XIV. Learning to Play

“BUT in either case,” exclaims an indignant mother, “the child ceases to be a child—under either the democratic or the capitalistic plan—”

No, madam! The object of a genuine democratic education is to enable him to remain always a child.

“Then,” says another interlocutor, “I must have misunderstood you. I thought you conceived of education as growing-up.”

Growing up, yes—out of the helplessness, the fear, the misery¹ of childhood, which come only from weakness and ignorance: growing up into knowledge and power.

“But putting aside forever his toys and games,” protests the mother. “Forgetting how to play!”

No, madam. Learning rather to take realities for his toys, and entering blithely² into the fascinating and delightful³ game of life. Forget how to play? That is what he is condemned⁴ to now. It[Pg 91] is a pity. And that is precisely⁵ what we want to change.

“By setting him to work?”

What! are we to quibble over words? Tell me, then, what is the difference between work and play?

Or rather, to shorten the argument, let me tell you. Play is effort which embodies⁶ one’s own creative wishes, one’s own dreams. Work is any kind of effort which fails to embody⁷ such wishes and such dreams.... When you were first married, and began to keep house—under difficulties, it may be—was that work or play, madam? Do not be afraid of being sentimental—we are among friends. Is it not true that at first, while it was a part of the dream of companionship, while it seemed to you to be making that dream come true, it was play—no matter how much effort it took? And is it not true that when it came to seem to you merely something that had to be done, it was work, no matter how easily performed?—And you, my friend, who built a little house in the country with your own hands for pleasure, and worked far beyond union hours in doing it—was not that play?

It was your own house, you say. Just so; and it is the child’s own house, that cave in the woods[Pg 92] which he toils⁸ so cheerfully to create. And it was their own house, the cathedral which the artisans and craftsmen¹⁰ of the middle ages created so joyously—the realization¹¹ of a collective wish to which the creative fancy of every worker might make its private contribution.

You know, do you not, why we cannot build cathedrals now? Because craftsmen are no longer children at play—that is to say, no longer free men. They toil⁹ at something which is no affair of theirs, because they must. They have become the more or less unwilling¹² slaves of a system of machine production, which they have not yet gained the knowledge and power to take and use to serve their own creative dreams.

But men do not like to work; they like to play. They want to be the masters and not the slaves of the machine-system. That is why they have struggled so fiercely to climb out of the class of slaves into the class of masters; it has been that hope which has sustained them in what would otherwise have seemed an intolerable condition. And that is why, as such a hope goes glimmering¹³, they join together to wrest¹⁴ from their employers some control over the conditions under which they work; and also why their employers so often prefer to lose money in strikes rather than concede[Pg 93] such control—for the sense of mastery is dearer even than profits. That is, incidentally, why so many workers prefer a white collar job to a decent union wage—because it permits them to fancy themselves a part of the master class. And finally, that is why the industrial system is now at the point of breakdown—because a class of workers who have no sense of mastery over their jobs cannot and will not take enough interest in their work to meet the new and stupendous demands upon production. When pressure is put upon them, they revolt—and hell is raised, but not the production-rate.

