Work and Pol Pot

There are people who think that they speak for the working man. The questio=
n to ask these people is, =E2=80=9CWhat do you mean by work?=E2=80=9D

There are many things that are work that someone would claim not to be work=
. Pol Pot thought that businessmen and professionals weren=E2=80=99t doing =
real work, so he killed off the entire propertied and educated population o=
f Cambodia. Closer to home there are many people who see art as not work. I=
 know more about the subject than they do, and I can tell that art very muc=
h is work. It takes a lot of effort to produce a good piece of art, and tha=
t qualifies very much as work.

Some people see social workers as being parasitical as well. In fact they a=
re doing a valuable contribution. It takes a lot less money to hire a socia=
l worker to check someone=E2=80=99s criminal tendencies than it does to loc=
k them up. What social workers do is therefore beneficial to the taxpayer, =
and they deserve to be treated with respect.

The academia is frequently accused of being parasitical as well. What we ha=
ve here is failure of comprehension. Most of what business sells is technol=
ogy, and technology comes out of science. The true root of prosperity is no=
t business but science; and while business has a large role in it, without =
science business would be nothing more than exchange of basic commodities a=
t the level it was in Medieval Persia.

Government =E2=80=93 you know everything of which it has been accused. My r=
esponse is that not all governments are the same. American government is no=
thing like North Korean government. It does not begin to compare in tyranny=
 and cruelty. In America, the worst abuses aren=E2=80=99t done by the gover=
nment. They are done by private entities and individuals. Incestuous and vi=
olent parents, suffocating communities, corrupt networks in law and medicin=
e, dishonest religious organizations, mafia and the gangs. And while it rem=
ains necessary to hold the government accountable to the voter, real improv=
ement in America stands to be gained by recognizing potential for wrongdoin=
g in all entities =E2=80=93 both public and private =E2=80=93 and confronti=
ng that wrong-doing.

I seek to confront Pol Potism whether it be against propertied people or ag=
ainst creative people and whether it be practiced by government or by priva=
te entities. Most of the people they attack perform a function. Not all pur=
suits are immediately compensated; many take a long time to mature or have =
a meaning that is only understood through expanded analysis. Art, social wo=
rk and science very much are work. And it is important that this be recogni=
zed.