Work, Labor, and Play 工作、劳作和娱乐

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.

据我所知，汉纳•阿伦特小姐是第一个给予工作和劳作之间本质区别的人。一个人要高兴，首先要感到自由，其次是感到重要。如果他被社会强迫做他不愿做的事，或者他喜欢做的事被社会忽视，被认为无价值和不重要，他就不会真正高兴。在一个从严格意义上来说奴隶制已被废除的社会里，一个人所做的事情具有社会价值的樗是他的工作得到了报酬。但今天的劳动者可以恰当地称为薪金的奴隶。如果他对社会提供给他的工作不感兴趣，但出于谋生和养家而被迫接受，这个人就称为劳作者。

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.

与劳作相对的是玩，当玩耍时我们在享受，否则是不会去玩的，不过这纯粹是私人活动，社会对你玩或不玩是极不关心的。