slackers are not-working -- they define themselves in terms of the work they should be doing. The idler is not working at all, instead making his own projects and interests into an independent, work-free scale of value. That’s why idling can be so lively sometimes, though of course it needn’t be. The slacker, having to oppose the norms of work in sullen slouches and work-to-rule slowness, is actually still beholden to those norms. His resistance is futile because it’s actually a form of capitulation.

GLENN: Good point, Mark! Like the idler, the slacker isn't cut out for the 9-to-5 life. The slacker hates, fears, and resents his work, his duties, his obligations -- think of mid-career Adam Sandler's characters in "Billy Madison" and "Big Daddy." But unlike the idler, the slacker doesn't question, or reject, the working world's value system. (In which, for example, "what you do for a living" equals "who you are.") He'll remain trapped, unhappily, in that value system, forever. Or he'll remain trapped, happily, in that value system -- because he's made peace with it. As Sandler's characters do, come to think of it, in both of those movies.

RR: Assuming everyone suddenly became an idler, how would society function?

KINGWELL: Think of it this way: any market economy is a failed attempt to distribute goods and services exactly where they are needed or desired, as and when they are needed and desired. That’s all markets are, despite the pathological excrescences that nowadays attach to them: derivatives funds, advertising, shopping-as-leisure. If we had a perfect market, idling would be the norm, not the exception, because distribution would be frictionless. Most work is the result of inefficiency, not genuine need. In other words, idling is consistent with capitalism’s own internal logic, which of course implies, even if it never realizes, the end of capitalism.

GLENN: Society would regulate the general production, nobody would have one exclusive sphere of activity, and it would be possible for each and every one of us, as Marx once speculated, "to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as [we feel like it], without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic." I mean, as long as we're talking about an imaginary, what-if scenario.

RR: Idling is commonly considered a bad thing in western society, something to be avoided. Why should we strive to idle?

GLENN: Actually, in western society's classical antiquity, idling wasn't considered a bad thing -- quite the opposite. Mark is much better than I am at explaining the difference, for Aristotle, between "aergia" and "skhole," so I'll content myself with quoting a more recent philosopher, Robert Louis Stevenson. "Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing," he writes, "but in doing a great deal not recognized in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself." As for striving to be idle, this of course would be missing the point.

KINGWELL: Case in point from the Glossary itself: the Latin word negotium, which gives us English terms for business and transaction, actually means the negation of otium, which means leisure. But then otium gets annexed into the pejorative word ‘otiose’, which means useless or redundant. The language we use contains the clues the reveral of values that got us here, thinking that work is more important than leisure. The ancient philosophers knew better. Work is mere necessity; leisure is divine.

RR: What is the "Idler's Glossary" and why is it, as the back cover claims, the "The Devil's Dictionary for the idling classes?"

KINGWELL: Well, like Bierce’s gem, it’s a distillation of many gallons of wisdom into a potent little brew. Unlike Bierce, Josh is not cynical and his intent isn’t satirical. Good thing too, because we need positive vibes right now, not negative ones. (Though there is always room for satire in an idler’s life.)

GLENN: Mark is too kind! And so is our publisher, who made the comparison with Ambrose Bierce's brilliant collection of mordant and cynical definitions. Among other things, I hope that the "Idler's Glossary" is a corrective to thesauri that would have you believe that "slacker" and "idler," for example, or "nap" and "doze," or "sluggishness" and "indolence," and so forth, are interchangeable terms.

RR: The "Idler's Glossary" is pretty small, only 6 inches by 4 inches. Was there any particular reason for making the Idler's Glossary pocket-sized?

KINGWELL: So it would fit in your pocket, of course! And also in Xmas stockings, desk drawers, backpacks, glove compartments, purses, saddlebags, carry-on totes, fishing vests. Especially fishing vests.

GLENN: Our publisher wanted more, more, more! If I'd given in to his demands, perhaps the book would be larger. Aren't you glad it isn't, though? I love its format, and Seth's charming illustrations.

RR: Speaking as a college student, does the Idler's Glossary give any good philosophical justification for procrastination?

GLENN: No, but I do offer a diagnosis: "In the procrastinator, that lamentable failure of body and will that is languor, or torpor, becomes inextricably tangled with artistic perfectionism." So... next time you're procrastinating, ask yourself: "Am I too self-critical? Or am I just enervated?" If it's the former, and especially if you're procrastinating on a written assignment, just remember that "essay" means "necessarily imperfect attempt." If the latter is the problem, a meditative bicycle ride to nowhere in particular and back will always -- always -- make you feel better.

KINGWELL: Procrastination is actually closely akin to boredom: a second-order desire (I wish I wanted to write my essay now) is not lining up with a first-order one (I want to write my essay now). Idlers are not in the business of solving procrastination stalls, but one clearly successful tactic is to fool yourself away from such blocks. There is no limit to the amount of productive activity we’re capable of as long as it’s not what we are supposed to be doing.

RR: Is the glossary meant to be read in a single sitting or spread out over time?

KINGWELL: Yes.

GLENN: Yes.

RR: Mark Kingwell's essay defending idling draws from variety of philosophers from Schopenhauer and Bertrand Russel to Kierkegaard, Aristotle, Lao Tzu, and Yoda. What is it about idling that draws so much attention from philosophers?

GLENN: It's been suggested, of Socrates, who was always late to every appointment, that philosophy itself is born of idle curiosity -- that idlers are natural philosophers, or vice versa. Is there anything to this theory, Mark?

KINGWELL: Well obviously I think there is, especially when you factor in the necessary idleness for even beginning to reflect on life’s meaning and possibilities. But the great stroke of really profound philosophers like Lao Tzu is to see that idleness isn’t just a necessary condition of philosophical questions. It is also, in itself, the best answer to them.

