Work, Labor, and Play 工作、勞作和娛樂

By Wystan Hugh Auden

So far as I know, Miss Hannah Arendt was the first person to define the essential difference between work and labor. To be happy, a man must feel, firstly, free and, secondly, important. He cannot be really happy if he is compelled by society to do what he does not enjoy doing, or if what he enjoys doing is ignored by society as of no value or importance. In a society where slavery in the strict sense has been abolished, the sign that what a man does is of social value is that he is paid money to do it, but a laborer today can rightly be called a wage slave. A man is a laborer if the job society offers him is of no interest to himself but he is compelled to take it by the necessity of earning a living and supporting his family.

據(jù)我所知，漢納?阿倫特小姐是第一個(gè)給予工作和勞作之間本質(zhì)區(qū)別的人。一個(gè)人要高興，首先要感到自由，其次是感到重要。如果他被社會(huì)強(qiáng)迫做他不愿做的事，或者他喜歡做的事被社會(huì)忽視，被認(rèn)為無價(jià)值和不重要，他就不會(huì)真正高興。在一個(gè)從嚴(yán)格意義上來說奴隸制已被廢除的社會(huì)里，一個(gè)人所做的事情具有社會(huì)價(jià)值的樗是他的工作得到了報(bào)酬。但今天的勞動(dòng)者可以恰當(dāng)?shù)胤Q為薪金的奴隸。如果他對(duì)社會(huì)提供給他的工作不感興趣，但出于謀生和養(yǎng)家而被迫接受，這個(gè)人就稱為勞作者。

The antithesis to labor is play. When we play a game, we enjoy what we are doing, otherwise we should not play it, but it is a purely private activity; society could not care less whether we play it or not.

與勞作相對(duì)的是玩，當(dāng)玩耍時(shí)我們?cè)谙硎埽駝t是不會(huì)去玩的，不過這純粹是私人活動(dòng)，社會(huì)對(duì)你玩或不玩是極不關(guān)心的。