Noam Chomsky on Work and Creativity

Chomsky on human creativity and work.

[@demiggi]

There is a difference between 'work' and a 'job'. Most people we call 'work-shy' are actually 'job-shy'. They don't mind working at all, but they loath working under highly pressurized conditions.

[@Paseosinperro]

This is pure gold. Its hard to see that these ideas are so alien in today society.

[@Incognito-vc9wj]

I like work, but I don’t like to be under the control of other people.

[@blakereneehope]

Agreed. This is why silent managers who work hard set the greatest example for workers. Best management of all, and gets everyone else on the same platform by setting example and delegating only with reason.

[@blackbird5634]

creative work under your own control. -there it is right there.

[@alexshih3747]

Anyone who says that people wouldn't do work without being coerced hasn't ever had a vacation that was too long. You get bored pretty quickly.

[@perchte]

mabe you, but there are people who will not work. They are there now in every society that does have a strong social safety net. not everyone has a career´, most people have jobs. jobs for paying the bills. jobs that very few want to do, but where many are needed. i am also a person that does not like vacations, and your point is valid. But people that listen to chomsky in their free time are by far not your average joe.

[@Attalic]

@@perchte That's because on average a person will only work when their wage compensation is 50% higher than their safety net compensation.

[@perchte]

@@Attalic Yup! I totally agree. That is why this topic is so difficult and no side of the extremes is right. We have to find a good balance between minimum no job income and minimum wage. We do not want to have someone dying needlessly who can not work (whatever the reason), but want to encourage everyone that can. Because people that work are on averge healthier and happier than their non working counterparts. Nobody wants to get up early just to pay the bills, but what makes us happy is not money, it is responsibility for others, however small it might be.

[@claude2571]

@@perchte luckily most of the jobs that no one wants will be automated. Some people not working is really a non-issue as we develop AI

[@perchte]

@@claude2571 I agree mostly. Many jobs that noone wants to do will be automated, but some are very hard nuts to crack (i am betting that cleaning will be one of the last large population occupations that will get automated). And also many jobs, that people like to do, will be gone aswell. I work in the field and IMHO we really can't predict when this will happen. So we should not price in the assumption that automation will happen fast, in all of our plans for the future. My main message though is that most people that are not working, will not be happier for it. As money is not equal to happieness, but successfull responsibility most likely is the best proxy for fullfillment that I know of.

[@chrisrichardson8988]

Notice how CHOMSKY frequently cites the sources of his ideas. Of course, this is standard accepted method of discourse, but many fail to do so.

[@pwpw5824]

Thank you for sharing these wonderful videos

[@juniorphiri2561]

The highest ideal should be a society that doesn't mind people who don't want to work. Nevermind the fact that work is any undertaken action for a particular end. The question is one of control, always.

[@swaminathan_r1]

Ok, who feeds them?

[@larrydibble1749]

The only difference between work and play is your attitude toward what your doing. $$ turns play into work if your not careful.

[@abbysmith1148]

I love this , because it's true. People will choose to work, when it is meaningful work on their own terms. People don't want to work under conditions of exploitative, hostile and oppressive wage slavery. There's a major difference.

[@RapidBlindfolds]

As an artist the most prolific, creative and disciplined I have ever been is when I’ve been without a day job

[@DS-uo5ie]

Not too many people like their jobs!

[@coreycox2345]

I feel so lucky that my thinking has driven my work and then I ended up being paid for it. Probably the guy working in the IPhone factory does not have much time to ponder these things.

[@ivandjolev2700]

So sad =(

[@bernitaldown9136]

Your statement is purely self serving.....

[@Iancreed8592]

nah dude. His comment illicits mutual feelings of sympathy for people in worse of positions, feelings of gratitude, and stands to affirm similar thoughts and feelings that may have arisen in other people who read the comment. Don't be such a one dimensional thinker.

[@Orf]

Thanks for upload. What's the original source?

