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Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America
From the author of Crying , a witty, wide-ranging cultural history of our attitudes toward work—and getting out of it
Couch potatoes, goof-offs, freeloaders, good-for-nothings, loafers, and ever since the Industrial Revolution, when the work ethic as we know it was formed, there has been a chorus of slackers ridiculing and lampooning the pretensions of hardworking respectability. Reviled by many, heroes to others,
these layabouts stretch and yawn while the rest of society worries and sweats. Whenever the world of labor changes in significant ways, the pulpits, politicians, and pedagogues ring with exhortations of the value of work, and the slackers answer with a strenuous call of their “To do nothing,” as Oscar Wilde said,
“is the most difficult thing in the world.” From Benjamin Franklin’s “air baths” to Jack Kerouac’s “dharma bums,” Generation-X slackers, and beyond, anti-work-ethic proponents have held a central place in modern culture.
Moving with verve and wit through a series of fascinating case studies that illuminate the changing place of leisure in the American republic, Doing Nothing revises the way we understand slackers and work itself.
Couch potatoes, goof-offs, freeloaders, good-for-nothings, loafers, and ever since the Industrial Revolution, when the work ethic as we know it was formed, there has been a chorus of slackers ridiculing and lampooning the pretensions of hardworking respectability. Reviled by many, heroes to others,
these layabouts stretch and yawn while the rest of society worries and sweats. Whenever the world of labor changes in significant ways, the pulpits, politicians, and pedagogues ring with exhortations of the value of work, and the slackers answer with a strenuous call of their “To do nothing,” as Oscar Wilde said,
“is the most difficult thing in the world.” From Benjamin Franklin’s “air baths” to Jack Kerouac’s “dharma bums,” Generation-X slackers, and beyond, anti-work-ethic proponents have held a central place in modern culture.
Moving with verve and wit through a series of fascinating case studies that illuminate the changing place of leisure in the American republic, Doing Nothing revises the way we understand slackers and work itself.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
28 people are currently reading
607 people want to read
About the author
Tom Lutz
60 books76 followersI have just published the third volume of my travel writing, THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS ()October 2021). A volume of photographic portraits of people I've met on the road is coming out in February 2022, PORTRAITS: MOMENTS OF INTIMACY ON THE ROAD.
A book of philosophical and literary critical reflections, AIMLESSNESS, was published in January 2021 by Columbia University Press.
My first novel, BORN SLIPPY: A NOVEL was published in January, 2020 (Repeater/PRH).
I've just sent a sequel, STILL SLIPPY, to my agent.
I am the author of two earlier books of travel narrative — And The Monkey Learned Nothing and Drinking Mare’s Milk on the Roof of the World — the cultural histories Doing Nothing and Crying; literary histories Cosmopolitan Vistas and American Nervousness, 1903; pieces for New York Times, LA Times, ZYZZYVA, Exquisite Corpse, New Republic, Salon, Black Clock, Iowa Review, and other places.
I’m a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the UC Riverside, the founding editor in chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books, founder of The LARB Radio Hour, The LARB Quarterly Journal, The LARB/USC Publishing Workshop, and LARB Books. I am a part-time musician, an amateur photographer, and a full-time dilettante. I live in Los Angeles.
A book of philosophical and literary critical reflections, AIMLESSNESS, was published in January 2021 by Columbia University Press.
My first novel, BORN SLIPPY: A NOVEL was published in January, 2020 (Repeater/PRH).
I've just sent a sequel, STILL SLIPPY, to my agent.
I am the author of two earlier books of travel narrative — And The Monkey Learned Nothing and Drinking Mare’s Milk on the Roof of the World — the cultural histories Doing Nothing and Crying; literary histories Cosmopolitan Vistas and American Nervousness, 1903; pieces for New York Times, LA Times, ZYZZYVA, Exquisite Corpse, New Republic, Salon, Black Clock, Iowa Review, and other places.
I’m a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the UC Riverside, the founding editor in chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books, founder of The LARB Radio Hour, The LARB Quarterly Journal, The LARB/USC Publishing Workshop, and LARB Books. I am a part-time musician, an amateur photographer, and a full-time dilettante. I live in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
October 15, 2008
I gave up. It was too much work to read this book. And kind of boring.
Read
December 22, 2008Seeing as how I haven't worked in a very, very long time, it seems inevitable that I would find and eventually read this book. A true slacker, I've known about this book for a while, but it took me a little bit of time to actually get around to reading it.
Doing Nothing is a pretty good primer to the study of doing nothing (or more accurately "not working," as that is the true subject of the book) from the dawning of America to more or less the current day. The author begins with an enjoyable account of his own attempts at doing nothing in the last 60's with a "back-to-earth" commune, and his relationship with his apparent vegetating son in the present day. I would have liked more personal anecdotes like these throughout the book, but save for the first chapter, and the last few paragraphs of the book, this is really the only times we get to see the author's personal take on the issue at hand.