Every production manager knows that even our most efficient industries are producing far less than their maximum; and he knows why. The psychology¹⁵ of slavery does not make for efficiency. There was a time when inefficiency¹⁶ didn’t matter—when infants in agony from lack of sleep and girls terrorized by brutal¹⁷ foremen could produce more than could be sold, and were preferable to workers who had to be bargained with. Capitalism¹⁸ denied the worker the right to dare to think his job his own. But the wiseacres of capitalism now encourage the worker to believe his interests identical with those of his employer; they take out some of his wages and give it back to him in[Pg 94] a separate envelope and call it “profit-sharing.” But the production manager knows that such a mess of doubtful pottage will scarcely take the place of their birthright. He knows that he has got out of the workers the utmost that their slave psychology will permit. He knows that there is no use to go on telling them that the business is their affair. He knows that the only thing left to be done is to make it their affair—to put into their collective control not only wages and hours, but what they create and how they create it. The job must be theirs before they can put into it the energy of free men. Their creative wish alone can bring production to its maximum. But that is not what he is paid to do. He, too, is denied the right to shape industry to his dream; he may not make it efficient; he must try to make it more profitable. He, too, is a slave ... a slave who wishes his master would set him free to play for a while with this great beautiful toy. He would show us how to increase production by 100 per cent on four hours work a day. He would show us how work could be made a joy to everybody. He would—but what is the use? He sits and looks out the window and wishes that something would happen. Perhaps these young men and women who have learned to play with[Pg 95] machinery¹⁹, who know it as a splendid toy and not as a hateful tyrant²⁰, who want to use it to make themselves and the world happier—perhaps a generation of such workers, the products of a democratic and efficient educational system, will have the knowledge and the power to take and use this machinery to serve their own creative dream of a useful and happy new society....

Madam, have I answered your question?

1 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

2 blithely   

adv.欢乐地，快活地，无挂虑地

参考例句：

• They blithely carried on chatting, ignoring the customers who were waiting to be served. 他们继续开心地聊天，将等着购物的顾客们置于一边。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He blithely ignored her protests and went on talking as if all were agreed between them. 对她的抗议他毫不在意地拋诸脑后，只管继续往下说，仿彿他们之间什么都谈妥了似的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 delightful   

adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的

参考例句：

• We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
• Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。

4 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

5 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

6 embodies   

v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This document embodies the concern of the government for the deformity. 这个文件体现了政府对残疾人的关怀。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 embody   

vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录

参考例句：

• The latest locomotives embody many new features. 这些最新的机车具有许多新的特色。
• Hemingway's characters plainly embody his own values and view of life.海明威笔下的角色明确反映出他自己的价值观与人生观。

8 toils   

网

参考例句：

• It did not declare him to be still in Mrs. Dorset's toils. 这并不表明他仍陷于多赛特夫人的情网。
• The thief was caught in the toils of law. 这个贼陷入了法网。

9 toil   

vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事

参考例句：

• The wealth comes from the toil of the masses.财富来自大众的辛勤劳动。
• Every single grain is the result of toil.每一粒粮食都来之不易。

10 craftsmen   

n. 技工

参考例句：

• rugs handmade by local craftsmen 由当地工艺师手工制作的小地毯
• The craftsmen have ensured faithful reproduction of the original painting. 工匠保证要复制一幅最接近原作的画。

11 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。

12 unwilling   

adj.不情愿的

参考例句：

• The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
• His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。

13 glimmering   

n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I got some glimmering of what he was driving at. 他这么说是什么意思，我有点明白了。 来自辞典例句
• Now that darkness was falling, only their silhouettes were outlined against the faintly glimmering sky. 这时节两山只剩余一抹深黑，赖天空微明为画出一个轮廓。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

14 wrest   

n.扭，拧，猛夺；v.夺取，猛扭，歪曲

参考例句：

• The officer managed to wrest the gun from his grasp.警官最终把枪从他手中夺走了。
• You wrest my words out of their real meaning.你曲解了我话里的真正含义。

15 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

16 inefficiency   

n.无效率，无能；无效率事例

参考例句：

• Conflict between management and workers makes for inefficiency in the workplace. 资方与工人之间的冲突使得工厂生产效率很低。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This type of inefficiency arises because workers and management are ill-equipped. 出现此种低效率是因为工人与管理层都能力不足。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 brutal   

adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的

参考例句：

• She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
• They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。

18 capitalism   

n.资本主义

参考例句：

• The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。
• Capitalism began to develop in Russia in the 19th century.十九世纪资本主义在俄国开始发展。

19 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

20 tyrant   

n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人

参考例句：

• The country was ruled by a despotic tyrant.该国处在一个专制暴君的统治之下。
• The tyrant was deaf to the entreaties of the slaves.暴君听不到奴隶们的哀鸣。