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Sloth In Modern Society

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Unlike virtue, which is desirable and moral, vice is immoral or wicked behavior. As one of the “Seven Deadly Sins”, the vice of sloth is defined as reluctance to work or make an effort. According to Franklin, sloth is caused by habit which takes “the advantage of inattention” (Franklin, 331). In other words, a lazy person unconsciously sticks to their life routine, which keeps them from doing anything more productive than their usual chores. On the other hand, Saint Augustine believes that sloth is caused by the “peculiar attractiveness” of not having to do anything (Saint Augustine, 299). Whether it is caused by habit or the “peculiar attractiveness”, sloth has a significant impact on a modern society. But what are some of the long-term effects …show more content…

According to Pynchon, “the notorious Couch Potato” lives in a symbiosis with television and sucks in all its “colored shadows” (Pynchon, 2). As he avoids the discomfort and pursues pleasure, he gets sucked into a pleasant world of virtual reality and stops being useful to himself and to a society. While enjoying the pleasure of sloth, without even realizing he commits other deadly sins. As he watches his favorite show, he gorges himself on his favorite food. He also envies the celebrities because of their fortune and fame; however, he is not willing to work for it. Merchandise advertised in between the TV shows make him covet, images lust, and the news make him angry (Pynchon, 2). Nonetheless, with a rapid development of technology, a lifestyle of the Couch Potato is becoming so popular that it is not even considered to be slothful anymore. However, recognized or not, sloth produces guilt and depression (Pynchon, 1), causing a deep dissatisfaction. Even though dissatisfied, Couch Potatoes are too slothful to change, which leaves a modern society with a group of unproductive, lazy and anxious people whose number is gradually

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However, as DeYoung acknowledges, “Sloth, on this view, is apathy— comfortable indifference to duty and neglect of other human beings’ needs. If you won’t work hard, you don’t care enough. Sloth becomes a sin not merely because it makes us lazy, but because of the lack of love that lies behind that laziness” (DeYoung, p. 81). In other words, there is clearly more to sloth than laziness. This vice actually seems to connect more with lack of love or indifference.

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The Delmar’s is an example of a family who watches more than average amount of television, and they feel happy or fine. “‘Don’t you love watching this?’ she asks during a commercial. ‘Can you tell me you’re not enjoying this? I love seeing how people live’”

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The words, laziness and discipline are descriptive words that normally do not appear in the same context. Laziness is driven from the desire of comfort while discipline is conquering the discomfort and embracing the grind. We live in a world where we may not consider ourselves lazy, but we are. A verse from the Bible, Proverbs 26:14 says, “As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed.” This verse is a riddle and it is saying as a door moves on its hinges the door in not going anywhere.

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In the article, “What Monkeys Eat: A Few Thoughts About Pop Culture Writing” Linda Holmes is trying to explain that we should focus the study of pop culture from what we ought to watch, read, or listen to, to what we actually watch, read, or listen to. What we take in to entertain ourselves is what drives the conversations we have on a daily basis. “What monkeys eat” is referring to us as the monkeys, and what we eat to our forms of entertainment. The shows we watch an the celebrities we follow are all what “we eat.” These influential factors are what we mostly write about, instead of the more important topics such as, war or how the economy will look in the future.

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The Overuse of Television Kameron G Loyd BYU-Idaho  During an average week, how much television does the average child watch? Parents, educators, and concerned citizens alike would be appalled at the answer of 1,480 minutes (BLS American Time Use Survey, A.C. Nielsen Co.). They would also be revolted by the statistic that 54% of four to six year olds would rather spend time watching television instead of spending time with their fathers (BLS American Time Use Survey, A.C. Nielsen Co.). In 1984, Neil Postman saw how devastating television watching was becoming to the culture of America, and gave a speech to the literary community at the 1984 Frankfort Germany Book Fair entitled “Amusing Ourselves to Death” which deals directly with this monolithic issue. Although the speech and subsequent article, published in Et Cetra, were directed at the publishers, writers, illustrators, etc., all those who read this article can also benefit from Postman’s overarching desire to decrease the hours of mind-numbing television watching.

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(AGG) “Money cannot buy peace of mind. It cannot heal ruptured relationships, or build meaning into a life that has none” (DeVos). Some people think that money can buy happiness, but it does not give anything more. (BS-1) In the book Fahrenheit 451, Montag, the main character, lives in a society where people are obsessed with the materials around them.