RR: The glossary contains the etymology for terms such as "shit-heel," "sluggard," "hittin the sack," "hanging out," and even "doodle." I have to ask, though, when did "Jabbaent" become a word?

KINGWELL: I’m not sure. Sometime after ‘kick back’ and maybe a little before ‘chillax’?

GLENN: The more closely we examine our subjective experiences, the less well our vocabulary serves us when it comes to articulating those experiences. "Jabbaent" -- meaning, as sluggish as Jabba the Hutt -- is an invented slang term. I didn't invent it, but it amuses me.

An Idle Self-Interview: Mark Kingwell

From this Saturday's Globe & Mail:

Mark 1: So what's with the interview?

Mark 2: Well, I wanted to write something about why the idle life is the best life, especially now that we're spiralling headlong into an economic meltdown. It's also the natural time of year to think about the direction of your life, to take stock. But the thought of structuring a formal essay, arguing the position, made me feel tried. And no wonder: "Essay" is from the French essai, for try; an essay on idling seemed like a contradiction in terms.

Mark 1: So now I have to do the work of thinking up questions for you? And transcribing the answers?

Mark 2: Don't think of it as work! One of the common mistakes people make about idling is assuming that it's always inactive. On the contrary, there are lots of idle activities. Thinking and writing about ideas like this is a perfect example.

Mark 1: So what makes that idling rather than work?

Mark 2: Enjoying it for its own sake, for one thing. The reason idling is often closely associated with aestheticism or even dandyism - Baudelaire, Huysmans, Stevenson and Wilde were all accomplished idlers - is that idling sees the possibilities of life being lived as a work of art.

Mark 1: Hmm. Is that what distinguishes idling from slacking?

Mark 2: Yes, exactly! The problem with the slacker is that he is, in the very act of resisting them, wedded to the norms of work. In avoiding work, or pretending to work, or hiding from the supervisor in the mailroom, the slacker is implicitly granting the world of work a dominant position. He gives work power as that which he should be doing even as he does not do it.

Mark 1: And idling?

Mark 2: Idling establishes an independent scale of value. It's like the difference between dozing - falling asleep from overwork - and napping, which we all know is an art form. The true idler enters the moment of not-working and takes it into a new realm of not even thinking about work, of strolling away from that collective addiction of the past 2,000 years.

Mark 1: I sense a philosophical reference coming.

Mark 2: Well, yes. Aristotle's claim of the contemplative life as the most divine life, as well as his idea of peripatesis - philosophy done while walking - suggests an idle disciple. The issue of gait is essential, actually: strolling, ambling, dawdling, flânerie - these are all an idler's actions. Aristotle also emphasizes political activity, but this is not work; it is action in the service of friendship and justice. Entirely consistent with idling.

Mark 1: What about the Eastern traditions?

Mark 2: Absolutely. I think Lao Tzu is perhaps the greatest idler of the ancient world. "Move along old ruts," he advises us in Tao Te Ching. "Blunt the sharpness." We know he's right - we still talk about "taking the edge off" after a hard day's work. Typically, we do it with temporary self-medication - a sitcom, a martini. Not that I have anything against martinis, but diversions like these just serve to recharge the batteries for the next bout of work. Addiction reinforced.

Mark 1: You make it sound easy. What about making ends meet, now that unemployment is spiking so high? Aristotle, after all, had slaves to do work for him. Lots of people are simply out of work, not not-working. Isn't idling revealed as an elitist pursuit, an aristocrat's indulgence?

Mark 2: It's true Aristotle had slaves. He saw them as the bearers of repetitive actions, the boring features of the realm of necessity. My point is that nowadays, most of us are self-enslaved. And each one of us, jobless or otherwise, has some portion of what the Germans call Freizeit, free time. The real issue is how we use that time. Or rather, whether we see that it should not be used at all.

Mark 1: You're saying we should live for the weekend?

Mark 2: No, no, on the contrary! The weekend was created, through collective action and forward-looking legislation, to ease the burden of work. But look what's happened to it. It has annexed leisure - what the Greeks called skholé, the root for school - into a form of consumption. We have reduced forms of play, like sports, to mass spectacles that offer reward for the past week's work and rest for the coming one. Everything entails the production of consumption, with ourselves as the final product, consumed by our desires under the sign of the consumer. Not only is it obvious now that we can't go on this way, it has been obvious all along.

Mark 1: What? Give me an example.

Mark 2: Well, notice the etymological traces contained in the English words "negotiate" and "otiose." Otiose means redundant or useless. Negotiate means to transact affairs, to conduct business. But the shared Latin root tells the story. Neg-otium, the negation of that which lies beyond use, is the origin of business. Business is an obliteration, a nulling, not a positive value in its own right. And what is negated? The very thing, idling, which we now condemn as useless. We have got it exactly backward.

Mark 1: Suppose everyone was idle, though. How would society function?

Mark 2: Think of it this way. Any market economy is a failed attempt to distribute goods and services exactly where they are needed or desired, as and when they are needed and desired. That's all markets are, despite the pathological excrescences that nowadays attach to them: derivatives funds, advertising, shopping as leisure. If we had a perfect market, idling would be the norm, not the exception, because distribution would be frictionless. Most work is the result of inefficiency, not genuine need. In other words, idling is consistent with capitalism's own internal logic, which of course implies, even if it never realizes, the end of capitalism.

Mark 1: Huh. But surely idle hands are the devil's work. You don't have to be a hard-line Calvinist to appreciate that people need things to occupy them, limits and purposes. Otherwise they fall into ennui or worse.

