Work, Labor, and Play 工作、勞作和娛樂

By Wystan Hugh Auden

So far as I know, Miss Hannah Arendt was the first person to define the essential difference between work and labor. To be happy, a man must feel, firstly, free and, secondly, important. He cannot be really happy if he is compelled by society to do what he does not enjoy doing, or if what he enjoys doing is ignored by society as of no value or importance. In a society where slavery in the strict sense has been abolished, the sign that what a man does is of social value is that he is paid money to do it, but a laborer today can rightly be called a wage slave. A man is a laborer if the job society offers him is of no interest to himself but he is compelled to take it by the necessity of earning a living and supporting his family.

據我所知，漢納?阿倫特小姐是第一個給予工作和勞作之間本質區別的人。一個人要高興，首先要感到自由，其次是感到重要。如果他被社會強迫做他不愿做的事，或者他喜歡做的事被社會忽視，被認為無價值和不重要，他就不會真正高興。在一個從嚴格意義上來說奴隸制已被廢除的社會里，一個人所做的事情具有社會價值的樗是他的工作得到了報酬。但今天的勞動者可以恰當地稱為薪金的奴隸。如果他對社會提供給他的工作不感興趣，但出于謀生和養家而被迫接受，這個人就稱為勞作者。

The antithesis to labor is play. When we play a game, we enjoy what we are doing, otherwise we should not play it, but it is a purely private activity; society could not care less whether we play it or not.

與勞作相對的是玩，當玩耍時我們在享受，否則是不會去玩的，不過這純粹是私人活動，社會對你玩或不玩是極不關心的。