Researchers in Germany are giving out scholarships in “idleness”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-grants-laziness-scholarships-do-nothing-university-hamburg-a9681466.html

by sm4rk0 • 6 years ago

45 12 6 years ago

independent.co.uk

this_user• 6 years ago

"Researchers" is perhaps saying a bit much. It is an art school that is doing this, so it probably counts more as an art project.

sitkack• 6 years ago

I am willing to spend in a cabin overlooking a lake, perhaps more of a pond.

zwieback• 6 years ago

To get the scholarship the applicant has to explain what they will stop doing and how it might improve their life or the environment around them. So it's not really money for nothing...

itronitron• 6 years ago

Sounds like work.

droopyEyelids• 6 years ago

unless you've thought about all the eternalized effects of your job.

tengbretson• 6 years ago

Really putting the "scholar" in scholarship I see.

082349872349872• 6 years ago

"The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture..."

According to Veblen, “saying, ‘I have time to dream … meet friends, put up my feet – I have time to do nothing?’” has been and is the way to gain social prestige.

"But the whole of the life of the gentleman of leisure is not spent before the eyes of the spectators who are to be impressed with that spectacle of honorific leisure which in the ideal scheme makes up his life. For some part of the time his life is perforce withdrawn from the public eye, and of this portion which is spent in private the gentleman of leisure should, for the sake of his good name, be able to give a convincing account. He should find some means of putting in evidence the leisure that is not spent in the sight of the spectators."

is no longer a problem in the age of the cell phone.

dfxm12• 6 years ago

Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

The headline does make a joke of it, but consider the mission: “If we want to live in a society that consumes less energy, wastes fewer resources, [the constant success spiral] is not the right system of values,” Professor von Borries told Germany’s Deutsche Welle broadcaster.

Some successes certainly are worth wasting resources on, and I'm sure no oncologists will get approved for this scholarship. There is a great deal of busy and redundant work out there though. No one should be stuck doing that...

aj7• 6 years ago

As it is, Germany’s permissive culture can turn a bachelor’s degree into a five-year fully paid for party.

dgellow• 6 years ago

What do you mean? You're not paid as a student, you still have to get some income from somewhere.

thelastinuit• 6 years ago

Huh, if i take that scholarship, i will end up dead by the end of the week. Suicide.

Stevvo• 6 years ago

Is anyone intentionally idle?

People that are considered idle have as many hopes, dreams and desires as the most productive. Things get in the way like procrastination, depression, malaise etc.

Researchers in Germany are giving out scholarships in “idleness”

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