Mark 2: True, all art is about the tension between constraint and possibility, between discipline and freedom. But work is too often deadening rather than purposeful; that's why it cycles with boredom. We should get over this perverse need to locate people in work terms, to fix them under occupations, the way English proper names make identities: Smith, Cooper, Fletcher. When you meet someone at a party, don't ask "What do you do?" Instead ask, "What are you thinking about?"

Mark 1: You keep using words like "should" and "backward" and "can't." Aren't you ensnared in a performative contradiction, enjoining this normative change of attitude, while talking about idling?

Mark 2: In philosophy, we prefer to call these "tensions" or "aporias" rather than "contradictions." Still, you've put your finger on a real problem. It has two distinct aspects.

Mark 1: That is exactly what I'm talking about! Distinction, the lever of philosophy. A lever is a machine, a tool for work! You're working right now!

Mark 2: Take it easy. You need to relax. This is supposed to be fun.

Mark 1: Fun? Ha.

Mark 2: As I was saying, two aspects. The first is what we can call The Idler's Conundrum. That's when idling, pursued too normatively, becomes a form of work. Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels, was described in one biography as "having a talent for organized leisure." It was meant as a compliment, but it makes my blood curdle. The sort of person who herds you from one "pleasant" activity to another, chivvying you along.

Mark 1: Yeah, I get it. The second?

Mark 2: The second follows from the first. Let's call it Positional Goods Creep. That's when your idling becomes a form of conspicuous consumption, the sort of thing Veblen analyzes so brilliantly in The Theory of the Leisure Class. Here leisure is not only a form of work, but, disguised - even to oneself - as not-work, it becomes a form of publicly exhibited wealth. And we're right back into the false value system.

Mark 1: Okay, I get that, too. But still - "false value system"? Seems as though a basic contradiction is still there. This idling business looks like a program, an ethical system.

Mark 2: It's a program in a sense - a recovery program. I once composed an 11-Step Recovery Program for Idlers, because I was too lazy for 12. That was an intentional paradox, because you can't really program idling. But maybe these steps will make you start thinking about what matters most in life.

Mark 1: Meaning?

Mark 2: Meaning you must change your life. But no pressure. Take your time.

Rich Fare for Lean Times

A short review of The Idler's Glossary from The Boston Globe.

"The Idler's Glossary," by Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell, illustrated by Seth (Biblioasis, paperback, $12.95), could not be more timely. Both writers take pains to distinguish idling from laziness, sloth, or acedia - to use three words for not quite the same thing. According to Kingwell in the book's introduction, "Lingering is what the idler excels at." That point nailed down, Glenn takes over, defining and exploring 300 words, from "absentminded" to "working-class hero," each shedding light on the condition and varieties of idleness and, in general, helping to free it from the odium of being defined against work. I like this, in particular - "Intellectual: A man whose wife has a job" - but shall leave you with these words of reassurance on "Unemployment": "To be unemployed doesn't simply mean 'not engaged in gainful occupation'; etymologically, it means 'not being used.' Keep that in mind!"

Time Out Chicago on The Idler's Glossary

It’s no accident that the people most ardently advocating for idleness are philosophers. Søren Kierkegaard was for it. Bertrand Russell was all about it, even going so far as to write a book called In Praise of Idleness. In fact, a philosopher requires idleness—defined here as not acknowledging the worthiness of the standard idea of work. The philosopher needs to be free from the idea of work as a means to making money, to investigate things like, well, idleness.

So now come Kingwell and Glenn— respectively, a University of Toronto philosophy professor and a former editor of the philosophy zine Hermenaut— to offer a contemporary defense of idling. In his opening essay, Kingwell writes, “The idler is not lazy…. [T]he genius of idling is not its avoidance of work but rather its construction of a value system entirely independent of work.” And then Glenn gets to work creating a glossary that defends the space cadet and condemns the workaday routine. In the entry for “Asleep at the Switch,” Glenn writes, “Why demonize those unfortunate souls who lose focus and zone out while on the job? No matter how focused their caffeinated colleagues may be, aren’t they sleepwalking through life?”

Etymology is certainly an amusing way to defend a lifestyle, and Glenn has fun with both everyday and arcane slang. So if the book proves one thing, it’s that idling is good for the wit.

Idleness as a Point of Conscience: Nice Not Work if You Can Get It

from Crooked Timber. by John Holbo.

My friend Josh Glenn has a new book, The Idler’s Glossary [amazon]. An acquaintance of mine, Mark Kingwell, wrote the introductory essay. And Seth did the illustrations. (I love Seth.) The whole svelte, 3.7×6 in. unit would slip snugly into someone’s X-Mas stocking, mayhap.

It’s a glossary: entries on absentmindedness and acedia through to working-class hero. (Shouldn’t there be an entry for ‘zzzzzz’? With no gloss? I think that might have been an elegant way to end the book.)

Right, the philosophy of idleness. First, I will note that Kingwell and Glenn have diametrically opposed theories of boredom. Kingwell quotes a passage from a Kingsley Amis novel: “My wife accuse me of thinking her boring. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that this might be because she’s boring … To her mind, her being boring is a thing I do.” Kingwell takes the husband’s side, but Glenn goes on to take the wife’s: “Go ahead and blame your dull companions, but being bored [a slang term that appeared among London’s smart set in the late 18th century, perhaps derived from the French for ‘triviality’] is your own fault. It’s the state of being too restless to concentrate, while too apathetic to bust a move.” Which, come to think of it, is a pretty stable Kinglsey Amis formula.