The book follows a chronological order, skimming the surface and only rarely delving deeply on any particular subject. The study of doing nothing begins with Samuel Johnson and his Idler alter ego, and the contrast between this grandiose historic figure and the often seen as more productive and "driven" Benjamin Franklin, whose ambitious life should leave everyone hating him. A common theme in the book is the sense than when one is "doing nothing" and "not working" one is actually creating and doing a great deal- writing about doing nothing is doing something, after all, and we are lead to suppose we have lost the great works of the doers of nothing because they were too busy doing nothing to record the act. There is also a theme involving the self-consciousness of the "idler/loafer/slacker" throughout the ages, as a figure that holds himself self-referentially up while dismissing himself at the same time- well, I can sympathize with that.
One thing I disliked about this book, other than it did tend to just "recap" great achievements in slacking without much analysis, is that the author spent a little too much time on the more mainstream portrayals of the idler/loafer/slacker in American history. He spends a fair amount of time talking about the beats and Jack Kerouac, for example, but I would have preferred even more unglamorous portrayals of them rather than his digressions into Dobbie Gillis, which seemed too long to me and, though perhaps a popular show at the time, almost utterly without any influence or impact in the present day. I'm not even sure shows like that are a good representation of the ethos of the country at the time. Likewise, by focusing on George Bush's early slacker life and portraying him as the "slacker president," I'm afraid this book may become terribly dated quick.
There are also many digressions away from the topic at hand into other things that apparently just caught the writer's fancy, long digressions I at first found annoying but eventually learned to enjoy. It's a shame the author didn't tackle the true slackers of the 90's too thoroughly, as they were the culmination of all the loafers and idlers that came before them. And the present day idea of slacking is only barely touched on, with ideas about Reality television and Anna Nicole Smith (still alive when this book was published). But I suppose it's a trait of the true slacker to leave everything unfinished a bit and to wallow away the time in digressions.
Doing Nothing is a pretty good primer to the study of doing nothing (or more accurately "not working," as that is the true subject of the book) from the dawning of America to more or less the current day. The author begins with an enjoyable account of his own attempts at doing nothing in the last 60's with a "back-to-earth" commune, and his relationship with his apparent vegetating son in the present day. I would have liked more personal anecdotes like these throughout the book, but save for the first chapter, and the last few paragraphs of the book, this is really the only times we get to see the author's personal take on the issue at hand.
The book follows a chronological order, skimming the surface and only rarely delving deeply on any particular subject. The study of doing nothing begins with Samuel Johnson and his Idler alter ego, and the contrast between this grandiose historic figure and the often seen as more productive and "driven" Benjamin Franklin, whose ambitious life should leave everyone hating him. A common theme in the book is the sense than when one is "doing nothing" and "not working" one is actually creating and doing a great deal- writing about doing nothing is doing something, after all, and we are lead to suppose we have lost the great works of the doers of nothing because they were too busy doing nothing to record the act. There is also a theme involving the self-consciousness of the "idler/loafer/slacker" throughout the ages, as a figure that holds himself self-referentially up while dismissing himself at the same time- well, I can sympathize with that.
One thing I disliked about this book, other than it did tend to just "recap" great achievements in slacking without much analysis, is that the author spent a little too much time on the more mainstream portrayals of the idler/loafer/slacker in American history. He spends a fair amount of time talking about the beats and Jack Kerouac, for example, but I would have preferred even more unglamorous portrayals of them rather than his digressions into Dobbie Gillis, which seemed too long to me and, though perhaps a popular show at the time, almost utterly without any influence or impact in the present day. I'm not even sure shows like that are a good representation of the ethos of the country at the time. Likewise, by focusing on George Bush's early slacker life and portraying him as the "slacker president," I'm afraid this book may become terribly dated quick.
There are also many digressions away from the topic at hand into other things that apparently just caught the writer's fancy, long digressions I at first found annoying but eventually learned to enjoy. It's a shame the author didn't tackle the true slackers of the 90's too thoroughly, as they were the culmination of all the loafers and idlers that came before them. And the present day idea of slacking is only barely touched on, with ideas about Reality television and Anna Nicole Smith (still alive when this book was published). But I suppose it's a trait of the true slacker to leave everything unfinished a bit and to wallow away the time in digressions.
December 18, 2012
Though I no longer remember what caused me to buy Tom Lutz's 2006 book Doing Nothing, it isn't hard to make an educated guess. As someone who cultivates a lifestyle that involves as little work in the classic sense (company, boss, white office, desk) as I find financially possible, it was likely the call of the kindred spirit, the desire to see this sort of lifestyle through somebody else's glasses. And yet, the title felt irksome. Doing nothing? It is not a state to which I aspire. (Is it even possible to literally do nothing?) I don't work much, as I said, in the classical sense, but "doing nothing" would be a inaccurate description of what fills my days. What does it mean to do nothing? What does it mean to work?
