#PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC

[the-bar-sinister]

Self-reminders today:

Resting is an important part of creating and doing.

There is more to resting than just sleeping.

Resting means letting yourself be idle of body and idle of mind.

Resting replenishes mental and physical strengths.

There is nothing virtuous about resisting rest.

There is nothing virtuous about working without rest.

Idleness and rest are not wrong or lazy.

Allowing yourself to rest enhances your creativity and allows you to do better work.

There is nothing about resting that should make you feel guilty.

You need rest.

[thehmn]

I’m not knowledgeable enough about the differences between American Protestantism and Nordic Protestantism to say anything deep or groundbreaking about it but hearing the way Americans talk about Protestantism makes it sound like an entirely different religion.

To be clear I’m not religious. The only thing that passed for a religious upbringing was my Religions class in high school. Like most Danes I don’t have any strong feelings about Christianity. It’s just there, Christmas is nice and we get days off from work around Easter.

But just the sentence “Protestant work ethic” as a way to explain why Americans are so overworked sounds kinda humorous to a simple Dane like me. Protestantism is the state religion in Denmark (Evangelical Lutheran to be precise) and we have the highest number of Protestants per capita in the world and yet Americans who move over here often comment on how lazy we are. We leave work early, we have an ungodly number of paid days off (most of them religious), all parents get paid maternity leave and we will break our bosses’ arms if they try to make us work paid overtime too many days in a row. I’m not saying that to brag, it’s just to illustrate what the “Protestant work ethic” looks like in the most Protestant country in the world.

This is super interesting and I need to dig deeper into why Protestantism turned out so differently in our countries.

[victusinveritas]

[charliejaneanders]

My latest newsletter is about the attempts to evict Bluestockings, and the new laws that require maximum cruelty towards unhoused people. And I talk about why we want to judge unhoused people for their behavior, and how it's part of our American disease.

[arctic-hands]

"Why does America force cashiers to stand all day?"

Protestant Work Ethic

"Why do Americans get so little time off?"

Protestant Work Ethic

"Why don't Americans get parental leave?"

Protestant Work Ethic

"Why don't Americans call in and stay home when they're sick?"

Protestant Work Ethic. Also Americans can't afford to go to the doctor's office to even get a work excuse, let alone actually be seen

"Why does America have such a shit healthcare system??"

Look those pilgrims we love to uphold as our "founders" were mostly Calvinists or other Protestant extremists, all of whom believed that if you weren't working yourself to death you were committing the hedonistic sin of sloth. If you weren't suffering then you sinning and if you were suffering it's because you were sinning (sorry little Chastity, you six year old Puritin, you died of the pox because you or your parents sinned) so now even centuries later, if you've got time to lean then you've got time to clean!

(Funny how the PWE never extends to the billionaires and politicians tho.)

[animentality]

I would love to be a lazy useless member of society who leeches off the hard work of others, but I have been unfortunately instilled with the good protestant work ethic, courtesy of my mother, and so I suffer from a chronic anxiety whenever I take a day or two off.

[g-o-d-l-e-s-s-h-e-a-t-h-e-n]

I've been struggling with this productivity culture recently, dear god its such a christian thing, specifically a protestant thing, I don't know if the catholics or the orthodox have the same thing.

See here's the thing, I'm autistic, nobody fucking noticed that when I was a kid, but anyway, so what happens when you take a very litteral minded child, who, like any child, wants to make their parents happy and proud of them, and put them in a culture that continually tells them that to be a good person is to put themself last, to always be of use to others, repeatedly compares them and all the people around them to slaves, and tells them that if they're a good little christian in this life, if they sacrifices themself for the good of others, they'll get to really get to enjoy the next life, which matters more than this one anyway? That's right, you get an adult with little to no sense of self preservation, especially when it comes to working, and doing things for other people, you'll get someone who ties their entire self worht to whether or not they're useful.

Excellent for capitalism, this makes really good little workers, very bad for individual people, this quickly leads to burnout.

Anyway, I've been having a much harder time with my self worth lately, not because I've been working on taking breaks when I need them, but because I've been slowly crashing and burning and have not physically been able to do as much work as I've used to, that has been causing alot of guilt, and I've multiple times now had meltdowns and breakdowns due to feeling like I'm not useful enough.

This all gets amplified due to my parents, specifically my mother, not deeming anything as a reasonable cause to reduce my expected productivity and take a proper break, not even physical pain or injury or illness, which yikes honestly.

My chronic pain has been flaring up significantly, when waking up I cannot immediately move or stand up due to pain, I'm constantly having some or other cold or infection, my body is tellint me to take a break, and like, I know you cannot run on a broken foot, but I'm feeling guilty for not being able to do exactly that, and I don't know how to make that guilt go away

[lokwinske]

God knows I'm protestant so he makes me work a lot

[nando161mando]

PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC

[personal-blog243]

this might not count as “systemic critique” but TBH even on an individual emotional level there are problems with neoliberalism and modern “hustle culture”.

Even for people who manage to be successful under this system….what do you think it does to people emotionally to have a widespread cultural belief that you and/or your work always need to be measurably and quantifiably improving in some way? No matter how successful you were last time. That “pushing yourself harder” in some vague way is inherently a solution not just to work related problems, but personal problems as well. That even “personal growth” can be defined by achieving measurable goals of physical health and wealth and not by emotionally becoming a kinder, more loving person. Where investing time and energy into friend/family/romantic relationships is more of a checklist on your vision board than something that actually happens naturally and organically.

Not to be too much of an individualist, but it really goes to show how systems can be related to ideology and how it affects individuals mentally and emotionally.

[the-bar-sinister]

I think it is really indicative of what our society considers virtuous that 'you have been fighting for so long, why don't you put down your sword and rest' is so often used in fiction by the villain as a temptation against the hero.

Why is "let yourself rest" considered to be the devil talking?

[dahliavandare]

Yes “Stay up for one more chapter/episode/pattern repeat” is a devil talking, but it’s a small devil of poor personal decisions. And it’s only a devil at all because another, louder devil is yelling that everyone who doesn’t get up heinously early and be Productive is somehow flawed and less worthy as a human being.

[hobohobgoblim]

"hustle culture" is just agnostic Protestant Work Ethic. In this essay I will show...

[yourlocalswan]

when the protestant work ethic met neoliberalism it was soooo fucking over. downfall of humanity duo #otp

[protestantposting]

My therapist: what happened to make you feel ashamed when you try to have fun or relax?

Me: Well it all started in 1630 when a religious voyage set out from Britain...

[dyingroses]

Finishing up a 16 hour shift like . . . . *protestant work ethic