Laziness is often deemed a moral failure. Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins. Slackers and layabouts are viewed askance. The Protestant work ethic, as coined by Max Weber, regards productivity and efficiency in the highest order. Capitalist culture has long applied the label “lazy” unevenly, conjuring racist, classist, and ableist tropes. Anyone unable to submit their body to laboring conditions could be chastised for laziness–with particular ire reserved for those who rely on the state for financial assistance.
On the other hand, in his 1880 manifesto The Right to be Lazy, Paul Lafargue advocated against the inherent virtuosity of work and in favor of expanded leisure time and idleness. As recent viral terms like quiet quitting, burnout, lie-down, and the Great Resignation suggest, many today are turning against the relentless hustle and grind of contemporary work culture, whether joyfully or resignedly. The COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread introduction of AI have further complicated the relationship between productivity and idleness, work and rest. And idling in lieu of protest seems negligent and misguided in an age of compounding political and environmental crises.
Some of the questions we will ask: Is laziness a psychological condition or a social construction? Where is the line between laziness and leisure? Between laziness and apathy? Laziness and burnout or depression? Why do we valorize work? How do we measure ambition and success? Is AI making us lazy? Will the use of AI leave us more time for leisure, or will it accelerate the demand for productivity? From “nepo-babies” to “welfare queens,” how does society determine who is and who gets to be lazy? Can we learn to uncouple productivity from a person’s worth? Are killing time and hanging out worthwhile pursuits? How do we reclaim free time? In this critical moment, is there space for thinking about laziness?
Katherine Behar is an interdisciplinary artist and critical theorist of new media and is Professor of New Media Arts at Baruch College. Behar’s work explores digital culture through feminism and materialism. Her artwork spans interactive installation, performance art, public art, photography and video art to explore contemporary digital culture.
Eric Blanc is an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University, researching new workplace organizing, strikes, digital labor activism, and working-class politics. He is the author of the books We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big (UC Press 2025) and Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics (Verso 2019).
Kenneth Goldsmith is a poet and critic. He is the author of ten books of poetry and is the founding editor of the online archive Ubu Web. He teaches writing at the University of Pennsylvania.
Autumn Knight is an interdisciplinary artist working with performance, installation, video and text. Drawing from her training in theatre and the psychology of group dynamics, Knight makes performances that reshape our perceptions of authority figures, power dynamics, and audience expectations of live experiences.
Marina van Zuylen is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Bard College. She is the author of Difficulty as an Aesthetic Principle, Monomania, and The Plenitude of Distraction. She has published in praise of some of the most beleaguered maladies of modernity—boredom, fatigue, idleness, mediocrity—and written about snobbery, dissociative disorders, and obsessive compulsive aesthetics.
The presentations will be accompanied by the screening of a series of short videos cut specifically for Salon 59.
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