So who’s right: Kingwell or Glenn? In philosophical terms, if a tree is boring in the forest, and there is no one there to be bored by how dull Nature is … ? In Humean terms, is boringness a matter of (we shouldn’t say ‘gilding and staining Nature with our sentiments’) dulling and drearing Nature with our sentiments. Or was existence already dull and drear when we lay down on it?

Let us proceed to our second topic, which is of even greater significance: idleness, per se. Kingwell wants to distinguish Idleness, as a positive spiritual condition, from mere laziness and slackerdom. The latter, he correctly notes, are cases of second-order desire failure. You want to want to do something, but nothing happens. Idleness, by contrast, makes a virtue of not-doing. As he says, there is a world of difference between not working and not-working. But it seems to me we need to take another step at this point. To explain: Kingwell quotes Russell, from In Praise of Idleness, about the two kinds of work: moving stuff around on or near the surface of the earth; or ordering/advising other people to do it. But then he faults Russell for ultimately being trapped on the gerbil wheel (if you will) of work ethic talk. ‘Idleness’ just becomes another word for not working. It does not escape into some proper value sphere of its own, not-working. And so Russell ends up confusing idleness with laziness. And yet: is not Kingwell himself making the same mistake. (!!) The trouble with ‘idleness’ is that it, too, still sees from the point of view of work. Idlers – from Socrates asking annoying questions, to Nerval, walking his lobster, to that fellow sleeping on the bench – are all the same from the point of view of work. These people are not working. What is missed is the distinction between doing nothing and doing something that is, from the point of view of work, conspicuously profitless – like philosophy, or walking a lobster. ‘Idleness’, applied to Socrates or Nerval, is a careless, inaccurate term of abuse, a tactical refusal to acknowledge what distinguishes the doer of nothing from the doer of something seemingly pointless. It seems to me that, when we shave off mere laziness, on one side, and various forms of active strangeness, on the other, you reduce the category of true Idleness, positive not-working, to a relatively small, hard core of soft indolence. You have to limit your cases to philosophers of Idleness. I think there should be an entry for ‘Taoism’, some quotes from Chuang Tzu. (On the other hand, there is an entry for ‘Cunctation’, which is a word I like.)

Now, contemporary public policy implications. The LA Times reports:

Reporting from Washington – The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new “right of conscience” rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.

For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortion.

It also seeks to cover more employees. For example, in addition to a surgeon and a nurse in an operating room, the rule would extend to “an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments,” the draft rule said.

An older NY Times article adds another significant element to the picture:

The Ohio Health Department said the rule “could force family planning providers to hire employees who may refuse to do their jobs” — a concern echoed by Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Under the Civil Rights Act, an employer must make reasonable accommodations for an employee’s religious practices, unless the employer can show that doing so would cause “unduehardship on the conduct of its business.”

In a letter commenting on the proposed rule, Mr. Ishimaru and Ms. Griffin, from the employment commission, said that 40 years of court decisions had carefully balanced “employees’ rights to religious freedom and employers’ business needs.”

The proposed rule, they said, “would throw this entire body of law into question.”

I think we see here a chance, in the waning days of the Bush administration, for a massive embiggening of the Republican Big Tent. A coalition of the Unwilling, if you will. Nihilcons – or Taocons, or Dronecons if you prefer. Republicans can pivot from being the party of Emersonian self-reliance to the Bartlebyan party of ‘I would prefer not to’. (Think how much clearer things would be if that had been FEMA’s official, rather than unofficial, motto. ‘Heckuva not-job, Brownie’ and all that.)

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. You may reasonably say: this is all well and good, and obviously I should buy The Idler’s Glossary for anyone in my family who is planning on going to medical school, or working at or near a hospital or pharmacy. But what about the rest of us? What about Main Street, to say nothing of Wall Street? Can the denizens of these alternative avenues cultivate Idleness as an obscure point of positive philosophical conscience, to the point where – by the terms of this new HHS rule – one could simply refuse to work, without being fired?

At this point I suggest coming up with some hoo-ha about how the whole economy is all intertwined – making sandwiches for doctors, teaching the children of doctors, to say nothing of the Interstate Commerce Clause, etc. etc. If a butterfly idly refuses to flap its wings, and this causes a storm half a world away, or causes the aftermath of a storm to not be cleaned up, then … stuff from Chuang Tzu:

‘Caves and dells of hill and forest, hollows in huge trees of many a span in girth; ‹ these are like nostrils, like mouths, like ears, like beam-sockets, like goblets, like mortars, like ditches, like bogs. And the wind goes rushing through them, sniffing, snoring, singing, soughing, puffing, purling, whistling, whirring, now shrilly treble, now deeply bass, now soft, now loud; until, with a lull, silence reigns supreme. Have you never witnessed among the trees such a disturbance as this?’

‘Well, then’, enquired Tzu Yu, ‘since the music of earth consists of nothing more than holes, and the music of man of pipes and flutes, ‹ of what consists the music of Heaven?’

‘The effect of the wind upon these various apertures’, replied Tzu Ch’i, ‘is not uniform. But what is it that gives to each the individuality, to all the potentiality, of sound?

‘Great knowledge embraces the whole: small knowledge, a part only. Great speech is universal: small speech is particular.

‘For whether the mind is locked in sleep or whether in waking hours the body is released, we are subject to daily mental perturbations, ‹ indecision, want of penetration, concealment, fretting fear, and trembling terror. Now like a javelin the mind flies forth, the arbiter of right and wrong. Now like a solemn covenanter it remains firm, the guardian of rights secured. Then, as under autumn and winter’s blight, comes gradual decay, a passing away, like the flow of water, never to return. Finally, the block when all is choked up like an old drain ‹ the failing mind which shall not see light again.

