Passive idleness, not activity, is the truest form of utopia

Evidence

This sounds a sensible proposal, but Beauvoir’s essay tells us to think again. For her, a man who wants to stop and navel-gaze is not as good a model as the one who commits himself to keep going. Why do we imagine that wisdom lies in inactivity and detachment, she asks? If a child says, ‘I don’t care about anything,’ that is not a sign of a wise child but of a troubled and depressed one. Similarly, adults who withdraw from the world soon get bored. Even lovers, if they retreat to their private love nest for too long, lose interest in each other. We do not thrive in satiety and rest. Human existence means ‘transcendence’, or going beyond, not ‘immanence’, or reposing passively inside oneself. It means constant action until the day one runs out of things to do — a day that is unlikely to come as long as you have breath. For Beauvoir and Sartre, this was the big lesson of the war years: the art of life lies in getting things done. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 516 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Frazier’s example of a more productive man is no accident. Like someone running a corporate digital detox retreat, he is obsessed with productivity, claiming fantastically that mankind is only 1 percent as productive as it could be. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 188 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Human existence means transcendence and constant action, not passive repose — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 516; Utopian escape fantasies remain secretly obsessed with productivity. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 188

Broader Connections

• Human existence means transcendence and constant action, not passive repose #contradicts (0.92) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 516
• Utopian escape fantasies remain secretly obsessed with productivity. #expands (0.78) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 188