Four Days and Thirty-Two Hours to Hell
Progressives are always trying to reinvent the wheel. I think they get bored with their mundane lives and try to turn everything upside down for amusement's sake. For decades, they've been trying to turn the five-day, forty-hour workweek upside down. They are on the verge of accomplishing this, but I'm not sure they know, care, or have thought deeply about the potential pitfalls.
2024 could become the year of the four-day workweek. In March, Vermont congressman Bernie Sanders pushed for a bill to reduce the standard workweek from forty to thirty-two hours, thus shortening it by a day. Workers eligible for overtime would receive extra pay for exceeding thirty-two hours worked. If the bill passes through the House, it would fly through the Senate and be signed by Biden in an attempt to help his fledgling poll numbers.
The liberal media is priming the public for a thirty-two-hour workweek. Recently, there has been a conveyor belt of articles from left-wing outlets advocating for the change. Business magazine Fast Company published "How the U.S. can switch to a 4-day workweek." From Business Insider, "Young workers say working 4 days a week would actually make them better employees." From CNN, "To combat employee burnout, this CEO created 'You Do You Fridays'."
Exos CEO Sarah Robb O'Hagan explains, "It means you do you. So you may choose to say, 'This Friday, I'm exhausted. I need to go spend time out hiking.' Other people may say Friday is my day to just do quiet work and not be disturbed. But what we put in place was you cannot email, text, [or] write to any of your colleagues. You can't set meetings. It is You Do You Friday."
If you know anything about how progressives see the world, it will not stop at You Do You Fridays. There will eventually be Casual Thursdays, No Work Wednesdays, Time Off Tuesdays, and Funday Mondays. America's favorite progressive, Bill Gates, said a three-day workweek is a possibility thanks to advancements in AI.
For the record, I am indifferent about the number of workdays from a labor perspective. A four-day workweek is a man-made construct, just like a five-day workweek. The men behind the five-day, forty-hour week were Ford Motors founder Henry Ford and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. My concern is what people will do with an extra day off.
Advocates for fewer work hours usually highlight the same talking points: less stress, less burnout, more time with family and children, and more time to pursue hobbies and entrepreneurship. That may be the case for some, but I have my doubts about society at large.
Entertainment and the pursuit of pleasure have become the centerpieces of our current culture. Sports, digital gaming, recreational drugs, sexual spectacles, and social media occupy much of people's time. Sports television viewership is on the rise. Video game sales rose four percent amid a poor economy where necessities are increasingly expensive. Recreational drug use is encouraged by lawmakers, including the reclassification of marijuana. Porn and social media consumption has skyrocketed over the last decade. And don't try to tell me everyone is promoting their business on TikTok. Our phones have become portals for escapism and quick dopamine hits.
Living a life chasing diversions and cheap pleasures is a fatal cycle. Take the meth addict, for instance. Chances are he didn't start off doing methamphetamine. It was a steady progression, going from one drug to the next until his eventual demise. The same holds true for the sex addict who often leads himself to financial ruin. Ditto for the alcoholic. The one who loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine will not get rich.
Poor men with ample idle time and easy access to vices is a recipe for more widespread violence, chaos, and, ultimately, death. We saw what happened in 2020 when most people were told they could not go to work. It brought out the worst in society.
I might have a different perspective if our society were anchored by the family unit or the church, but that is no longer the case. Avoiding marriage and not having children is the cool thing to do. You have the DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids) and the feminists on the political left and the MGTOWs (Men Going Their Own Way) and Passport Bros on the right. Church attendance has cratered since COVID. Every denomination except the Mormon church has witnessed a decline in attendance.
Irish author and political activist George Bernard Shaw's description of Hell is as accurate today as it was in the early twentieth century. "Written over the gate here are the words 'Leave every hope behind, ye who enter.' Only think what a relief that is! For what is hope? A form of moral responsibility. Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself."
The Most High God commanded us to work. After the fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, Adam had to plow the land to eat. It was a lesson from God, not a punishment. This is why the Book of Proverbs is filled with verses warning us about sloth and idleness. An idle, directionless man becomes prey to Satan.
I was recently unemployed after my former employer cut ties with me. I wasn't fired or laid off; they called it a "separation of employment because of external circumstances." The two months I had off were brutal. Sure, I had more time to write, but I usually make time to write because it is something I love to do. It was tough because not working feels weird. Not engaging my mind in something feels like a waste of the capabilities God gave me.
Upon my research for this piece, I stumbled across an article written by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman titled "How working less could solve all our problems. Really." There are secular elites and secular elite jock sniffers who really want us working less. Less time being productive and more time being idle prey for Satan.