‘Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, caution and remorse, come upon us by turns, with everchanging mood. They come like music from hollowness, like mushrooms from damp. Daily and nightly they alternate within us, but we cannot tell whence they spring. Can we then hope in a moment to our lay our finger upon their very Cause?

And if not, can we be unjustified in our Idleness? CAN WE!?

Then make sure to nod off again, abruptly, while your earnestly work-favoring interlocutor clutches vainly for any objection.

And so it turns out Kingwell speaks nothing but the sober truth when he write, in his introduction: “Henceforth all further glossaries are superfluous because everything you need to know about how to conduct a life lies within these covers.” Just show your employer the book and claim a ‘right of conscience’ to pure Idleness.

The Ideal Idler: from Concordia's Link

IN AN IDEAL WORLD WE'D ALL BE IDLE
by Christopher Olson

One of the perks of being your own boss is not having to deal with deadlines. On that note, I confess to handing this review in late, but doing anything else would be going against the spirit of everything that is The Idler’s Glossary.

Born from a cocktail column in a men's magazine, The Idler’s Glossary is a collection of slang speech and words meaning lazy, inactive, non-committal, and generally slow to action.

Usually a glossary comes with a text, but “this is a glossary without a text,” says Mark Kingwell, a columnist for the National Post who teaches philosophy at the University of Toronto. “In a sense, the text is life itself.”

When Kingwell was asked to write the book's introduction by long-time colleague Joshua Glenn, “these thoughts that had been in mind for so many years just crystallized,” says Kingwell. “It wrote itself. There was no work in making it. [Doing so] would have been contrary to the spirit of the book.”

Kingwell makes a strong distinction between idleness and procrastination, which he describes as feeling compelled to do something, but not desiring to do it. For an idler, however, “doing nothing is what he’s not doing.” In essence, idleness is being free from the expectations set upon us to do something with our lives.

“We’re not defending idleness as a route to productivity,” says Kingwell, although some statistics have shown that added leisure time can have positive effects on our output, just as a lack of leisure time can have its adverse effects. The word “death,” notes Kingwell, is implied in words like “deadline.”

“An idler’s utopia would be a place where you only did things that were beautiful and that really mattered,” claims Kingwell. Like all utopias, true idleness is an illusion brought on by the desire to escape the grit of the daily grind. In reality, affirms Kingwell, “Idleness can only exist as an aberration, as an opposition to some other form of activity.”

As a professor of philosophy, Kingwell is paid to ponder the ineffability's of life, and claims to live the ideal of comfort espoused by The Idler’s Glossary. But if he had it his way, grading his student's papers would be a simple matter of pass or fail. Grades are another example, says Kingwell, of the “relentless quantifications of people's lives.”

Like an erudite Tyler Durden, Kingwell believes the “way we live nowadays is sick,” and that the true path to happiness is finding ways to let go of the things that demand so much of our time.

As a connoisseur of popular culture, Kingwell points to an episode of “The Simpsons” as an indication of what's wrong with forcing idleness onto a world that demands responsibilities from each of us as a whole.

“It’s the episode where Springfield announces a “Do What You Feel Day” which of course, replaces “Do What We Say Day.” On the one hand, it seems like an obvious message, but what happens is everything collapses.”

However, “there's a danger that creeps up when you turn idleness into work,” warns Kingwell. “We spend so much time keeping thought at bay, that even the weekend becomes another kind of work.”

With students buried in exams and research papers stacking up, the upcoming holidays will be a welcome reprieve, what with all the endless shopping and accruing of financial debt, followed by the emotional exhaustion that’s synonymous with the season. The transformation of the holidays into the busiest time of the year is a telling sign that idleness is missing from our lives. The Idler’s Glossary was published in pocket-sized form for “small moments of openness,” says Kingwell, but would also make a welcome stocking stuffer.

Like most procrastinators, Kingwell’s work is never done, as he hints at the ongoing evolution of The Idler’s Glossary: “People have sent us recommendations for new words, which means a new edition could be done relatively fast.”

Idling: The Windsor View

The Lance, a paper I penned some of my first reviews for a decade or so ago, has featured the Idler's Glossary in its current edition. See below.

Glenn, Boston-based journalist and scholar, examines the etymology and history of hundreds of terms and phrases used to describe idlers and the act of idling in his new work, The Idler’s Glossary. In doing this, Glenn looks to clarify the misconceptions about idling and introduce a new way of thinking about working and not working.

Glenn examines why work time—slaving away in a cubicle, factory, or elsewhere—is more valued than free time in today’s society.

Alongside Glenn is Mark Kingwell who contributes an introductory essay to the glossary.

Kingwell is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and also well known for his appearance in The Corporation. His involvement in the project stemmed from a longstanding online friendship with Glenn, who had edited a magazine called Hermenaut out of Boston, MI. Kingwell became interested in the magazine and donated money when it was strapped for cash. The two became long distance friends that only met offline for the first time earlier this year.

An early version of The Idler’s Glossary, which appeared in The Idler Magazine in the U.K., caught Kingwell’s eye.

“I thought it would be a great standalone book. Around the same time I had been talking to Dan Wells at Biblioasis who was looking to start a pamphlet series, and I thought this is the perfect kick-off project for that series,” said Kingwell.

Seth, the pen name of Gregory Gallant, a Canadian comic book artist and writer, has a keen sense of design that contributed greatly to the look and feel of The Idler’s Glossary. The raised print on the cover accented in gold along with the old-timey feel of the graphics gives the reference guide a unique look.

“As soon as we had the package together we knew that if Seth could make time to be a part of it, it could really bring it to another level,” said Kingwell.