Most often, doing nothing is defined as the opposite of working, and working is defined as doing something that involves monetary payment. So when I write things that may never be published by an outside vendor or that will be published but without payment, am I doing nothing? When I take care of my daughter am I doing nothing? When I build something or attend a demonstration or read or research or create am I doing nothing? Why should activities involving financial renumeration hold a monopoly on the term work?
What I didn't expect to find in Lutz's book was a serious, thoughtful, well-researched history of folks, well, like me. (If he'd written his book a little later he would certainly have had to mention New Escapologist.) People who were at odds with the current take on work. People who wanted to paint pictures instead of get regular jobs. People who wrote extensively about the idle life (and whose activities very plainly expose them as the opposite of idle). Beats and slackers and philosophers and artists. Seeing myself—the way I live my life and the ideals I write about—as a tiny dot on a long historical timeline of idlers provided an interesting perspective. Who are we, where are we, and what will history make of out moment?
In the last five years or so, trading in the corporate work world for early retirement and a more exciting life on smaller means has become a trend large enough to earn it a place in any future printing of Lutz's book. Some travel, some stay at home to meditate and revel in the small pleasures of books and long walks, some attempt agricultural self-sufficiency (which is about as far from doing nothing as you can get). Aside from the homesteaders who are working their asses off making their living in a very literal sense, the rest of us are living lives about as far from reality as you can get. I'm not saying that reality involves any sort of desk work, but if you consider our basic need for food and shelter and the work it takes to make those things happen the basis of our reality, the desire to work less and meditate more only serves to alienate us further from a life that would bind us to our own lifeblood in a meaningful way. It does not change my mind about how I have chosen to live within my particular context, but I do imagine that through the eyes of people living in a way that I currently perceive as ideal, we, I, would look utterly ridiculous. Then again so would almost all of our other options to "work."
Lutz comes to the conclusion that doing nothing is part of a balance. The more work-obsessed a culture becomes, the stronger the slacker figures within that culture. At the end of the day, according to Lutz's research, the work ethic doesn't really exist. "The history of slackers is the history not just of our distaste for work and our fantasies of escaping it (as well as the history of our vilification of those who do escape it) but also a history of complexly distorted perceptions. One man's welfare queen is another man's struggling mother. One man's slacker son may be preparing his arrival as an artist..." People have a tendency, even when they are splitting the work 50/50, to assume that they are doing more than their fair share, and the other less. I have felt and witnessed the phenomenon myself in communal kitchens. Maybe slackers don't really exist either, are simply a phantom of our own perception that we are doing more than everybody else.
This was originally published on www.clickclackgorilla.com.
Most often, doing nothing is defined as the opposite of working, and working is defined as doing something that involves monetary payment. So when I write things that may never be published by an outside vendor or that will be published but without payment, am I doing nothing? When I take care of my daughter am I doing nothing? When I build something or attend a demonstration or read or research or create am I doing nothing? Why should activities involving financial renumeration hold a monopoly on the term work?
What I didn't expect to find in Lutz's book was a serious, thoughtful, well-researched history of folks, well, like me. (If he'd written his book a little later he would certainly have had to mention New Escapologist.) People who were at odds with the current take on work. People who wanted to paint pictures instead of get regular jobs. People who wrote extensively about the idle life (and whose activities very plainly expose them as the opposite of idle). Beats and slackers and philosophers and artists. Seeing myself—the way I live my life and the ideals I write about—as a tiny dot on a long historical timeline of idlers provided an interesting perspective. Who are we, where are we, and what will history make of out moment?
In the last five years or so, trading in the corporate work world for early retirement and a more exciting life on smaller means has become a trend large enough to earn it a place in any future printing of Lutz's book. Some travel, some stay at home to meditate and revel in the small pleasures of books and long walks, some attempt agricultural self-sufficiency (which is about as far from doing nothing as you can get). Aside from the homesteaders who are working their asses off making their living in a very literal sense, the rest of us are living lives about as far from reality as you can get. I'm not saying that reality involves any sort of desk work, but if you consider our basic need for food and shelter and the work it takes to make those things happen the basis of our reality, the desire to work less and meditate more only serves to alienate us further from a life that would bind us to our own lifeblood in a meaningful way. It does not change my mind about how I have chosen to live within my particular context, but I do imagine that through the eyes of people living in a way that I currently perceive as ideal, we, I, would look utterly ridiculous. Then again so would almost all of our other options to "work."
