Sunday Evening Musings: Education and Employment

Every Sunday evening, I hold a funeral for the two days of freedom, peace and quiet that I had the privilege of possessing. I hold a funeral for the privilege I am about to lose for five days. And I think to myself - "When will the nightmare end?"

There was that one video...

But that is not the only thing I think about. I have an inner dialogue about various other subjects as well, some related to my predicament, some not. One of those thoughts are about a video I once watched.

In that aforementioned video - in case you don't have three minutes to watch it, and would rather read me summing it up for you - we are essentially told that education comes (or rather, historically came) in many shapes, and school is merely one of them. As the video says, the fact that we think of "school" and "education" as synonyms - when they're really not - betrays that we have a very impoverished notion of what education is and could be.

It's a great video, and I still rewatch it from time to time. When I first watched it, I was still in (high) school, and was absolutely miserable for some reason, so I was looking for anti-school material to prove to myself that I wasn't the only one, and that I'm not crazy. I guess that's the strength of the Internet: your family may tell you that you're crazy and delusional, but you'll easily find a community counting literal millions of members telling you that you're not.

Obviously, my life has changed a lot since I first saw that video. In college, I was having fun, so I mostly forgot about the anti-school stuff. The most dramatic change took place on the 26th of June, 2020, when I ceased being a student, and got dragged into the world of work, kicking and screaming. My mindset didn't change. Just like the Frankfurt School, I was always a complainer and a critic. After growing miserable enough at work, I became a critic of the very concept of work. To prove to myself that I'm not crazy, that I'm not the only one, I dug into anti-work materials. I read The Abolition of Work by Bob Black. I read The Iron Heel by Jack London. Formerly a skeptic, I became virulently pro-UBI - not because I genuinely consider it a sustainable solution, but because I desperately need a long break from life as a whole, so I can have some breathing room, re-think my life and find out what can I really do.

As of the time of writing this article, one month ago, I registered on read.cash, deciding to publish all my anti-work thoughts, and maybe earn a little bit of (crypto)currency in the process. Regardless of how much do my articles make, putting those thoughts out and getting them off my chest makes me feel good. If someone gets inspired by them, all the better.

But then I remembered the video I mentioned first. And I did a little bit of thinking about it. And do you know what kind of conclusion did I come to? That the video could also be used to describe the modern workplace as well.

"What we need to realize is that education and schooling are not the same thing. In fact, because we think that schooling is the same thing as education, we have a radically impoverished idea of what education is and could be." - Quote from the video

These two sentences struck me the most. But, what struct me now, is that if you change a couple of words, it still makes perfect sense....

"What we need to realize is that work and (full-time) employment are not the same thing. In fact, because we think that employment is the same thing as work, we have a radically impoverished idea of what work is and could be."

Starting from next week, my country's government is no longer recommending employers to prefer home office and remote work. This means that tomorrow, I could receive a phone call, a demand to get back into the office. And do you know what will I do, if they demand my return to the office? If they won't let me to continue to work from home, I will simply resign. I'll quit.

Upon hearing this, my mother immediately started screeching. "What will you do?! What will you do?!" - she howled at me with a heavy worry. To her, "to work" means "to be (full-time) employed by a company (or the government)". The typical Hungarians' notion of work is rooted in Feudalism - "Which feudal lord are you toiling the fields for?". But I am part of a new generation, and if I am forced to leave behind my day job, I will look for alternatives. Online work, freelancing, even just helping people for a meager payment.

But that's not the main point that I'm trying to make. The main point that I'm trying to make, is that work isn't the same as employment, especially not full-time employment. As a matter of fact, work isn't even always monetized. People aren't getting paid for writing Wikipedia articles, yet it would be nonsensical not to consider it work. Volunteer work is exactly what it says on the tin: work, just not for profit, and definitely not for a company. Freelance work is for profit, but you're not getting tied to a company that probably considers you replaceable anyway. Owning a farm, living off the grid and producing your own food is work. Making a freeware game for donations is also work.

The point that I'm trying to make, is that we need to get away from this outdated feudal idea of employment. Work comes in many shapes and forms. Full-time employment is an enslaved poor man's version of work.

Schrödinger's Wageslave

Anyone who has ever read my articles knows that I'm an advocate for Universal Basic Income, even though there are still a few remnants of skepticism within me.