As for what Idler terms he can best be described with, Kingwell opts for flâneur. “I like to spend a lot of time walking and specifically walking in cities and the flâneur is an indication of that sort of idling where you’re not going anywhere particular you’re just kind of drifting through the streets and experiencing the variety of stimulants a city has to offer,” explained Kingwell.

Recently, Kingwell released a collection of essays called Opening Gambits, which he says is kind of related to The Idler’s Glossary because “it looks at art and philosophy as forms of play. A lot of what we talk about in Idler is really a kind of play.”

Furthering the concept of The Idler’s Glossary, Kingwell and Glenn are currently in talks of possibly working on a sequel.

“We’ve found so many words even since this book came out that are interesting and relevant,” said Kingwell.

The focus of the glossary this time around would be more on the words that characterize the working world.

“Some of them are already in this glossary, but there are a lot of terms on the edges of the working world that we didn’t really think about, and that could make another book,” Kingwell explained.

The big misconception about idling is that the term is interchangeable with slacking. Not so, according to Kingwell.

“Slacking is avoiding work and it’s closely related to procrastinating. True idling is to set yourself free from all those worries about what you should be doing instead and live in the moment of not doing anything in particular,” he said.

The definitions are funny, but only because they’re true. One of the definitions that sum up the idlers versus slackers debate pretty well is Asleep at the Switch: “Why demonize those unfortunate souls who lose focus and zone out while on the job? No matter how focused their caffeinated colleagues may be, aren’t they sleepwalking through life?”

A Very Bad Cell Phone picture of the Brooklyn Launch for the Idler's Glossary

Cabinet Magazine hosted the Brooklyn launch of The Idler's Glossary this past Saturday, an event that was, by all accounts, fantastic. No real cameras, alas, so this is the best image we can provide you.

There's another Boston event with Josh Glenn this week, and on December 2nd he'll take part in the Bookslut reading series in Chicago. In late January we are hoping to bring Mark, Josh and Seth together for the long-awaited Windsor launch. Stay tuned for more details.

More Idle Coverage

Idler's Glossary coverage is coming fast and furious. There's a good interview with Mark Kingwell on CBC's The Point, (check out the Part Two section, first 7 or so minutes) which can be found here.

The Walrus blog has posted on the Idler's Glossary, with a list of Kingwell's favourite terms. Jared Bland writes, "To celebrate the publication of Josh Glenn and Mark Kingwell’s excellent small book, The Idler’s Glossary, I asked Mark to offer glosses on a few of his favourite entries. His response is below. I urge everyone to buy this book; there’ll be nothing more curious and delightful published this fall. (Nor many as beautiful—Seth’s design work is lovely.)" the rest of the post can be found here.

The LA Times Book Jacket also weighs in here.

Dwell Magazine weighs in here, saying, in part: "While it's perhaps difficult to sit down and read the book from cover to cover, The Idler's Glossary is a fun–and beautifully produced– book to set aside some time to flip through, as these gray autumn days turn cold and we're all faced with slumberous (Slumberous: "To be slumberous [from the Middle English word for 'doze'] is to be tired in the sense of lethargic, torpid.") winter."

The Atlantic Monthly has confirmed that they will be reviewing it as well. And more is sure to follow, so stay tuned.

The Idler's Glossary in the Guardian

We had a short review of the Idler's Glossary in the UK's Guardian yesterday. Our first UK review! If anyone out there gets the Guardian could you send it in? It's on page 8 of the Features and Review section!

You can read the review here.

Idler's Glossary: the Boston (Harvard, no less) Launch

Brainiac, the Boston Globe blog, highlights the Glossary in anticipation of tomorrow's Boston launch.

A conundrum: How to encourage people interested in the concept of idling to rouse themselves to come to an event … honoring idling?

Joshua Glenn, my predecessor as Brainiac's author, has certainly not been slacking since his departure from the blogosphere a few months ago -- although he has been assiduously idling. The distinction between the two lies at the heart of his new book, co-written with the philosopher Mark Kingwell: "The Idler's Glossary." Tomorrow night (Thursday, October 23), the Harvard Advocate is hosting a release party for the book, from 5 to 8 p.m. Its offices are at 21 South Street, in Harvard Square. Bestir yourselves, fellow lubbers, shirkers and scrimshankers! (9-to-5'ers will not be turned away from the door, either, even content ones.)

This book, it must be said, is no joke. Kingwell's introduction begins with a Kierkegaard quote, and carves up concepts with true philosophical rigor. "A slacker is not a true idler," Kingwell writes, "because he is engaged in the project of avoiding work, and as long as that remains the case, work's dominion remains unchallenged …"

The "genius of idling," he continues, "is not its avoidance of work but rather its construction of a value system entirely independent of work."

The glossary, a sequel of sorts to Bertrand Russell's small book of 1932 titled "In Praise of Idleness," explains exactly what it means to cabbage, and parses the distinctions among cadgers, clock-watchers, and couch potatoes -- just to touch on the C's.

The rest of the post can be found here.

Glossaries: An Idle Pleasure

Over at the Washington Post Book Blog SHORT STACK, book editor Rachel Shea writes about the Idler's Glossary.

Glossaries: An Idle Pleasure

Surely, one must be nearly paralyzed with boredom to idly flip through the pages of a glossary. And yet, there's something strangely compelling about a compendium of definitions, especially those clustered around a specific subject. Last year, I reviewed the delightfully informative 'Isms and Ologies: All the Movements, Ideologies, and Doctrines That Have Shaped Our World, by Arthur Goldwag. Now, across my desk comes the diminutive The Idler's Glossary, by Joshua Glenn* and Mark Kingwell (with nifty illustrations from the cartoon hero Seth). This little book explains -- nay, argues -- for the moral superiority (over work, slacking and even leisure time) of idleness.