Lutz comes to the conclusion that doing nothing is part of a balance. The more work-obsessed a culture becomes, the stronger the slacker figures within that culture. At the end of the day, according to Lutz's research, the work ethic doesn't really exist. "The history of slackers is the history not just of our distaste for work and our fantasies of escaping it (as well as the history of our vilification of those who do escape it) but also a history of complexly distorted perceptions. One man's welfare queen is another man's struggling mother. One man's slacker son may be preparing his arrival as an artist..." People have a tendency, even when they are splitting the work 50/50, to assume that they are doing more than their fair share, and the other less. I have felt and witnessed the phenomenon myself in communal kitchens. Maybe slackers don't really exist either, are simply a phantom of our own perception that we are doing more than everybody else.
This was originally published on www.clickclackgorilla.com.
August 21, 2016
I picked up this book in February because it seemed to promise some analysis of alternatives to the standard capitalist work structure and expectations in the Western socioeconomic system.
To sum -- the bohemian types who "drop out" of society often do so to eschew the work-to-buy-more-things and work-gives-you-meaning model are a reflection of a rebellious underlying current in capitalist society/culture that is co-opted to be held up for derision and as bad examples to be avoided. I didn't have to read this book to get that information.
To be honest -- I wasn't at all suprised to read at the end that the author had problems sitting down and focusing on this book and getting it done. I found reading it to be quite challenging. It's not the quality of the writing -- but I think the author was overly ambitious and the result is an extremely dense catalog of mini-biographies and lapsing later into a bit of an annotated bibliography of popular culture (books, films etc). The structure is rather free flowing and feels more "stream of consciousness" -- some sub-headings and footnotes would have been nice.
What's truly missing is solid analysis and interpretation. There are smatterings and flirtations with analysis here and there -- and as a trained sociologist -- I sympathize with the magnetic allure of presenting all the evidence and letting the facts speak for themselves.
While many of the stories were interesting -- I would have preferred to also see some more information pulled in about whether slackers, loafers, loungers through history (and he goes back hundreds of years) have much impact. For example - tell me more about the "4 hour work week" and efforts to fully employ everyone (but at fewer hours)? The book is about 10 years old by now -- and I'd be curious to see an update and analysis of the cultural artifacts from the economic collapse of the housing crisis or other economic crises (ie, Greece!).
To sum -- the bohemian types who "drop out" of society often do so to eschew the work-to-buy-more-things and work-gives-you-meaning model are a reflection of a rebellious underlying current in capitalist society/culture that is co-opted to be held up for derision and as bad examples to be avoided. I didn't have to read this book to get that information.
To be honest -- I wasn't at all suprised to read at the end that the author had problems sitting down and focusing on this book and getting it done. I found reading it to be quite challenging. It's not the quality of the writing -- but I think the author was overly ambitious and the result is an extremely dense catalog of mini-biographies and lapsing later into a bit of an annotated bibliography of popular culture (books, films etc). The structure is rather free flowing and feels more "stream of consciousness" -- some sub-headings and footnotes would have been nice.
What's truly missing is solid analysis and interpretation. There are smatterings and flirtations with analysis here and there -- and as a trained sociologist -- I sympathize with the magnetic allure of presenting all the evidence and letting the facts speak for themselves.
While many of the stories were interesting -- I would have preferred to also see some more information pulled in about whether slackers, loafers, loungers through history (and he goes back hundreds of years) have much impact. For example - tell me more about the "4 hour work week" and efforts to fully employ everyone (but at fewer hours)? The book is about 10 years old by now -- and I'd be curious to see an update and analysis of the cultural artifacts from the economic collapse of the housing crisis or other economic crises (ie, Greece!).
May 23, 2007
Boy, this took me a while to get through. It wasn't that I hated this book or that I was lazy (well, maybe) or that I found it boring (because i didn't), it just wasn't a book I could gobble up in one sitting. It felt more like a history lesson which was informative but not something I could jump hoops for. What I couldn't really get behind was the writer's own personal back story...there wasn't much there. I wanted more personal stuff about his own life and the life of his slack ass son (who was the one who inspired the book). Oh well, maybe he was just too lazy.
Read
September 7, 2017I was working too hard doing housework when I learned somebody had stolen my laundry load. Furious, I made my boyfriend take me out of our apartment and into a bookstore. That's where I found Doing Nothing.
I've been unemployed and actively searching for a job for nearly five months now. I've gone through a longer stretch of unemployment due to health concerns. Since the idea of work and unemployment has been on my mind a lot lately, I was immediately interested in this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Lutz covers a ton of history, exploring the contradicting attitudes people have had about work through succeeding generations. I quickly related to a lot of his insights. I love leisure & appreciate all the free time I have being unemployed. However, I spend a ton of time doing actual, unappreciated work: domestic chores. I'm a pretty diligent housekeeper who finds so much satisfaction in having a clean, well-organized apartment. I'm not actually the loafer I think I am.
