Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'Cultural history'

August 11, 2014

What does it mean to be civilized?

As a mother of five, there have been times when I was pretty sure “civilized” meant a dinner where no one called a sibling a name, everyone ate with utensils, and whoever got assigned dish duty did it without grumbling. Continue Reading...
June 18, 2013

Take This Job and Shove It, Faulkner-Style

Courtesy today’s edition of Prufrock, a fine daily newsletter edited by Micah Mattix, comes this classic resignation letter from William Faulkner, onetime postmaster at the University of Mississippi: [October, 1924] As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. Continue Reading...
February 25, 2013

A World Without Work: Where Civilization Slowly Melts Away

In his latest column, Ross Douthat contemplates what a world without work might look like: Imagine, as 19th-century utopians often did, a society rich enough that fewer and fewer people need to work — a society where leisure becomes universally accessible, where part-time jobs replace the regimented workweek, and where living standards keep rising even though more people have left the work force altogether. Continue Reading...
October 27, 2010

Make Work Your Favorite

Very often it is difficult to see in any concrete way how our work really means anything at all. The drudgery of the daily routine can be numbing, sometimes literally depending on your working conditions. Continue Reading...