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Work is not the same as stress. People today (especially near the bottom of the ladder) are not in control of their own destiny like they used to be. It's a dif
by phkahler 2y ago
Work is not the same as stress. People today (especially near the bottom of the ladder) are not in control of their own destiny like they used to be. It's a different kind of stress.
- victorbjorklund 2y agoSlaves were more on control of their own destinys than someone working an entry job today?
- anovikov 2y agoAnd they used to be more in control? Epidemics wiping out whole families? Gulags, concentration camps? Religious violence? Persistent threat of starvation death that was just the norm of life? One year of crop failures, and your kids are dead. Two years, and you are dead yourself. And it doesn't depend on you at all, just bad luck (if there was too much luck - like a generation without crop failures - population doubled, then just one year of crop failures meant you were dead). And yeah, the Church that keeps telling people that they were all sinners and will burn in hell, very comforting. Tell me about "control of one's own destiny".
- cosmic_cheese 2y agoI think there’s something to this. Life in those times was difficult and stressful, yes, but most hardships then were entirely beyond any individual’s control. To a large extent, good times and bad times would come and go regardless of what you did. Contrast this to the modern day where more often than not, hardships are attributed to personal failings (“You should’ve worked harder if you didn’t want to be stuck working abusive under-compensated jobs!”) and people perpetually teeter on the edge of a knife suspended over a bottomless pit. If anything goes wrong, it’s treated as nobody’s fault but your own, regardless of the reality of the situation. It’s almost a type of psychological torture.