Some of my favorite insights by Lutz: How society often judge so-called "slackers," yet at the same time dream of early retirement spent lounging in a paradise island; Ben Franklin is known for pushing work ethic on Americans, yet he himself retired in his 30s and spent the rest of his life having late breakfasts, "air baths," mingling with the ladies, and coming home late; Samuel Johnson, who praised the "idler," labeling himself one, yet was prolific in his writing career; George W. was the laziest POTUS; the propaganda that led to the dismantling of the welfare system, and how this led to people receiving less money while working and increasing the level of poverty among youths. Lots more, like Kerouc's laziness, how slackers are attracted to the arts, literature, and academic professions, etc.
This book is a great read that will make you think a lot about your own values, dreams, and work ethic. Pretty much: you don't work as hard as you think, and neither are you as lazy as you claim.
I've been unemployed and actively searching for a job for nearly five months now. I've gone through a longer stretch of unemployment due to health concerns. Since the idea of work and unemployment has been on my mind a lot lately, I was immediately interested in this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Lutz covers a ton of history, exploring the contradicting attitudes people have had about work through succeeding generations. I quickly related to a lot of his insights. I love leisure & appreciate all the free time I have being unemployed. However, I spend a ton of time doing actual, unappreciated work: domestic chores. I'm a pretty diligent housekeeper who finds so much satisfaction in having a clean, well-organized apartment. I'm not actually the loafer I think I am.
Some of my favorite insights by Lutz: How society often judge so-called "slackers," yet at the same time dream of early retirement spent lounging in a paradise island; Ben Franklin is known for pushing work ethic on Americans, yet he himself retired in his 30s and spent the rest of his life having late breakfasts, "air baths," mingling with the ladies, and coming home late; Samuel Johnson, who praised the "idler," labeling himself one, yet was prolific in his writing career; George W. was the laziest POTUS; the propaganda that led to the dismantling of the welfare system, and how this led to people receiving less money while working and increasing the level of poverty among youths. Lots more, like Kerouc's laziness, how slackers are attracted to the arts, literature, and academic professions, etc.
This book is a great read that will make you think a lot about your own values, dreams, and work ethic. Pretty much: you don't work as hard as you think, and neither are you as lazy as you claim.
February 2, 2008
Although somewhat of a laborious read for the first part of the book I found that author Tom Lutz had put together an excellent review of various societal expextations regarding work, and individual responses to the same.
Tom Lutz's approach was neither manipulative no leading, but rather a well researched and straight forward presentation of both the shifting and static social perceptions of the value of work.
Tom Lutz's approach was neither manipulative no leading, but rather a well researched and straight forward presentation of both the shifting and static social perceptions of the value of work.
February 12, 2016
I totally don't feel like writing this review. I mean I already wrote one today for the Underachiever's Manifesto. Isn't that enough for one day? So I'll just say--It's good. Read it. There. I'm going to take a nap now.
November 14, 2009
Seemed like Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America was a good choice for my hundredth book posting on Goodreads. The question is: does having read the last 100 books and posting them categorize me as a loafer or workaholic? Is my avid reading habit a sign that I don't know how to relax or I don't have a serious job?
This book goes beyond that to probe our attitudes toward not working, and by extension, working. Is there a national work ethic? Is "slacking" a good or bad thing? More challenging, how do we define such terms? Can work be play or does it depend? If it depends, then on what?
The book takes deep in a wide range views from authors, TV, movies, and music over approximately the past 200 years (predominantly US, British, with a few others thrown in).
Gives one pause to consider one's own approach to work. The writer has a very engaging style and is very well read, himself.
This book goes beyond that to probe our attitudes toward not working, and by extension, working. Is there a national work ethic? Is "slacking" a good or bad thing? More challenging, how do we define such terms? Can work be play or does it depend? If it depends, then on what?
The book takes deep in a wide range views from authors, TV, movies, and music over approximately the past 200 years (predominantly US, British, with a few others thrown in).
Gives one pause to consider one's own approach to work. The writer has a very engaging style and is very well read, himself.
February 10, 2009
I am too disaffected to write a review of this book.
December 8, 2019
It seemed ironic that the flaw in a book about slackers and loafers was that it was too 'complex'..that the author worked too hard and put in too much research. Now...I didn't finish it, I quit about halfway, so maybe it got better. But I could only read so much about old timey 'loafers' from the 1700s, all the things they invented, the books they wrote, the non-loafy things they did, and I finally just gave up.
It just seemed like the word "history" in the title held alot more weight, and sucked up alot more pages, than the 8 words that followed it. Half the time I couldn't even figure out what the 'history lesson' had to do with loafing anyway.
There were short sections that were great and were more what I expected...then, finally, as it took another long detour into the early 1800s and I jumped off for good. Ah well. Maybe that just proves I'm too much of a slacker to finish it.
