In Defense of Boring People

Some people - let's call them redistributionists - think that this country's welfare system is not generous enough. Though I tend to disagree, that's a respectable opinion. It is curious, however, that this view often comes coupled with a deep-seated disdain for regular nine-to-five workers. This is curious because it is these people who, after checking into work every morning, create the bulk of the wealth that the redistributionists would like to distribute differently. In other words, if it weren't for the disdained sheeple, the redistributionists' argument would be void, as there wouldn't be an awful lot to redistribute. While a large-scale demonstration praising office workers may be a little too much to ask, a bit of gratitude would seem to be in order.

Another group of people who tend to look down on the nine-to-fivers is artists. This is particularly inappropriate in the case of those artists who get paid by subsidies, because: see above. An argument that is often made in this context is that art is not a luxury, as can be seen from the fact that even cavemen, who certainly were poor, practiced art. Let's accept this argument. It does not invalidate the view that paying specialists to create art is a luxury. I believe it is - people tend to put food on the table first, and then, perhaps, contemplate whether it is worth shelling out to see another staging of Hamlet. I'm sure the cavemen's priorities were similarly structured: dead men don't do sculpture.