Doing Nothing
Once again we must discuss the issue of what the negative modifier does, especially when it is applied precisely to “doing”. In the same way that we discussed “Being vs Not Being”, a bit of reflection will lead us to realize that there’s a small but fundamentally important difference between “doing nothing” and “not doing anything”, and this isn’t merely a linguistic matter. Does a lazy person do nothing or do they not do anything? These may sound identical, but let’s just change one word: does a moral person do nothing or not do anything? These two questions will help us draw the difference.
Ed is lazy. If you ask him what he does all day, some days he will tell you that he didn’t do anything, other times he will tell you that he did nothing, because that’s how active he is. But he’s so full of himself that he likes to think of himself as a moral person. He doesn’t donate to charity (he’s pretty broke); he doesn’t go to church or pray (he doesn’t define morality that way); in fact, he argues so much and so intensely that you might easily make him question why he thinks he’s so moral. Perhaps the biggest and only reason why he sees himself as moral is simply because he pretends that there’s a difference between “not doing anything” and “doing nothing”.
Not Doing Anything. Being lazy is frowned upon. Some would even go as far as claiming that “not doing anything” is a complete waste of time and space. If you don’t do anything all day, then you’re not contributing to society, and if you benefit from welfare then that’s perhaps even worse. But a lazy person can also be moral. If they benefit from society and they are moral, then there’s a solid chance that “not doing anything” means “doing only enough to get by”. It’s not nothing, but they are such ‘losers’ that they’re not really doing anything [worthwhile].
Doing Nothing. What if a friend has a problem? What if you can’t do anything to help them in terms of money or resources? What if you have a lot of other things to do and you simply cannot help them? Well, the difference here is that just because you “can’t do anything” doesn’t mean you “do nothing”, and this is something that we all intuitively know. A lazy person may “not do anything” or “do nothing” but there’s a world of difference between a moral person who “can’t do anything” and one who chooses to “do nothing”. The example of helping a friend is easy. We all know the difference between friends who do nothing to help us and the friends who at least try something when they can’t do anything. We all think we are moral people, but there’s a good chance that some of us living in cities have become desensitized to beggars. “There’s nothing I can do for them!” This is true to some extent, but we all know that we could do something, it’s just that we must do other things that keep us busy.
Maybe that’s the question: when do we not do anything, and when do we sacrifice things in order to not “do nothing” [in other words, to do something/anything]? Of course this issue will be explored a lot more in depth after this tiny introduction but once again we have to understand the conceptual difference between something, not something, and non-something.
Does the negative modifier do nothing, not do anything, or undo something?