Still, whenever I run into naysayers who oppose UBI, they always come at me with two inherently contradictory statements.

In the very same breath, they tell me "Lol, you are just lazy, everyone else likes working, get in line already lol" and "NOOOO, we cannot implement UBI, everyone hates working, everyone would quit their jobs, we can't do this!". This causes me to facepalm. Can they not see the contradiction? In the very same breath, they tell me, that everyone likes working, yet at the same time, everyone also hates working and would definitely quit their jobs if UBI was implemented. Which one is it?

Then it turns out, the two statements aren't as contradictory as I thought. Remember what I said about us having a radically impoverished idea of what work is and could be? Well, I had the same radically impoverished idea in mind. However, when these naysayers refer to "work", they use two separate meanings of the word in those two sentences.

• "People like working" - Well, yes, if by "work", you mean engagement in productive labour, then sure. Who doesn't like making things? Granted, by this logic, playing Minecraft could be considered work, but that's not here or there... Still, this statement is true, albeit only under certain specific conditions. People love being engaged in productive labour, but only when it's not forced labour.

• "People hate working" - Also true, if by "work", you mean full-time employment, working for the same company for years, doing the same thing over and over 8 hours straight 5 days a week, etc.

The two seemingly contradictory sentences no longer contradict each other, if you clear up with the object of each sentence means: and in this case, "work" refers to two separate things in the two statements. People like being engaged in productive labour (albeit only under certain specific conditions, like doing it out of their free will rather than being held at a gunpoint by the economy), and people hate having jobs and being full-time employees.

I had a discussion briefly touching this subject with my friend Geri, and he told me - "What you actually hate isn't work, but (wage)slavery. Making a freeware game for donations is work. What you hate isn't work. What you hate is employment."

Sure, these weren't his exact works, but this was the gist of what he said. Maybe he's right. Maybe what I actually hate isn't work itself, but jobs, employment, and all the things that come with them. I do enjoy programming - what I don't enjoy is being forced to do it 8 hours straight 5 days a week, communicating with people I can't stand, waking up early, not having control over my time, not having other options, etc.

And I think the same thing applies to a lot of other people. There are plenty of people out there willing to volunteer to make society better. Github is home to millions of open-source projects. Sometimes, even the companies I like to rip on generously release their APIs and libraries to the public domain. Plenty of games out there downloadable for free. Plenty of mods for games that put even established game developers to shame. Not to mention, all the other examples I mentioned earlier in the article, like those who write Wikipedia articles.

There are jobs that no one wants to do, for sure. Perhaps those jobs should be automated away? And if that's not possible, then those who do those kinds of jobs should be valued: paid better, and given more free time.

Education

What better way to finish off this article, than to connect the two divergent lines of thoughts back together?

And thus, I return to the topic of education. As the video mentioned, education came in many ways, shapes and forms before 1806, not just Prussian-style schools as we know them. As the video said, education ought to take place not just at a certain stage of your life, but during your entire life.

And sure enough, alternative forms of education have become available thanks to the Internet. Covid-19 gave a boost to these alternative forms of education. Yet in many countries - including mine - potential employers remain stubbornly obsessed with certifications put out by schools, especially diplomas.

I'd be willing to say "their loss", but in a world where your survival depends on your being employed - unless you're very lucky, or very unlucky (disabled) - that cannot be said. The employers are like feudal overlods, and they expect their employees to be loyal vassals, thankful for the opportunity to sell away 1/3 of their lives as part-time slaves for money.

We live in a dystopian world that refuses to get with the times.

So, as closing thoughts:

People don't hate education by default, people actually love to learn - school makes them hate education and learning
People don't hate work by default, people actually love to engage in productive labour - jobs, employment and forced labour make them hate working and producing.

Making things compulsory makes people hate those things. People hated reading school-assigned books in high school, even though they didn't mind reading in other contexts. I wouldn't mind cleaning up the streets, picking up the trash, watering all the flowers in the graveyard and planting trees, if it was voluntary and my survival didn't depend on it. I wouldn't mind making the world a better place by contributing to open source projects either, if I had the time (if I wasn't a wageslave). I'd likely would have read plenty of books on my own, if I wasn't forced to read them in school.

School isn't education - it's the enemy of education
Employment isn't work - it's the enemy of work.