Fireside Chat: Mechanized Slaves
In his book, Spectatoritis, Jay Nash writes:
There are glaring indications on all sides that, given leisure, man will turn into a listener, a watcher. He will attempt to utilize this new leisure, which should be devoted to creative arts, in body recuperation. He will rationalize that he needs rest—a let-down far beyond his actual requirement. Too much restoration or recreation, as we have used it, dulls the mind.[1]
From Nash’s perspective, the mechanization of strenuous tasks leaves room for creativity, ingenuity, and self-education. Instead, mankind has utilized their spare time to become nothing more than a spectator over the decades. He has situated himself into a state where he cannot grow to a cultural stature because he has yet to do anything significant.[2] Nash explains that recreation is a concept necessary for doing, mastering, and creating to establish one’s identity. By utilizing spare time to explore one’s desires, it may furnish a release from the monotony of life that will aid in his overall well-being.[3]
The result of a non-doing mentality is what brings nations and empires to ruin. Nash explains that:
In the great cycle in which history moves we have again come around in America to the days of Greece. We have acquired leisure through slaves. We have this advantage: our slaves are not human; that is, most of them are not. Our slaves—the machines—have liberated just as the Grecian Slaves liberated. The Greeks attempted to keep a proportion of about twelve slaves to each citizen. It is estimated in America that we have from fifteen to twenty slaves per individual. These slaves jump at our beck and call. They light our buildings, start our cars, run our machines, shine our shoes, curl our hair, wash our clothes, and even shave our faces without lather.[4]
With this in mind, given that Nash wrote these words in 1938, when the wealthy struggled to maintain normalcy, how many mechanized slaves does the 21st Century American have at his disposal?
[1] Jay B. Nash, Spectatoritis, 2nd ed., ed. Christopher Fennell (Las Vegas: Independent Publishing, 2021), 15-16.
[2] Jay B. Nash, “A Philosophy of Recreation in America,”The Journal of Educational Sociology, Vol. 21, No. 5 (Jan., 1948):259, accessed April 15, 2021, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2263869.
[3] Ibid, 260.
[4] Nash, Spectatoritis, 9.