I Would Prefer Not To

Those words hold a lot of power

In 1853, a struggling American author Herman Melville wrote the story; Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.

Melville’s previous novels, Moby Dick and Pierre had struggled, and Melville originally proposed publishing the short story Bartleby, the Scrivener anonymously because he didn’t want his past failures to influence the reception of his short story.

The short story is narrated by an unnamed lawyer who works on Wall Street in the mid nineteenth century and hires a number “scriveners” (clerks, scribes) to help him with the writing and copying of legal documents.

The narrator hires Bartleby as a scrivener, and Bartleby is at first a model employed. Soon however, Bartleby begins to refuse certain tasks, and eventually refuses to do anything at all, saying simply, “I would prefer not to,” when asked to do anything.

Bartleby is eventually thrown in jail and dies there after refusing to eat.

Interpretation.

I remember having to read Bartleby the scrivener in high school. Our teacher at a Catholic High School where we all had to wear uniforms taught it as a lesson in individualism and nonconformity. The irony wasn’t lost on us.

I dug a little deeper researching this, because I hadn’t read the story in decades, and found that the story is celebrated as a part of the Romanticism movement in literature which started in the mid 18th century and ran through Melville’s time. Bartleby is seen as a romantic figure because he refuses to conform, and the story can be seen as a celebration of individual.

You can also find interpretations that the story is an anti-capitalist tale with Melville was railing against the impersonal nature of capitalism as it took people from the country to the big cities where they were simply seen as cogs in the wheel to keep the system growing. Bartleby is our hero rebelling against a soul cruising existence of capitalism even if it results in his death.

Melville may have been one of the first authors to talk about civil disobedience as a form of resistance with Bartleby. Henry David Thoreau had written Resistance to Civil Government just a few years before in 1849, so the idea of passive resistance to the system might have inspired Melville.

I’ve also seen interpretations of Bartleby as a Christlike figure, as he does die in the end and there are plenty of religious symbolism in the text, but the society that Bartleby dies for (if that was what he was doing at all) didn’t seem to notice, or care what he did.

Something I would like to add that touches on a bit of the Romantic interpretation and the resistance interpretation, is that Bartleby is a lesson is self-respect. The tale is absurd and even comical at times (I don’t know if that’s what Melville was going for) but all the same, Bartleby sticks to his convictions, in an impersonal and soul-destroying world that does not respect him, so he demands that it does.

But maybe I’m way off in that interpretation.

What are your thoughts? Share them below.

If you haven’t read the story, it is a good quick read, and one pretentious people you don’t care about impressing would be impressed that you read. :)

What Bartleby can mean today.

Bartleby is the hero we need today, because the forces that are destroying our world require our cooperation for that destruction to take place. Tyranny requires your compliance. You don’t have to give it.

Companies whose actions have compromised our environment need us to keep buying their products for that destruction to continue.

Governments that look to dismantle our societies and hand the reins of power over to oligarchs need our taxes, need our votes, need us to keep feeding the machine in order for that destructive growth that they promised to continue.

But we can say, “I would prefer not to …”

• Keep consuming at a level that is self-destructive.

• Supporting a government that doesn’t speak for us.

• Allowing the poisoning of the environment for profit.

• Allowing the destruction of our government for profit.

Things like the Shutdown 315 movement, or the Lay Flat Movement in China are just the latest manifestation of the Spirit of Bartleby. Degrowth itself has grown out the tradition of Bartleby, implicitly saying “we would prefer not to” instead of Bartleby's singular “I would prefer not to.” As I wrote last week, the Shutdown315 is a critical-mass movement of coordinated economic protest. In specific terms, it is economic disengagement by mass boycott and a general strike. The goal of the movement is to show dissatisfaction with the current economic and ecological environment in the United States and take away the power of the oligarchy is to starve it of the money it needs to keep going.

It is hard to estimate how many people in China are part of the lay flat movement, but I’ve seen it profiled in a number of international papers, magazines, and forums, so it has to be of a decent size. The movement is a rejection of the “996” culture in China where many workers are expected to work from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. The lay flat movement encourages individuals to reject the traditional pursuit of economic success and high-stress careers, opting instead for a minimalist lifestyle that prioritizes mental well-being over material wealth.

I’m just spitballin here, but maybe the folks from the Shutdown 315 movement and the Lay Flat movement should talk. If tens of millions of individuals in China worked with tens of millions of individuals in America to practice civil disobedience and say “We prefer not to” to the current economic and environmental models that are destroying their futures … well that might lead to something interesting. If the people of the two most powerful nations on earth could circumvent their leaders to pursue a degrowth path, well, that would be something.

I know forging such solidarity wouldn’t be easy, with the great firewall in China and anti-Chinese sentiment from the US government. But has anyone tried to start those conversations? I’m just wondering.

Back to Bartleby.

Bartleby died, forgotten and alone because he was alone on his journey of civil disobedience.

We can all do what Bartleby did, but we are not alone. We don’t have to die at the end of the story.

If we all say “I would prefer not to” enough times, in enough numbers, we can get the world we want.

One person saying “I would prefer no to” is easily ignored.

Hundreds of millions saying it gets things done.

Look you can even buy the shirt … on Amazon.

Don’t worry too much about what you are saying when you say, “I would prefer not to.” Mine would be something like; “I prefer not to participate in an economic system that offers me no alternative but to overconsume and live in fear so that a small portion of the population can benefit from the false promise of infinite growth that destroys our environment and the vast majority of the people living in it.”

But that seems a little wordy.

I think “I prefer not to,” is enough for now.

But share what you would prefer not to do. Ask around. If enough people know that such passive resistance is available and effective, and that hundreds of millions of people feel the same way, maybe we can write a better ending than the one Bartleby got.