It just seemed like the word "history" in the title held alot more weight, and sucked up alot more pages, than the 8 words that followed it. Half the time I couldn't even figure out what the 'history lesson' had to do with loafing anyway.
There were short sections that were great and were more what I expected...then, finally, as it took another long detour into the early 1800s and I jumped off for good. Ah well. Maybe that just proves I'm too much of a slacker to finish it.
August 31, 2017
“My sense of my own laziness may simply be the perverse guilt engendered by a work ethic that digs its dominatrix heel into my back and rarely lets me up.”
*
So my own sense of aimlessness earlier this summer convinced me to pick up Tom Lutz’s book — and I could totally relate to Tom’s description of feeling simultaneously lazy and productive! The personal parts of this book about Tom’s own life engaged me the most, though this is primarily a historical survey through the times of attitudes about work, productivity, laziness, and the meaning of a life well lived —
*
So my own sense of aimlessness earlier this summer convinced me to pick up Tom Lutz’s book — and I could totally relate to Tom’s description of feeling simultaneously lazy and productive! The personal parts of this book about Tom’s own life engaged me the most, though this is primarily a historical survey through the times of attitudes about work, productivity, laziness, and the meaning of a life well lived —
November 24, 2022
I read /Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America/, by Tom Lutz:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...
The "Idler", the world's first slacker, appeared in 1758. Lutz chronicles the history of loungers, romantics, loafers, communists, drinkers, bohemians, nerve cases, saunterers, tramps, flaneurs, sports, flappers, babbitts, bums, beats, non-conformists, playboys, delinquents, draft dodgers, surfers, TV beakniks, hippie communards, and finally, the modern-day slacker.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...
The "Idler", the world's first slacker, appeared in 1758. Lutz chronicles the history of loungers, romantics, loafers, communists, drinkers, bohemians, nerve cases, saunterers, tramps, flaneurs, sports, flappers, babbitts, bums, beats, non-conformists, playboys, delinquents, draft dodgers, surfers, TV beakniks, hippie communards, and finally, the modern-day slacker.
December 22, 2018
Tom Lutz confronting his slacker son's inactivity confronted his own and America's work ethic. Interesting observations on how Ben Franklin praised worked but lived leisurely while Samuel Johnson praised rest and lived industrious life. In his work I think that Lutz failed to connect the fact of the wealth of America to our attitudes towards work. A hardworking person could make a fortune but the wealth of the land allowed slackers to live relatively well on the leavings of society.
April 3, 2025
Interesting survey of America's conflicting attitude about work and leisure over the past 250 years. There has been both a desire for meaningful labor and ease which has often changed over the years. The book is academic in nature but the author includes personal antidotes which kept my attention.
May 2, 2025
Some interesting points. The book made me analyze my own relationship to work-but overall, this was a difficult read. The cover seemed to indicate a light, interesting book-but it was full of dull statistics, and was an overall snoozefest.
June 30, 2021
DNF p.170. Started strong but got bogged down in biographical details and lost the overall narrative flow. Too many brambles, branches, and rocks in the socket steam to bother to continue with…
August 16, 2022
As a self identified flaneur, I enjoyed reading this book while traveling.
May 4, 2025
More an examination of the work ethic in Western Culture, rather than an extended treatise on goofing off. His take on Maynard G. Krebs was a highlight.
December 5, 2025
Thoughtful history
The title belies a very thoughtful and engaging history of our attitude towards both work and dodging it. Very much worth reading.
The title belies a very thoughtful and engaging history of our attitude towards both work and dodging it. Very much worth reading.
Want to read
December 21, 2014This caught my eye at the library. I skimmed the first chapter and would like to finish it some day (I need to finish a few other books first!) Seems to be a history of "slackers" in US popular culture and how it interacts in curious ways with the history of the Puritan work ethic.
I like the cute intro about how the author is frustrated with his son's way of "doing nothing" in a sort of post-high school gap year: The son's alleged plan is to get a low-key job while he focuses on playing the bass & starting a band... but in practice he sits on the couch with his laptop all day watching Internet videos. This grates against the author's memories of his own youth spent "doing nothing" in a far more active way: traveling the country, taking odd jobs, learning a zillion different trades and skills, and doing tons of drugs along the way.
