In Idle Theory, human life is regarded as simply another variety of natural life. Individual humans coalesce into human societies, in ways precisely analogous to the coalescing of individual cells into multicellular life. And the evolution of human society mirrors the evolution of preceding natural life. The basic problem for human life is the same as it is for all other life: how to survive.
In the scheme of evolution just outlined, life is easy and idle for long periods, and interspersed episodes of difficulty. It seems plausible to suppose that for long periods early human life was easy and idle, but interspersed with episodes when life became hard, and human idleness was driven downwards, forcing idleness-increasing innovation. Necessity (Latin, ne-cessare to not be idle) was the mother of invention. But human evolution did not entail modifications of human physiology so much as the development of social organisations, techniques, tools, and weapons. The history of human evolution is the history of the evolution of technology.
- There seems to be no reason to suppose that humans always lived in social groups. Rather, human society was itself an invention, a mutual assurance society that offered its members increased likelihood of finding food or capturing animals, as well as increased protection against predators, and assistance when injured or sick.
- The principal human innovation was the development of tools - such as knives, bags, ropes, clothes, fire. A knife enables plants or animals to be cut up more rapidly than they could be torn apart with bare hands. A bag enables a man to carry more than he can with his hands alone. Clothes reduce body heat loss, and hence reduce food requirements. Fire heated up the local environment, reducing body heat loss. Fire could also be used to render food hot, quicker to eat and easier to digest. Each of these tools brings increased idleness, and hence increased likelihood of survival.
The production of a tool entails a time cost, which appears as a period of decreased idleness. Once made, and put to use, the time value of a tool is the increased idleness over its lifetime. If value exceeds cost, it is a useful tool. If cost exceeds value, it is a luxury.
- The development of agriculture also increased idleness. Instead of being gathered from the wild, plants were grown in one place, protected from other grazing animals. This increased the yield, and reduced the harvest time. And when herds of animals could be penned in one area, they were easier to capture.
- Humans also set other animals to work for them. They used oxen to draw wagons and ploughs, horses to ride, dogs to hunt. Getting these various animals to work for them resulted in increased idleness for the humans, but decreased idleness for the oxen, horses and dogs.
- In organised human society, rather than each individual making every tool, each instead became a specialist in one trade. One made knives. A second made bags. A third made clothes. The specialist toolmaker could make a better tool in a shorter time and with fewer resources than a non-specialist. So a society made up of specialist craftsmen was more idle than one where everyone made everything.
- Also, within organized human society, there grew up a set of customs, or ethical codes of conduct, later formalised as laws. The effect of these laws was to make for smooth, harmonious operation of society with the minimum of dispute and contention, and thus to increase the idleness of society. Thus, for example, a convention as to who had right of way in a narrow passage would prevent time-wasting deadlock.
The idleness of a dependent system is the idleness of its least idle member, much as the strength of a chain is that of its weakest link. Thus as human society developed, it became important to ensure that idle time was equally distributed among its members. If it was not, and some were overworked, shortages of tools would appear, and these shortages would result in decreased social idleness, threatening the entire society. Egalitarian societies would survive crises which inegalitarian societies could not.
The primary human need is for idle time. This time need not be spent in complete inactivity. It can be used for games, pastimes, and the production of amusing luxuries. The time that can be devoted to these secondary wants is restricted by available idle time. If there is no idle time, there can be no games or luxuries. Thus there are two kinds of goods: primary tools which create idle time, and secondary luxuries which use up idle time.
 The value of a tool such as a knife is the idle time it provides, which is an objective, measurable quantity. The value of a luxury, or toy, or game, is subjective and changeable. What one person likes, another may not. What one person enjoys one day, he may not the next. Needs can be distributed equally. Wants, of their nature, cannot.
The primary purpose of human society, and all its innovations and inventions, is to increase human idleness. This idleness is the fund of time that enables all art, music, literature, games, friendships, love affairs - everything that humans enjoy. 4. Human predators: conquest and empire
The success of human society in increasing its idleness resulted in a growing population, and the spread of farming settlements. But, assuming that the first settlements occupied the best land, new settlements would be forced onto poorer land, and a less idle existence. At the margin, life would be very hard, and such societies would urgently seek an easier existence. And just as increasing numbers of grazers prompted the appearance of predators, so wealthy human societies began to attract human predators, from the margins of civilisation, who robbed them or enslaved them or taxed them.
A tribe of nomadic hunters, in lean times, could turn their skill with spear and bow against rich but defenceless farming communities. It was either a hard life hunting animals, or an easy life robbing rich human settlements with their abundant stores of food. Once successful in this, the switch from hunting animals to pillaging farms became permanent. The idleness of the nomadic hunters increased. The idleness of farming communities fell, as losses to the new predators were made good, and defences constructed, militias trained.
Thus opened an era, in which the principal way for a society to increase idleness was through the subjection of other societies. Egalitarian human societies gave way to inegalitarian societies whose predatory rulers enjoyed a largely idle existence, and whose subjects were forcibly reduced to slave labour. The rulers interested themselves in the art of war. Their education stressed physical fitness, courage, endurance. Their ingenuity was devoted to the development of new weapons, new military tactics. Since their armies were made up exclusively of physically more powerful males, the role of women was reduced to providing the maximum supply of males to restock decimated armies. The rulers had little interest in the development of labour-saving technologies in farming and industry because their slaves performed this work for them. So technical innovation languished.
