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That he takes idleness sincerely is demonstrated
through his fastidious research, which draws on sources
as varied as Robert Louis Stevenson, Lao Tzu, Dr
Johnson, Albert Camus and Damien Hirst, who provide
a 2,500-year-old legacy to loafing (there’s nine pages
of further reading on the subject).
It has to be said that the end result really is good.
Not only is the book thoroughly entertaining, it should
resonate with anyone – except the most puritanical
workaholic bores – who has ever questioned how our
lives have become to be dominated by work, time, and
the need to be constantly doing something, or by feeling
guilty for being inactive.
Hodgkinson says that this angst-driven nine-to-five
drudgery is only a fairly recent development in terms
of human history. That it is the result of when, some
250 years ago, we were ripped from our agrarian existence
by the ravages of the Industrial Revolution. This
transformed our previous existence of spontaneous,
task-oriented work, to one where we were shackled to
the ruthless tyranny of the clock and wage labour.
It has alienated us from our authentic lackadaisical
state of nature, Hodgkinson adds, saying that the only
purpose chirpy axioms – such as Benjamin Franklin’s
1757 utterance, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a
man, healthy, wealthy and wise”– serve are to fill us
with guilt whenever we return to an authentic state of
doing as we please.
BUY Tom Hodgkinson books online from and
“[If we were idle] we would become more alive.
We would be less stressed out because we would be in
control of our own lives. We would free ourselves from
the master/slave dialectic and all the other imprisoning
dualities that control us. Life and work would become
the same thing. We would become whole people rather
than fractured people.”
But left to loafers like Hodgkinson, wouldn’t the
world just go to the dogs?
“I think the claim is self-evidently false. Idle people
are creative and hard workers are uncreative. Is it better
to trick people into buying crisps or to grow your own
vegetables? Clearly the latter. It is generally better to
do nothing than to do something. It creates less harm
in the world.”
When summing up whether How To Be Idle offers an
intelligent critique of the alienating nature of the rate
race, or just a self-indulgent lazy man’s guide to life,
it’s worth considering the words of the British journalist,
and celebrated alcoholic, Jeffrey Bernard (quoted
in the book) on the matter how those who preach the
benefits of working harder, are normally the people
having a nice time, relaxing and getting rich on the
backs of others.
“As if there was something romantic and glamorous
about hard work … if there was something glamorous
about it, the Duke of Westminster would be digging his
own fucking garden, wouldn’t he?” �
272
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