Kingwell, in an introduction that quickly shifts in tone from erudite to evangelical, parses the meaning of idleness: First of all, idleness is not not working. That implies that work is the positive, and idleness is only its opposite.

Glenn, who provides the actual glossary of all things idle-related (for instance, "good-for-nothing," "loiter," "moocher"), defines the term thusly:

"Idleness [from the Old English word for "worthless, useless"] may look to the untrained eye like laziness, slacking, killing time. Unlike slacking, though, idling is not the opposite of working hard, but is instead a rare, hard-won mode in which your art is your work and your work is your art. See: FREE TIME, LEISURE, USELESSNESS"

Following Glenn's instructions, let's turn to the entry for "free time":

"Free time, in the sense of 'freedom to,' is electrifying and beautiful. But free time, in the sense of "freedom from," is merely restful and relaxing. Freedom-to time is what all idlers seek; it is a true state of leisure, in which actions are performed entirely for their own sake. Freedom-from time, on the other hand, is merely a vacation or a recess; i.e., it's a scheduled (and mandated) period during which we androidized humans can recharge our batteries."

Doesn't the idea of "freedom to" time fill you with longing?

Boing Boing highlights The Idler's Glossary

boing boing, one of the most widely read blogs in the world (last I heard, top 5, with millions of daily hits, and lord knows how many daily subscribers), has highlighted our Idler's Glossary in today's posting. If you're Canadian, you should be able to find this book almost everywhere; in the US, at the best independents and online at borders, b&n, amazon and elsewhere.

You can find the boing boing entry here.

And from the glossary, a term highlighted by boing boing:

cadger: Cadging, the ancient art of imposing upon the generosity of others, is an essential skill for the would-be idler, since poverty is the easiest way to obtain a great deal of free time. According to Henry Miller, who calls it "mooching," when performed without squeamishness or reservations, cadging is both exhilarating and instructive. So long as a cadger [from the Scandinavian word for "huckster"] is generous in turn (though not necessarily in kind), he ought not to be considered a deadbeat, freeloader, or sponger. See: BEGGAR, SCROUNGER.

New York Times's Papercuts & The Idler's Glossary

Over at the New York Times blog Papercuts Jenny Schuessler recommends "the deadbeat dictionary," our very own Idler's Glossary. This book should be on the shelf just about everywhere in Canada this week, and at the better independents in the US (B&N and Borders, at this moment, have thus far proved a bit intransigent. In a country threatened with mass unemployment, you'd figure they'd see the possibility in a book which would help readers make a virtue out of necessity.) It's also available many places online, including McNally Robinson, Indigo, and that bookselling site named after a vastly depleted tropical rainforest. For a few who might want to buy direct, I have copies signed by all three contributors -- Seth, Mark Kingwell & Joshua Glenn.

I have launch photos, which I'll try and get up by day's end.

---

October 14, 2008, 10:11 am

The Deadbeat’s Dictionary

By Jennifer Schuessler

Just in time for the return of mass unemployment (kidding! right?), the Canadian publisher Biblioasis has released “The Idler’s Glossary,” Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell’s vocabulary-expanding manual for the bootless, malingering and lotus-eating types among us.

(Sorry, I meant “among you.” Everyone here works very hard. Especially on Tuesday morning.)

Kingwell, a professor of philosophy and a contributing editor at Harper’s, kicks things off with a passionate defense of slackery that cites everyone from Kierkegaard and Kingsley Amis to Bataille, Bartleby and Bingo Little. (Look it up.)

Glenn — a rather industrious sort who according to his bio has worked as a skateboard messenger, house painter, espresso jerk, barrel washer (huh?), blogger, Boston Globe columnist and founder of the philosophy ‘zine Hermenaut, among other things — provides the A to Z part. There are also great illustrations by Gregory Gallant, the comic artist otherwise known as Seth.

This one gives the salty flavor:

BOONDOGGLE. Given the pointlessness of today’s Boy Scouts, it’s appropriate that this term, coined by an American scoutmaster to describe the braided leather lanyard made and worn by Scouts, has come to mean any time-killing or useless activity — particularly when performed by a sluggard on the public payroll. NB: The sociologist Robert K. Merton once claimed that the intellectuals whose work lacks immediate practical application may suffer from the “boondoggling neurosis.” See: DODGER, WHILE AWAY THE HOURS.

And aspirants to chillaxery and Skimpole-hoold may be interested in this:

LUBBERLAND. From a 1685 broadside ballad titled “An Invitation to Lubberland,” we learn of an imaginary country where “There is all sorts of Fowl and Fish,/ With Wine and store of Brandy;/ Ye hae there what your hearts can wish:/ The Hills are Sugar-Candy.” See: BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN, COCKAIGNE.

Idler Glossary Launch Tomorrow Eve & The Idler's 11-Step Recovery Program

We'll be launching tomorrow eve at the Gladstone the Josh Glenn, Mark Kingwell and Seth Idler's Glossary, with the first AGM of the Royal Society of the Indolent. Doors open at 7 pm. In anticipation, here's our Idler's 11-Step recovery Program (Because We Were Too Lazy For 12):

Here are the Eleven Steps, which are closely modelled on AA’s more serious twelve:

1. We admitted we were powerless to make work less boring or harmful—that our lives as salarymen had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that idleness was greater than our efforts and could restore us to sanity.