I myself wish that, when I was hunting for a "real job" during the summer after college and then the one after getting a master's, I'd spent less time on the laptop/couch and more time taking odd jobs to learn new skills or at least just have different experiences. As Gax says, "approach job opportunities as if someone had asked you, 'Will you accept this sum of money to learn _____?'"
p.11: "Tending the automated French fryer has nothing to do with what we mean by work when we talk about the value of work ... McJobs are much more likely to fuel than to defuse class rage, much more likely to teach people the futility than the value of work."
p.30: Idleness vs inactivity: if you work as a fisherman for a living, sitting still while you fish is inactive, but it isn't the kind of refreshing idleness you get from, say, going for a walk (when you are physically active but still idle).
p.39: "Everyone I know is in the same boat. We are all lazy imposters, and we are all workaholic slaves." It's too easy to feel I spent too much time on leisure (reading silly books, playing computer games, surfing Facebook---that last one especially doesn't leave me feeling refreshed or relaxed!) when I could be working... yet I also feel I spend too much time obsessed with work (doing homework, planning out projects, sitting in meetings). Where's the balance? How can I raise my kids to have a good work ethic but in a healthy way, not to feel like a guilty slacker whenever they take a break?
p.45: The author and his buddies started a farm/commune in his youth: they felt good about exiting the rat race, but it was still a ton of hard work. "Like Thoreau, in fact, my quasi-communards and I were proud of both things---proud of all the work we did, how proficient in the traditional crafts and labors, and, at the same time, proud of our early, irregular retirement from the world of bourgeois employment. I had a sneaking suspicion that the unresolved contradictions wouldn't bear looking at too closely if I wanted to retain my sense of moral superiority, and so, again like Thoreau, I was careful about what I decided to examine closely." :)
p.46: "Ten o'clock at night on the phone with someone, it isn't uncommon to hear, 'What are you going to do now?' 'Try to get a little work in.' ... We may or may not then go back to work. It isn't dishonesty; it's like a loyalty oath, a pledge of allegiance."
I like the cute intro about how the author is frustrated with his son's way of "doing nothing" in a sort of post-high school gap year: The son's alleged plan is to get a low-key job while he focuses on playing the bass & starting a band... but in practice he sits on the couch with his laptop all day watching Internet videos. This grates against the author's memories of his own youth spent "doing nothing" in a far more active way: traveling the country, taking odd jobs, learning a zillion different trades and skills, and doing tons of drugs along the way.
I myself wish that, when I was hunting for a "real job" during the summer after college and then the one after getting a master's, I'd spent less time on the laptop/couch and more time taking odd jobs to learn new skills or at least just have different experiences. As Gax says, "approach job opportunities as if someone had asked you, 'Will you accept this sum of money to learn _____?'"
p.11: "Tending the automated French fryer has nothing to do with what we mean by work when we talk about the value of work ... McJobs are much more likely to fuel than to defuse class rage, much more likely to teach people the futility than the value of work."
p.30: Idleness vs inactivity: if you work as a fisherman for a living, sitting still while you fish is inactive, but it isn't the kind of refreshing idleness you get from, say, going for a walk (when you are physically active but still idle).
p.39: "Everyone I know is in the same boat. We are all lazy imposters, and we are all workaholic slaves." It's too easy to feel I spent too much time on leisure (reading silly books, playing computer games, surfing Facebook---that last one especially doesn't leave me feeling refreshed or relaxed!) when I could be working... yet I also feel I spend too much time obsessed with work (doing homework, planning out projects, sitting in meetings). Where's the balance? How can I raise my kids to have a good work ethic but in a healthy way, not to feel like a guilty slacker whenever they take a break?
p.45: The author and his buddies started a farm/commune in his youth: they felt good about exiting the rat race, but it was still a ton of hard work. "Like Thoreau, in fact, my quasi-communards and I were proud of both things---proud of all the work we did, how proficient in the traditional crafts and labors, and, at the same time, proud of our early, irregular retirement from the world of bourgeois employment. I had a sneaking suspicion that the unresolved contradictions wouldn't bear looking at too closely if I wanted to retain my sense of moral superiority, and so, again like Thoreau, I was careful about what I decided to examine closely." :)
p.46: "Ten o'clock at night on the phone with someone, it isn't uncommon to hear, 'What are you going to do now?' 'Try to get a little work in.' ... We may or may not then go back to work. It isn't dishonesty; it's like a loyalty oath, a pledge of allegiance."
October 23, 2010
The amount of material Lutz puts together on such a broad topic is mildly impressive, though he does stretch it a bit by throwing in actual professions that aren't very active but don't really warrant being labeled "loafing", such as philosophy. I was surprised by the thoughtfulness of this book; I sort of expected a snarky lampooning of "a generation of slackers". Instead, Lutz tracks the sociology of leisure through history, showing us how it evolved from a marker of class to a negative concept of class ("poor people are poor because they're lazy" vs. "rich people are lazy because they're rich"). His look at pop culture is pretty interesting too: he looks at media from "Office Space" to "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" to show us how we as a culture think about issues of labor and leisure. I'd have preferred that this book be written completely in this more serious, thoughtful tone, and I cared nothing for his personal anecdotes, which seemed just a little self-indulgent.
A thoughtful book that doesn't make you think too much.