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The essay, On Laziness, by Christopher Morley, portrays his argument of why laziness is often the key to being successful. In his opening sentence, he starts by explaining how he intended to write an essay but was simply too lazy to do do. The purpose is already being expressed through his use of satire. This helps the audience apprehend how he’s portraying his meaning through his own writing style, which includes theoretical irony, satire, and use of persuasion. The use of actual laziness used to write this essay made the readers ponder and question what he was trying to say.

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In Huxley’s fictional world, everything is mass produced, including happiness; there is no reason for any negative emotion. In Roberts’ reality , people exist to consume, and everything is now, now, now. Roberts theorizes that this is one of the reasons that our society, social and economic, is declining: people are becoming too dependent and too self- centered. For me, on one side, a fast paced economy means more product and greater access to necessary goods and services. On the contrary, unnecessary goods have taken over people’s lives.

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The rapid expansion of technological growth is immersing our culture. The Nathan Jurgenson’s “The IRL Fetish”, argues that people have weird obsessions about the offline. Technological advances allow people to experience the online, but Jurgenson realizes that people are also fetishizing the movement against the online. People and novelists who complain the online world laments, “Writer after writer laments the loss of a sense of disconnection, of boredom (now redeemed as a respite from anxious info-cravings) …” (Jurgenson 127).

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Many of the issues that come with the advanced technology is lack of sleep, and becoming distant from the present moment. For example in Bradbury's book, Mildred is obsessed with her tv’s and her tv family reality show, rather than contributing to her own family. There is nothing wrong with having a tv but the usage needs to be with in healthy proportions, the flow of new technology is so prominent in our everyday lives that we feel obligated to catch up with the trend of the new technology that is being invented

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Franzen’s article Liking Is for Cowards, go for what hurt, compares the concept of love with techno-consumerism. It argues on how the grit of love is still better than the perfection of an elegant piece of technology which is also referred to as the perfect erotic relationship. The piece’s primary purpose is to make people understand the contrast between consumer related technology and real life and how this techno consumer relationship allows its user to control pretty much everything giving people a false sense of power while what love gives us is grit but it helps us become a better personas proven in the bird anecdote given by franzen. I agree with franzen in entirety and believe that the new tech-consumer world has us “working in jobs we don’t want to do to pay for the things we do not need”.

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Entertainment Controls Them All Huxley has a theory of entertainment as control and we can see it throughout his book Brave New World. The fact that his vision was made years ago, makes this vision even more interesting, because knowing that entertainment has a big impact into our society for the book reveals similar forms of entertainment to control it’s people. The ways that the book was created has brought to conclusion that our society is controlled by entertainment. Our society has become a trivial culture preoccupied with entertainment.

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Jerry Mander in his book ”Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” shows how television is creating addiction, giving as exemples a 3-year $5 million study done by NIH, that showed that television can be ”addictive and hypnotic”, and how political figures tried to stop such researches(”The President suppressed the study and commissioned another group to re-do it”). Mander also mentions about Marine Winn’s work, that talks about the effect called ”The Plug-In Drug” created by television, wich is wielding an addictive influence on the very young and it is causing dependency simply by showing ”ever-changing array of sights and sounds coming out of the machine” and ”wild variety of images meeting the eye”. As a result, the media is not just showing addictive programs but it also selects for us what to watch, and by creating dozens of programs they gives people the imprestion that they choose what they are watching, when in fact, the information it is easilty

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In the past few years humans have spent much more time indoors with their technology than outdoors. Televisions, computers, and smartphones tend to draw greater numbers of people inside their homes, just as humans did in the futuristic world of Leonard Mead where no one left their homes at night. (“The Pedestrian”). Children especially have been infected with the media bug, much like Peter and Wendy, who are unable to stray away from their virtual reality in “The Veldt”. It is understandable that many-particularly older- people believe that technology is affecting how human naturally interact with each other and their surroundings.

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Peter Weller once stated, “Television is an isolating experience, sadly enough. But as good as it ever gets, it’s still isolating. You sit in your home and visit with no one.” Staring into the television screen, zoned out and mesmerized, our minds are living the life of the characters in the movie or TV show. In today’s society, people obsess over there shows instead of there family, friends, and children.

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