>In other words, it made me feel fine just hanging out in my apartment doing nothing.
That should be the natural state of man, though, I'd extend it to meeting with friends, cooking, playing, etc -- that is, being "non-productive". It took a lot of advertising and protestant ethic working hand in hand through opposing ends to move the needle towards full on consumption and full on productivity.
"All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room." - Blaise Pascal
Not everything is a social construction. The default state of life isn't being relaxed and comfortable, the default state is starvation and defending against disease, predation, and conflict. In your world where everyone is cooking and playing, who provides the food? Who staves away conflict?
What lifeform on Earth let you to believe that the default state of being was effortless comfort?
The default state of life is different in the frozen tundra vs the temperate rainforest. Some people live in areas where there is natural abundance of easily exploitable resources. Modernizing a bit, some people live in areas where the minimal acceptable standard of living can be supported on a few hours of work per week.
I'd argue that would be the state of men when they lived in forests. But we live in a society where most of our natural instincts are "suppressed": living in square boxes with just 2-3 people we trust; having to spend time at "work" in order to afford a living; looking at screens; the instinct to hunt; etc etc.
So in a way we do need something to help us "relax" in a world where we can't naturally.
You're hopelessly romanticizing the past. Life back then, in those forests was short, violent, and on the edge of starvation. There actually isn't a lot of food for people animals in a forest, especially the older it is.
>Not everything is a social construction. The default state of life isn't being relaxed and comfortable, the default state is starvation and defending against disease, predation, and conflict.
That's not what ethnologists saw in most primitive people's they've examined...
Looking at a lot of life, it’s more like long periods of rest interspersed with very short, very high intensity struggle. Big cats sleep most of the day, lizards bask, snakes and crocodiles just hang around. Most non-grazing animals spend a majority of time resting or asleep, conserving energy for big stakes bursts. Hell, lots of mammals sleep through whole seasons!
My point was simply that if doing nothing was men’s natural state, we wouldn’t have progressed to the point where Protestantism (or advertising) was even a thing.
What’s a non-anal family? Most families are non-anal if you consider how human reproduction works by I’m not sure that’s what you’re talking about :P
I meant anal, short for "anal retentive" i.e. paranoid about doing things "properly".
Your logic makes sense if the Earth were the same everywhere. It breaks down if you understand that New England is fundamentally different from England or Africa.
The fact that puritanism thrived says something about New England's natural state in the 1600s. It says nothing about humankind's natural state.
Really, the fact that it emerged so late in human history, and was dominant so briefly, in such an unusual place suggests it's somewhat unnatural at a species scale.
No, I don't think TV, video games and the Web really count as sitting "still". They don't fulfill the spirit of that quote. "Sitting still" in this context is about being contemplative, not being distracted by a glowing box.
That should be the natural state of man, though, I'd extend it to meeting with friends, cooking, playing, etc -- that is, being "non-productive". It took a lot of advertising and protestant ethic working hand in hand through opposing ends to move the needle towards full on consumption and full on productivity.
"All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room." - Blaise Pascal