Busyness as Oppression
‘You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as before; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8But you shall require of them the same quantity of bricks as they have made previously; do not diminish it, for they are lazy; that is why they cry, “Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.” 9Let heavier work be laid on them; then they will labour at it and pay no attention to deceptive words.’
10 So the taskmasters and the supervisors of the people went out and said to the people, ‘Thus says Pharaoh, “I will not give you straw. 11Go and get straw yourselves, wherever you can find it; but your work will not be lessened in the least.” ’ 12So the people scattered throughout the land of Egypt, to gather stubble for straw. 13The taskmasters were urgent, saying, ‘Complete your work, the same daily assignment as when you were given straw.’ 14And the supervisors of the Israelites, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and were asked, ‘Why did you not finish the required quantity of bricks yesterday and today, as you did before?’—Exodus 5.7-14
The Book of Exodus chronicles the miracle of the emancipation of large population of enslaved Hebrews from Egypt. Everyone knows this. What is fascinating to me is that Exodus shines a strong light on what oppression looks like. Israel’s enslavement may be the bondage to which all future enslavements are compared.
Exodus’ first chapters describe the growing tension between the despotic Pharaoh and the Hebrew slaves. It’s a tense scene in part because Egypt is nervous about such a large group becoming violent and overthrowing the entire society. Curiously, Egypt doesn’t oppress its slaves by attacking them. It ramps up their work. At the zenith of its cruelty, Egypt requires its enslaved Hebrews to gather straw in addition to making the bricks. Evidently, Egyptian workers gathered the straw and worked cooperatively with the Hebrews in the brick-making operation. But the crafty Pharaoh pulls his own workers off the brick-making tasks so he can crank up the time-pressure on the Hebrews. There is no increased output of bricks. There is no economic reason to hurry up the pace. The straw-gathering ploy is used simply to keep the slaves busy.
I thought of the straw-gathering tactic as I read Julio Vincent Gambuto’s essay, “Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting.” Writing at the height of the coronavirus lockdown, Gambuto proposes a counter-intuitive tactic, namely, resisting going back to “normal.” Normal, he asserts, is exactly what a domineering consumer culture would love people to rush into. Back to spending, back to polluting, back to gathering straw frantically because that is what keeps the reigning elites securely in place.
Being too busy going to professional sports spectacles, shopping, jetting all over the country, paying off student debts, and so on offers the illusion that we’re living important lives that matter, when in fact we are living fundamentally unserious lives that are not paying attention to health of the planet, not to mention the well-being of our neighbor. Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, proposes that Americans have allowed their society to creep towards mediocrity and oligarchy because we’re simply too busy to attend to the public good.
The coronavirus crisis is an unprecedented upheaval and tragedy for too many people, especially…as is always the case…for the poorest among us. There are bright spots in these scary and sad weeks of lockdown. The natural world is getting a breather with fossil fuel consumption and frenetic human activity down. People everywhere are talking about birds chirping and skies clearing. The weeks of quiet afford an opportunity to reflect and read and talk on the phone. This experience can be a world-wide Sabbath, which was the biblical provision in the 10 commandments to insure that the 24/7 lifestyle never oppressed God’s people again.
It’ll be a relief when this forced Sabbath comes to an end. But do we really want to return to “normal?”