Since a larger army would usually defeat a smaller army, larger states subjugated smaller states, and expanded into empires.
This era resulted in a progressive fall in social idleness. Towns and cities became fortified, and garrisoned with militias. This in turn led to the development of siege warfare - catapults, scaling ladders, mines, battering rams. And that in turn led to the improvement of defences, with thick stone walls, moats, ramparts. All of which required increasing amounts of labour, and proportionally larger numbers of slaves. Falling idleness brought inflation, as the real cost of living increased.
While an empire expanded, it could enlarge the numbers of its aristocracy. Once it ceased to expand, or contracted, the numbers of idle rulers that the empire could support began to decrease. Increasingly, aristocrats were reduced to slavery. Civil wars within the aristocracy broke out as factions struggled for supremacy and security.
Ultimately, falling idleness brought the complete collapse of these coercive societies. The dwindling aristocracy became unable to impose its will, or to collect taxes and tributes. If the empires did not fall to external invaders, they disintegrated into a collection of independent smaller states, largely free of coercion. Freed from high taxation and the need for military defence, social idleness rose. Technical innovation to increase idleness, rather than improve weaponry, restarted.
In this way, and in other ways, human society has alternated between an easy, idle life and a life of toil and difficulty. Idleness increased as new techniques and technologies emerged, and decreased as populations rose and wars broke out.
| Value Systems | | Low Idleness Society. In a low idleness society, where life is near-continuous toil at the brink of extinction, any mistake or omission threatens the existence of society. Therefore such societies must be highly disciplined, with each member carrying out their tasks with scrupulous care. - Strict egalitarianism is required, with everyone working, because such societies cannot support an idle elite.
- Theft and violence are intolerable, because they reduce social idleness, and threaten the entire society.
- All products are useful tools. There can be few luxuries, amusements, or diversions, partly because such societies have little free time to spend on them, and partly because such amusements threaten to divert men from necessary work.
- Sexual conduct must be highly restricted, because runaway population growth brings falling idleness. Complete sexual abstinence acts to reduce the population.
- Little technical innovation is allowed, partly because there is little time for it, but also because the failure of a social or technological experiment could be fatal.
- There is a tendency to despair, to lose all hope that life will ever improve. People live for tomorrow. They hurry through life, and see death as a release.
- Social idleness tends to rise.
- Men regard themselves as in the grip of powers other than themselves.
These are the ascetic practices of a monastery, and they are the required behaviour of humanity in extremis, and provide the baseline set of human survival values. In that fallen world, none would entertain any hope of a happy and carefree life. | High Idleness Society Where social idleness increases, discipline can be relaxed. In the most idle society, the world is a playground. - Little necessary work needs to be done to sustain life, and therefore life is secure. Strict equality becomes unnecessary.
- Moral strictures relax. Promiscuous sex is normal. Theft and fraud are commonplace, but do not threaten social security.
- Most products are luxuries, toys, or diversions, desired for the pleasure of owning them or using them.
- Experimentation and exploration of every kind flourishes.
- Laws are regarded as social conventions, the rules of the game. Moral dispute revolves around secondary concerns - dress codes, manners, appearances.
- There is a tendency to ennui, to boredom, and thrill-seeking. People act not out of necessity, but from impulse. They live for today, not for the future. They dread dying, and want to live forever.
- Social idleness tends to fall, as essential work is done badly or not at all.
- Men regard themselves as masters of their own destiny.
Thus social values shift to reflect circumstances. What is right at one time becomes wrong in another. The discipline that serves so well in low idleness society is not an asset when life is a party. Equally the wit and humour and personal charm that are assets in idle society are of little account in low idleness society. |
5. European Civilizations.
In antiquity, when human technology developed slowly, the principal way for men to increase their idleness was by enslaving other men, and getting them to do their work. The Roman Empire was a vast system of coercion, extending across the entire Mediterranean basin, whose colonies were taxed to maintain Rome in idleness. After about 100 AD, the empire stopped expanding, and Roman power gradually dwindled until by 500 AD the Western Roman empire had been overrun by migrant tribes of Goths and Vandals, looking for new homelands.
After the collapse of the Western empire, Europe dissolved into a set of small feudal societies, whose peasant farmers paid taxes to local barons in exchange for protection from bandits and invaders. From about 500 AD to 1500 AD, new farming methods, ploughs, watermills, and other innovations appear to have raised social idleness. In the late medieval period, there were some 100 public holidays each year, in addition to the 52 sabbath days.
European innovation and invention produced technologies which surpassed those of other states. One likely reason for this is that in the cold north of the planet, life is much harder than in tropical regions, and idleness-increasing innovation is essential. Tropical humans, in Africa and America, living largely idle lives, had no need for such innovation.
Around 1500 AD, Western Christianity disintegrated, and began to be replaced by a secular humanism, which owed much to Greece and Rome. Emulating Rome, Europe began to use its technical superiority to forge a global empire. The Americas became colonies of Portugal and Spain. Africa was carved up. India became a British colony, as did Australia. When the expansion was nearly complete, and a few European nations controlled most of the world, European civil war shattered this hegemony. The empire broke up into small self-governing nations.
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Muslim girls, yesterday
