the commoditization of thought

When did thought become an arduous task for which we demand remuneration? I’m shocked how often I hear people complain “I don’t want to think about that while I’m on vacation”, or even more bluntly “You’d have to pay met to think about that!” While there is a tendency toward escapism in American society I think it is more than a simple wish to avoid confrontation with our more complex problems: I hear these exclamations from people who I know have the capability and will to devote critical thought to an issue at hand. Instead we have begun to equate thought with work. Thinking is something to be done only in the office from 9-5. Once off the clock, we have no obligation to apply our brain to anything other than the immediate task. This phenomenon can be clearly observed in the direction taken by product and technological development, and also in how we spend our free time.
Any new product that dramatically reduces the amount of work (physical or mental) to produce a (very roughly) comparable product is immediately hailed as a technological breakthrough and all devices utilizing the old method are deemed impractical or obsolete. This process is dramatic and ongoing, and often progresses “forward” regardless of the great sacrifices made to quality and to the pleasure gained from the ritual of manual labor and the mastery of process. Some would convey me as a Luddite for voicing these opinions, but I’m hardly anti-technology (obviously I’m writing this on a computer, and hey, refrigeration isn’t all bad either.) I’m simply frustrated that the merit of every new product or technology is based entirely on whether it allows the user to think and interact less than they had to with its predecessor, rather than on improvements in quality, efficacy, satisfaction, etc. Currently this rubric of judgment is exercised only by those viewed as eccentric enthusiasts, and as an exception to the general rule.
Despite the increasing proliferation of the internet, television watching is at an all-time high with the average American household watching 4.5 hours every day ( http://www.buzzle.com/articles/tv-watching-reclaim-family-time.html ) . This is especially disturbing considering I’ve noticed an increasing trend among my peers to get rid of their televisions or minimize their viewing time: someone is watching an awful lot of TV. What ever happened to reverie? The ability to engage in critical thought is one of the traits that most distinguishes humans from other animals. We should be basking in our ability to think, not avoiding it as a painful chore.
Our reluctance to think for recreation is a disturbing development, but I wonder if we shouldn’t have expected it with the increasingly cerebral nature of American jobs. With the majority of consumer goods being produced overseas we have become a nation of architects, engineers, lawyers, researchers, designers, consultants, marketers, programmers and other professionals for whom work is synonymous with thought. Among other problems this has made it more and more difficult to leave work in the work place, as every project is still occupying our head. Instead of attempting to distract our mind, we would be better served to fill it with something of our own choice. We just need to remember that, though work is thought, thought is not necessarily work.

For further disturbing reading on television see Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander and The Assault on Reason by Al Gore. This article was probably partially inspired by "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?" from The Atlantic (full text: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google ). Wallpaper also had a piece about reasons to get a job involving manual labor, but of course I can't find the issue now.