[@Muzikman127]

did you ever find out by any chance? I imagine not, but you never know

[@Anthony_MD]

Matt, aren’t you anti vaxx/pro horse paste?

[@TheJonnyEnglish]

Weird to see you here

[@massinakmin8340]

@@Anthony_MD some people dont understand Chomsky. They use his ideas justifying what crazy things they already believe. The same with this guy.

[@googm]

Imagine interviewing Chomsky with that haircut.

[@Muzikman127]

can anyone tell me the source interview the first clip is taken from? Thanks!

[@sy99939]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/npzEgGRojZKbZ7s Enjoy!

[@Muzikman127]

@@sy99939 thank you!! I missed the notification for this so I'm a couple of months late, but thanks!!

[@erickreyes9707]

The best businessman serves the common good as Lao Tzu wrote

[@toadpossum6668]

Work is toil & vexation of spirit. Carpenters injure themselves all the time.

[@millenialmusings8451]

Chomsky describes the problem (which is kind of an obvious problem) but doesn't any real solutions. He also wrongly assumes that because tenured professors have autonomy of work, other dirty, risky and boring jobs like janitor, McDonald's worker etc all can have autonomy. No. This is simply impossible. Maybe in small societies of 100 people it can work but not in large society. Separation of jobs is a natural consequence of large human society.

[@nizzle6147]

I only want to vegetate after 5 days of working in a capitalist system.

[@emilioflint8131]

Yeah but there's a lot of work that needs to be done that sucks... Especially in the lower wages domain. We can't have 1000 painters and 1 brick layer. (But hopefully that will change over time with technological innovations and automation)

[@gregorysagegreene]

People bothered to work on the Starship Enterprise.

[@BrumBrum1571]

How do you stop everyone from choosing the most creative and fun jobs (acting, fine art, bungee-jumping) rather than the laborious ones (sewage maintenance, working on an oil-rig, or in freezing-cold, or desert-like conditions) without a market mechanism? Coercion? Limited job choice? What if no-one wants to do the plumbing? Do you force some people? Who decides who does what job? Is income guaranteed for all at all times? If it isn't, how is income distributed? A voucher system? How is that substantially different from money? If income is guaranteed, what about when people just don't want to turn up for work (hangovers, fell out with workmates, too cold outside)? It seems that physical coercion would be the answer, in an anarchist/communist society and it seems that the market mechanism of having a wage which is your own acts in a much softer way than physical coercion. The left, from the French Revolution onward, is extremely strong in critique and extremely vague, weak and unclear in positive alternatives, i.e. even when promoted by octogenarians, it is a teenage-spiritual-disposition...

[@alexshih3747]

The laborious jobs can be easily automated or split among the population so that each person does a negligible amount. Also, you wouldn't need money or income in the first place. Remember that money is only a medium of exchange. With technological and scientific advances increasing, it wouldn't be difficult in a few centuries to provide each person a basic standard of living by just giving them the resources directly.

[@stupididietmoron9996]

i prefer physical labor and a lot of people do too. not sure how someone could justify their job being "bunjee jumping". People wouldnt be confined to 1 "job" people would simply go do the work that needs to be done the same way societies that dont have formal jobs have the whole community get involved in projects, could rotate people out, theres lots of ways to deal with that issue people just need to get together and figure it out

[@leehayes4019]

Persuasion is more preferred than coercion. To get a someone to do a chore, is it preferable to insult them or offer praise? I am married and we divide the chores. Growing up doing the dishes was treated as a punishment for me so i dont like doing them, my spouse doesnt care. On the other hand punishment for my spouse was laundry. So i do the laundry and my spouse does the dishes. Do you think there are people in society who want to do things for other people not for money but because they like helping others?

[@millenialmusings8451]

@@alexshih3747this is the stupidest take I've ever read on KZbin. You think people have skills to easily switch between jobs if they're shared and rotated amongst people?

