(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Last week I visited my girlfriend Lisbeth in Kongsvinger. She will soon retire. When asked what she should do do now that she is retiring, she resolutely replies, "Absolutely nothing!" Lisbeth's response triggers reactions from the social circle. You have to do something, the friends respond. "No," Lisbeth replies. "I must not do anything." Of course, Lisbeth is absolutely right. There is very little she really needs to do. She has to buy food, eat and do a little for hygiene. This is how it is with most of us, there is little we really need to do. We have to work for an income, do housework and look after children. That's it. Still, we sleep an average of one hour less each night now, compared to a couple of decades ago. And in our waking state, the ideal has been to do something all the time. We live in a society with galloping consumption, the pursuit of status and material self-realization, in recent years democratized through economic growth. Our chores have become symbols we wave at as if they were jewelry. in social media, broadcast media and media in print, the pricing of chores screams at us on a daily basis. Careers and status climbing in established structures provide social security. A well-stocked leisure time that can be photographed and hashtagged is what defines our social value as human beings. Weekly magazines, tabloid newspapers and blogs tell us about everything that must be done to achieve happiness. The headlines howl: Sex life must be done. The slimming must be done. Wrinkle removal must be done. Strength training must be done. The career climb must be done. The renovation needs to be done. Full-time careers. Even children must constantly do. For the past couple of decades, children have been given a new weekday with long days where they do something all the time, with school, SFO and a compulsory set of leisure activities in the evenings. All-day school's total continuous doing is just around the corner. The Labor Party's old utopia, just twenty-five years ago, was a six-hour day for all toddler parents, compensated with full pay. The goal was for parents to have time to relax with the child. This vision has been replaced by a capital-rich, state-backed ideal of a full-time career for all. The kids included. But it doesn't end with the job. In the free time, it is, of course, as the public makes it, of course to do things. You train, refurbish, bake, update your blog or buy new items. Community builders in the business world are ahead, they spend their little free time doing impressive things, with good media coverage. They do the Birkebeineren, they make their bodies well-trained, they do their sailing trips and their exclusive courses in food or art. This fetish among our most resourceful has led to trends in tourism where vacations have become commonplace to do with chores. Relaxation at the campsite or the south beach has long been considered a bad trash. Now, if you believe travel blogs, it has become more common that even the previously highly regarded cultural journeys are replaced with vacations where you makes something. People climb mountains, go on pilgrimages, do extreme sports, or do practical work during their vacation weeks. Human dignity. All our doing is manifested in the bodies. The body, including the brain and central nervous system, is the ultimate limit to how much each of us can do. People's normal bodies today therefore also divide dichotomously: We have the trained and the thick. Those who have steel control, and those who have visibly lost control. The bodies of our time are so historically unique that they can no longer be used when casting for films portraying 1980s Norway or earlier. In recent years, several filmmakers have gone out and called for natural looking bodies, which hardly exist anymore. The contemporary body shapes of our time are one of the visible consequences of a culture based on chronic tasks. Today's folk diseases are others, our sick people from burnout, ME, anxiety, depression and somatoform disorders. A contemporary culture built around making people push them physically or mentally can't do more. The opposite of a successful life is security, overweight and inactivity. The opposite of the glitter in the media are outdated material goods and tangible objects. Thomas Seltzer's TV program The Social Security Office at NRK wants to go forward and discuss stigmas and taboos in the Norwegian public. The entire visual profile of the program is based on social security. Being safe is the last taboo. Social security gives the impression that you are not doing anything. In your doing, grading is where you stand on the ladder, how to treat you, talk to you, talk about you, or – at worst – not talk to you. In your doing, your human dignity is seen. If you want your enemy the worst, wish him full disability benefit and he will die earlier, live a life of poor self-esteem and a constant stigma. One who does not has no value. An essentialist justified human dignity lies in what humans can do, which animals cannot. We can use tools. We have thumbs, language and awareness of death. That's why we do. A constructivist rationale for human dignity is often justified by the individual's ability to redefine himself through the actions we do. Not acting thus levels one's human dignity. Support for this is also found in the Bible. "In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread." "Whoever does not want to work should not eat either." In politics, this way of thinking has left its mark on the whole spectrum, from that of liberalism every one is the blacksmith of his happiness to Nazism Arbeit Macht Frei. The conservative bourgeois culture is founded on the personal growth and initiative of individuals. The work honors the man. Creating, executing, climbing, performing, leaving behind something is the very essence of civil culture. At Our Savior's Gravlund in Oslo, beingrinder lies under tomb supports with military titles, and your director, Professor Dad. The belief in the value of the individual's doing is carved in stone. Climate Imprints. Socialism and the working class culture have an equally strong emphasis on getting things done. Through hard work the community was to be built. Lenin's perhaps best-known book, then What needs to be done?. The further to the extremes of the political landscape one moves, the greater the fetish for getting things done. There are crash lands on both sides in strong men, ethnic cleansing, revolutions and male marches. I don't think I'm exaggerating if I say the following: People with an aversion to getting things done have never initiated wars or genocides.
You set the climate footprint when you buy a car, drive a car, use electricity, fly, train, eat food, throw food, cook, cool food, buy a new fridge or redecorate the kitchen.
And at this end, we come to the main problem of any culture that requires things to be done: a requirement to get things done is raised above ethical considerations. You do not distinguish between doing – and doing good. Doing something is not always the best. Our rush to do things not only goes beyond our health. It goes out over the globe. The mechanisms behind man-made climate change can be simplified down to one sentence: All human action creates CO2. You set the climate footprint when you buy a car, drive a car, use electricity, fly, train, eat food, throw food, cook, cool food, buy a new fridge or redecorate the kitchen. Even before you reach the store, the new kitchen decor is made and the footprint set. This is the case with all furniture, bathrooms, floors and lamps. All the clothes in your wardrobe. All of constantly new electronics. Every time you do something that involves shopping and throwing, it costs the globe dearly. Still, this is something we are encouraged to do on a daily basis through advertising in all public spaces – a perversity that is normalized by repeating the message. Many of our contemporary problems are the direct result of the fact that, in the world's richest countries, we must do something about death and life all the time. We makes us to death. There is no visible logic behind which tasks have status. We do not necessarily build neither the culture nor the country. There is no ethics or aesthetic quality that characterizes what is right do always. We just have to do, enough. The only systematic rule is that the doings of the rulers become the doings of the rulers. If the elite say jump, then we jump others. If so down the cliff. The most subversive thing you can do now is sit down and do nothing! If you have to do something on dead life, do something with no other goal than to feel good. Go for a walk, talk to a friend, listen to music, water flowers. You have a brain full of memories that can be recalled. You have a fantasy that can tell you things beyond your daily life, fantasies that you do not have to do anything about. Your life is 100 percent complete in itself, even when you do absolutely nothing.
Hatterud is a regular columnist in Ny tid, and a cultural writer. megaeldar@hotmail.com
