While listening to the Minds and Mics Podcast with Piers Steel and Nick Wignall, Steel was asked whether he believes procrastination and laziness are the same thing. To paraphrase, Steel does not believe they are the same thing, with the main difference being intent. Lazy people do not care about whether the task gets done or not; they never had any intention of doing it and it’s not important to them. Conversely, procrastinators usually care very much about the task, and they care whether it gets done – to the extent that they feel remorse or regret when it either doesn’t happen or when it does happen but the task is rushed.
I am firmly of the opinion that procrastination and laziness are not the same thing. For a few reasons, the first being that laziness is largely associated with the notion that in order for people to be worthy of something or to have virtue, that they must be productive. This ideology goes all the way back to Plato. However, I think that this stance ignores the fact that people with disabilities exist and they are worthy and virtuous regardless of whether or not they produce.
The second is that I question why laziness is bad in the first place? Of course in a Capitalist society that believes that human beings are only worthy if they produce, it makes sense that laziness would be a moral failing as well as a sin against the gods of productivity. This particularly applies to Black people and people of colour. (Grooms 2020). However, it is a construct, it only exists because humans believe it does. If we are to examine laziness as a lack of motivation or drive to do something, or as a purely selfish form of inactivity, then what is the result? Who suffers when someone is lazy?
Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness has definitely influenced my thinking in this regard as has Devon Price’s medium article and book Laziness Does Not Exist. Although Russell is actually praising idleness or laziness as a virtue and a necessity for creativity and reflection, I think that his point matches very well with Price’s. The concept of laziness is largely a human invention and is very subjective; one person’s laziness is another person’s reflection time. Particularly in a creative context, we need time and space to reflect and ‘dream’ in order to be innovative or creative in the first place (Cohen & Ferrari 2020).
Bibliography
Joseph R. Cohen & Joseph R. Ferrari (2010) ‘Take Some Time to Think This Over: The Relation Between Rumination, Indecision, and Creativity’, Creativity Research Journal, 22:1, 68-73, DOI: 10.1080/10400410903579601 https://doi.org/10.1080/10400410903579601
Wignall, N., 2020. The Science of Procrastination with Piers Steel. [podcast] Minds and Mics. Available at: <https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ONIHQCgQVxt5VcNCI1V4A?si=HhF2BK3NReuwepgZZlbxyw>
Grooms, E. C, ‘The Race for Time: Experiences in the Temporality of Blackness’ (2020). Senior Projects Spring. 241. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2020/241
Price, D (2021) Laziness Does Not Exist. New York: Atria Books