ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 1967
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

Knjiga je dobreo očuvana,malo okrzana po ivicama.
"In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays is a provocative and highly influential collection of essays published in 1935 by British polymath, logician, and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell. The title essay, originally penned in 1932, serves as a social critique of the modern obsession with overwork, arguing that a drastic reduction in labor hours is essential for human happiness, cultural growth, and a genuinely democratic society.
The core arguments of the definitive title essay include:
• The Cult of Efficiency: Russell challenges the traditional moral dogma that `work is duty.` He argues that the modern worship of hard labor is a tool historically perpetuated by the ruling classes to keep the working class too exhausted to question social structures.
• The Four-Hour Workday: He calculates that with modern machinery and mass-production techniques, a society could comfortably meet all its material needs if every capable adult worked just four hours a day.
• True Leisure vs. Passive Consumption: Russell emphasizes that `idleness` does not mean lazy apathy. Instead, giving people ample free time allows them to engage in creative, scientific, artistic, and lighthearted intellectual pursuits that modern `exhaustion culture` suppresses.
• Two Types of Work: He humorously breaks work down into two types: altering the position of matter at or near the earth`s surface, and telling other people to do so (the latter being much more lucrative).

Other Key Essays in the Collection

While the main essay critiques economics, the broader collection surveys a vast landscape of sociology, science, and politics:
• `Modern Homogeneity`: An observation on Westernization and the loss of local cultural identities, focusing heavily on American industrial civilization.
• `The Ancestry of Fascism`: A sharp philosophical critique of the anti-rational roots that gave rise to totalitarian regimes in Europe during the 1930s.
• `Architecture and Social Questions`: An essay exploring how city planning and housing structures directly impact community building, women`s liberation, and child rearing.
• `Western Civilization`: A deep look into what defines the Western world, analyzing the historical interplay of science, military power, and economics."