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Zonie63 -> RE: Are Americans Lazy? Part 2 - Dare (11/15/2011 7:14:37 AM)
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I didn't read through that other thread too much, although the OP indicated it was in the context of Obama's speech to CEOs.
"Americans are lazy" is a common complaint I've heard for a long time. It's not just in the past couple of decades. In fact, a lot of the proponents for outsourcing have made similar statements about Americans being lazy, which is their justification for shutting down factories in the US and transferring them overseas. I find it interesting that their idea of "not lazy" is working in a sweat shop for 12 hours a day at starvation wages.
I don't know if the issue is laziness as much as short-sighted stupidity, but in any case, it goes back further than just the past couple of decades, as Obama suggested. I've heard some say that our decline started just after World War II, when we had a big victory party that never stopped. Everything was about "fun, fun, fun."
The people who worked and took responsibility were called "squares" and practically outcast from society. That's probably where a lot of it got started, with that kind of mentality. A lot of people had a goal of getting some cushy high-paying job while doing as little work as possible. The money was all that mattered, not the work.
The glorification of mobsterism and other criminality fed into the notion that it doesn't matter how you get money, just as long as you have it. Just like in movies such as Goodfellas or Casino, the notion was that people who worked for a living were "saps" and "suckers," with even the implication that someone who lives an honest life is "not a real man."
Likewise, any job deemed "menial" or low-paying is only for "losers," and that is also a strong part of our popular culture these days.
With these kinds of ideas floating around popular culture for as long as I can remember, it's not surprising that the implication is a societal peer pressure to be "lazy."
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