3. Had an idle thought to turn our lack of will, and so our lives, over to the care of idleness as we understood it.

4. Made a searching but relaxed inventory of our working selves, a. k. a. our Inner Drudge.

5. Admitted to the way of idleness, to ourselves, and to any other human being within easy earshot the exact nature of our wrong ideas about the need to work.

6. Were entirely ready to have idleness remove all these defects of character, as long as it didn’t involve any effort on our part.

7. Humbly asked the way of idleness to remove our shortcomings since we couldn’t really be bothered.

8. Considered a list of all persons we had worked for, and became willing to tell them all to get stuffed.

9. Contemplated direct address to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would inconvenience us.

10. Continued to take casual personal inventory, and when we were slack rather than idle promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through laziness and indolence to improve our conscious contact with the way of idleness as we understood it, praying only for knowledge of its non-will for us and the power not to carry that out.

Another early review: Toro does the Idler

A second early review of the Idler's Glossary, this one in Toro:

A book to cosy up to this fall, and to locate strategically for choice toilet reading, is Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell's compact but chock full The Idler's Glossary. Think of it as a dictionary for the manifold varieties of sloth we humans have invented, enjoy, and in many instances deride. It includes a somewhat whimsical essay by philosopher Mark Kingwell – “Idling Toward Heaven: The Last Defence You Will Ever Need” – and Glenn's glossary proper, a witty though incomplete compendium of idler-specific words and phrases, everything from “couch potato” and “lotus-eater” to more obscure terms like “sinecurist”:

“For as long as bureaucracies have existed, there have been people eager to obtain offices and positions that require little or no work. However, although a sinecure is preferable (for obvious reasons) to a job that’s demanding, a sinecurist is a bird in a gilded cage: She may become too complacent to fly, even if the cage door is left open.” (p. 102).

I call this dictionary “incomplete” because Glenn has left out one of the more colourful and perhaps even popular terms for sloth: Dog-fucking. If you’ve ever worked a unionized job, you’ve likely met a few dog-fuckers, or have even fucked the dog yourself. Nevertheless despite the glaring (to me) omission, I found The Idler’s Glossary funny, informative, and not out of place on any bookshelf, or in any bathroom.

The Idler's Glossary: The Cover

A first look at the final Idler's Glossary cover. The glossary should go off to the printer tomorrow. The book was designed by Seth, who did a fabulous job: cover, endpapers, 3 title pages, 30 word definition illustrations. It's a gorgeous production, or will be, with embossing, metallic ink, on a nice uncoated stock. I'm thinking, if I can squeeze in the time, of doing a hand bound edition of 20 copies using a version of the endpapers as the covering paper. More on this later. Let me know if you might be interested in a copy of this edition.

While I'm on all things idle, I've finally got the Royal Order of the Indolent blog going more regularly -- all this blog work is getting in the way of my ability to idle. This week, I've gathered Robert Louis Stevenson's wonderful essay, Apology for Idlers, where he argues "Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself." As well, you'll find "An Invitation to Lubberland," from a 1685 Broadside, the early version of the hobo's heaven popularized by Harry McClintock in "Big Rock Candy Mountains." In Lubberland you'll find that:

The rivers run with claret fine,
The brooks with rich canary,
The ponds with other sorts of wine,
To make your hearts full merry:
Nay, more than this, you may behold,
The fountains flow with brandy,
The rocks are like refined gold,
The hills are sugar candy.

"Rose-water is the rain they have,
Which comes in pleasant showers,
All places are adorned brave,
With sweet and fragrant flowers.
Hot custards grows on ev'ry tree,
Each ditch affords rich jellies;
Now if you will be ruled by me,
Go there and fill your bellies.

"There's nothing there but holy-days
With music out of measure;
Who can forbear to speak the praise
Of such a land of pleasure?
There may you lead a lazy life
Free from all kind of labours:
And he that is without a wife,
May borrow of his neighbour.

Go check both out:

/theroyalorderoftheindolent.blogspot.com/

The Romance of Thrift

A first lesson in idling over at The Royal Order of the Indolent, with a surprise visit from G. K. Chesterton.

It can be found here:

theroyalorderoftheindolent.blogspot.com/2008/07/romance-of-thrift.html

The Royal Order of the Indolent

In honour and anticipation of Joshua Glenn's and Mark Kingwell's Idler's Glossary -- the Devil's dictionary for the Idling classes -- I've begun a new blog of all things idle which can be found here:

/theroyalorderoftheindolent.blogspot.com/

There will be a good deal of regular action on this blog, so check in at least (ir)regularly. And make sure to do it on your boss's dime. The first post offers a link to a Washington Post article on Karoshi, proof that work will kill you.

There's also a Royal Order of the Indolent Facebook page for those who loaf there regularly.

The Idler's Glossary

One of our big books this fall looks like it will be Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell's Idler's Glossary. Think of it as a Devil's dictionary for the idling classes, a volume that is destined to open wounds with Calvinists, Timekeepers, clock-watchers, workaholics, uptightniks and punctiliocrats everywhere. It includes an essay by Mark Kingwell -- Idling Toward Heaven: The Last Defence you will Ever Need -- and Glenn's glossary proper, which gathers and closely examines (and in some cases coins) hundreds of idler-specific terms and phrases. Illustrated by Seth, if you can't tell from this first cover mock up. I love the Bertie Wooster-ish feel of it. Wodehouse would have approved, I think.

Josh has just put his glossary in Wordle, a web-based tool that gives you acloud of key words and phrases: that can be found here:

wordle.net/gallery/03059/idler_glossary

This will be the perfect volume for all you idlers, loafers, layabouts, shit-heels, losers, dawdlers, amblers, indolents, flaneurs, epicureans, dodgers, spongers and cadgers: the bulk, I expect, of Thirsty readers.