#interpretive labor

[justjohn-jj]

Much of the everyday business of social life, in fact, consists in trying to decipher others' motives and perceptions. Let us call this 'interpretive labor.' One might say, those relying on the fear of force are not obliged to engage in a lot of interpretive labor, and thus, generally speaking, they do not.

The Utopia of Rules, David Graeber, p 67

[christymtidwell]

...while attempts to influence others by the threat of violence do require some level of shared understandings, these can be pretty minimal. Most human relations--particularly ongoing ones, whether between longstanding friends or longstanding enemies--are extremely complicated, dense with history and meaning. Maintaining them requires a constant and often subtle work of imagination, of endlessly trying to see the world from others' points of view. This is what I've already referred to as 'interpretive labor.' Threatening others with physical harm allows the possibility of cutting through all this. It makes possible relations of a far more simple and schematic kind ('cross this line and I will shoot you,' 'one more word out of any of you and you're going to jail'). This is of course why violence is so often the preferred weapon of the stupid. One might even call it the trump card of the stupid, since (and this is surely one of the tragedies of human existence) it is the one form of stupidity to which it is most difficult to come up with an intelligent response.

David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy