Publication: Between Christianity and Modernity: the many meanings of “laziness” and “boredom” in Spain and Latin America
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2013
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en
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item.page.harrt.identifier.callno
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The proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Language, Literature, and Cultural Studies
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100
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109
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Between Christianity and Modernity: the many meanings of “laziness” and “boredom” in Spain and Latin America
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Abstract
This article examines “boredom” and “boredom-as-laziness” in Western history, with particular reference to Spain. It is thus an approach to the problem of boredom and laziness through the lens of Christianity and modernity. Here I will attempt to introduce Spain into the question of how boredom passed from the classical world to modern society, via religion. From the late Middle Ages, Spain became a stronghold of Christianity, its economy often lagging behind that of France, the UK and Germany. Thus “boredom” was central, as it was central too to the Christian notion of sin, as well as to the capitalist take on laziness. After discussing the origins of boredom in classical and medieval texts, I will pay particular attention to the views of two French scholars, Voltaire and Paul Lafargue, who lived in the late 18th and late 19th centuries respectively. The goal of this text is to show how the experience of boredom is inextricably linked to the history of Western culture, and how for the past two thousand years ―but not earlier― boredom has been denigrated by both the religious and economic forces that ultimately built Western society as we know it. In turn, from the 19th century at least, boredom-as-laziness, often equated with “primitivism,” has been celebrated by those who are skeptical about the Western notion of progress. Spain was not unique in this respect, it must be said, but it seems a good example of Western values and attitudes on the periphery.