In:
Philosophical Literary Journal Logos, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Vol. 29, No. 1 ( 2019), p. 243-258
Abstract:
The essay investigates the phenomenon of laziness by first analyzing the opposition between laziness and the good. Both utility and the good make reference to labor. This opposition between labor and laziness is pivotal in Oblomov, Ivan Goncharov’s famous novel written in 1859. It marks a radical transition from a feudal paradigm to a capitalistic one. The two main characters in the novel are Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a Russian, and Andrey Ivanovich Stolz, a German, who together seem to personify the contradiction between laziness and labor. But the purpose of the essay is to deconstruct that opposition. In this connection, one can cite Kazimir Malevich, who maintained that laziness is the Mother of Perfection and is always unconsciously inherent in the conscious intent to work. Analysis of the Latin concepts of otium and negotium indicates that the laziness/labor opposition may be deconstructed as a dialectic between labor and its opposite. In other words, laziness does not stand in contradiction to labor but is instead its inseparable dialectical other. In the last part of the essay, the article considers the thinking of Anatoly Peregud, a poet who spent almost all his life in a psychiatric hospital. According to Peregud, Lenin derived his pseudonym from the Russian linguistic root “len” (laziness) in order to make laziness central to communism. For his part, Lenin saw Oblomov as an emblem of the main obstacle standing in the way of communism.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
2499-9628
,
0869-5377
DOI:
10.22394/0869-5377-2019-1
DOI:
10.22394/0869-5377-2019-1-243-257
Language:
Russian
Publisher:
The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
Publication Date:
2019
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2826495-2
SSG:
7,39
SSG:
5,1