[@gavrinla4457]

Even the Japanese are as good as the Germans (Greek philosophers, etc.) ... that's their creativity

[@gavrinla4457]

and the elegance and genius English, French and Italian Western the speech is very long ehehe

[@mohdyusuffbinsharif7708]

Not all would get job that he is driven to... some need to and have to... whether they like it or not..... it is that human nature and human features that need us to work... those who need to work and no choice...only patience and preserverence need along.....the nature has created human beings in such a way.....those who deny work.... hunger and poverty would drive them to work.Whether in favour or not........especially 3rd world.

[@gooddogreallygooddog6157]

Great argument for slavery

[@gavrinla4457]

Without neglecting the Swiss, and many other Western peoples.

[@gavrinla4457]

As for creativity, the Germans excel in automotive and electronic (and once in the cultural field), the Japanese and now also the Chinese in the electronic one and once the Italians (culturally, architecturally and in the field of automotive engineers) were not joking but when they want now they are creative too and the Russians and the Americans in the military. American art, music and electronics is unique.

[@mustbeaweful2504]

How does one enjoy their work if it is to clean toilets? Is it better to have a dichotomous culture of work/maintenance?

[@steptb]

automation will solve that sooner or later. the problem is, are all humans really driven by doing creative work or only some of them? I fear chomsky is wrong in thinking it's a universal drive. so what are those people going to do?

[@markmacdonald7955]

@@steptb I think Chomsky would tell you he thinks people's priority is to worry about the responsibility of their own actions. So don't worry about if your neighbor is lazy or creative by nature. But if you feel like your creative urges and drives are snuffed by work (read: "wage labor") then maybe that speaks to you. Or if you disagree, Chomsky would be fine with that, it's just his outlook based on what he's seen in his long life.

[@tohmainkyakaroon]

@@mr1nightgoblin

[@mattheww797]

you make the criminals clean the toilets. That is the answer to the problem.

[@whade62000]

And so you build a system based on forced labor that people want to escape from, where work is punishment, opposite what Chomsky just said....and you drive up the demand for more prisoners...genius -x-

[@DiabeticDawg]

The lauffer curve (I butchered the spelling) proves that once taxation above 33% occurs, businesses and people alike tend to find better tax rates abroad.

[@mattlister3713]

the laffer curve is a hypothetical with no empirical basis, and even if it had basis, it only maximises government revenue, and not social welfare

[@DiabeticDawg]

Even if that is the case, you could determine maximum revenues and then best determine how to allocate those resources. Even further provide tax incentives for businesses to help out socially and in areas of operation.

[@jaylewis2611]

That's pretty naive. Most people are too lazy to overcome their impulses and delay gratification, unless they're faced with the alternative of privation. It has nothing to do with rationally deciding that you're bored with licentiousness and procrastination and going off to do something meaningful. It has to do with contemplating the idea of meaning in the nihilistic sense. If we were all ambitious, moral men, who found meaning to be indisputably true and effort to be worthwhile in spite of death and dismal reality, we could work out of sheer resourcefulness. But given that we all question our purpose and the purpose of our striving, and only a few of us have the capacity to keep on trodding despite these doubts, once you lose the incentive to quit your trifling and leave the house by some policy that guarantees you'll stay alive no matter what, you would not see many of us working.

[@MrWhiskeycricket]

When you say "most people", you're describing people as they are within the modern, capitalistic system. Work without meaning is seen as being a necessary evil for survival, but it's that meaninglessness that fuels "laziness" in my opinion. However, if you're living outside a capitalistic system - say as a hunter gatherer, you must hunt and gather or you die - people in that situation DO work out of sheer resourcefulness and do find meaning in their struggles, enough to keep them going. They aren't coerced, they're part of a team that collaborates for mutual benefit. This was the state of humans for most of our existence. We've been separated from that, disconnected to become cogs in a machine to benefit others far more than our work benefits ourselves. Noam argues that it's in our nature to create (which IS work) - and since that nature existed before wage slavery, it will certainly keep existing without wage slavery. People do not need to be dominated or coerced to be productive.