The American ideology of work—which underlies so much of the up-by-the-bootstraps advice one receives when one has fallen on hard times—generally holds that hard work is not only a necessary cause of success, but very nearly a sufficient cause.

Your humble Blog Goliard dissents. Hard work is highly correlated with success, yes. But much like intelligence and any number of virtues, it is not necessary…and is nowhere near sufficient.

The American ideology of work also holds that hard work is not only productive in se but virtuous in se.^* Again, I agree that there is often a strong correlation. But again, I dissent.

All of us have surely had colleagues who spent ridiculous amounts of time in the office or the library, spinning their hamster wheels so very hard, but to very little benefit. And all of us can surely think of any number of people who have worked tremendously hard to accomplish great evil.