"Under this common-sense barbarian appreciation of worth or honor, the taking of life—the killing of formidable competitors, whether brute or human—is honorable in the highest degree. And this high office of slaughter... casts a glamor of worth over every act of slaughter and over all the tools and accessories of the act. Arms are honorable, and the use of them... becomes a honorific employment. At the same time, employment in industry becomes correspondingly odious, and, in the common-sense apprehension, the handling of the tools and implements of industry falls beneath the dignity of able-bodied men. Labor becomes irksome."
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The Theory of the Leisure Class
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