An insightful essay. I once worked as a "recruter" for a temp agency whch hired mostly legal secretaries and paralegals for jobs with some major "white shoe" law firms and lawyers in Chicago.

I kid you not: Every last one of the hundreds of resumes I reviewed included the declaration that the applicant was a "hard worker."

Also, try to imagine being forced to rise before dawn, be in "the field" at dawn, do the hardest of hard labor under threat of the whip or death until the sun finally goes down: From "can to cain't" -- can see to can't see. For hundreds of years.

But once we became at least nominally "free," suddenly we are lazy and "shiftless"?