A thoughtful book that doesn't make you think too much.
March 20, 2009
Fascinating social history of the nonworking outcast in American society. Lutz follows this societal archetype from Johnson's Idler character through Thoreau, Melville, the WWI "slacker," hobos, the Beats, communards, surfers, and Generation X "slackers." Mostly he explores America's love/hate relationship with the drop out (think Chaplin vs. welfare mom) and the Catch-22 of hating loafers while working hard in order to loaf (beach lounge, couch lounge, cocktail lounge). This all came about because Lutz got angry at his teenage son for "doing nothing" (watching tv all day). But then Lutz remembered his own father's anger at him for "doing nothing" (hitchhiking, picking up odd jobs, etc.). But to Lutz, he was doing something. In fact, if his son had been spending all his time writing a going-nowhere novel or playing bass in the garage, he would have been "happy."
September 2, 2015
Tom Lutz did a tremendous amount of research for his history of slacking; he does not deserve to be in the ranks of the indolent. Although billed as a history of loafers, layabouts, and lazybones, the book is actually a study of the philosophy of work. The concept of work, and ways of avoiding it, are somewhat recent in origin. In the past, if you did not work you did not eat. Slacking needs work in order to mean something; you cannot be the opposite of something that does not exist. In true slacker fashion, I skimmed the last chapter. However, all that preceded it was good, rich food for thought. I still prefer Boredom: A Lively History, which praises the art of doing nothing more than Lutz's book. However, the history of work avoidance, from Franklin up to Lutz's son, is rewarding reading, more work than play alas.
September 1, 2014
I read this book because I have always felt admittedly lazy. I thought 400 years of critique regarding the subject of idleness versus the socially sanctioned work ethic would be cathartic. Indeed, it was, but there are no easy answers, except that it is safest to fall between the two extremes. Lutz began his research when his son, Cody, took a break and "wound up on the couch" back at home. In a sense, both myself and the author have to constantly re-asses our relationship to work, and that formed my attraction to and high opinion of the text. 'Well researched, thoughtful, and thorough, it is a book that I would read again. Another irresistible and charming method used by Lutz is his chapter introductions, which are a delightful confection from the nineteenth century. I loved this book.
June 24, 2010
I read this while thoroughly enjoying my vacation in Italy. This fact may have added an additional rosy hue to the aura of this book.
One of the things that surprised me was that for a book about doing nothing, it had a lot to say about the nature of work. Lutz's basic, compelling premise is that self-defined slackers are often workaholics, and self-defined workaholics have periods of slackerdom. Both definitions require the other, within society and often within individuals. Lutz struggles with the definition of work in a way that resonates with me lately. More than anything, this book made me want to be a fiction writer. Anyone pay by the word, these days?
One of the things that surprised me was that for a book about doing nothing, it had a lot to say about the nature of work. Lutz's basic, compelling premise is that self-defined slackers are often workaholics, and self-defined workaholics have periods of slackerdom. Both definitions require the other, within society and often within individuals. Lutz struggles with the definition of work in a way that resonates with me lately. More than anything, this book made me want to be a fiction writer. Anyone pay by the word, these days?
April 30, 2008
This book cracked me up. It is a history of loafers, loungers and slackers in US history. Lutz takes the reader from the writings of Ben Franklin, our founding loafer, to the money Office Space—the slacker cult film. Lutz is doing an historical analysis of the work ethic and its other—the lazy bum. Lutz uses a range of cultural texts and historical characters to make his case. The upshot is that the work ethic is what is producing the slacker. Lutz quotes at length many writings that extol the virtues of doing nothing, however, these writers were not the slackers they professed to be—they were quite busy and prolific.
May 11, 2010
Doing Nothing by Tom Lutz is essentially the history of the slacker. From Benjamin Franklin and Thoreau to communes, beatniks, the punk movement and George W. Bush – I found this history to be quite interesting. While I expected to see references to Office Space and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I was surprised by the amount of references to authors, music and movies that I had not considered before. It turns out that our culture is heavily defined by slackers.
Complete review at http://chereemoore.blogspot.com/2010/...
Complete review at http://chereemoore.blogspot.com/2010/...
March 17, 2007
If you resent having to devote all your time to your job, and you feel like a whiny brat because of it, the introduction to this book will soothe your worry by putting your complaints into context. If you are like me, however, you will become so soothed that you will immediately lose interest. I'm giving it 3 stars because I really enjoyed the first 40 pages, but the sad truth is that I was too lazy to read any more.
October 24, 2014
It took me a while to read this, as it gave me plenty to think about. Lutz springboards from his son's indolence to a study of societal impressions of work and play throughout history. He doesn't draw a lot of major conclusions, opting instead to report how each generation has handled the question of how much to work and how much to rest. The book is packed with information and deeply thought-provoking on a personal and societal level.
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