Against Chairs
May 2, 2012 10:33 AM   Subscribe

 
You can have my Aeron when you can pry it out from under my cold, dead ass.
posted by darksasami at 10:38 AM on May 2, 2012 [6 favorites]


...until the Renaissance even wealthy feudal households had very little furniture because they had to keep moving around to avoid getting sacked themselves. The richest families would have had a single massive chair for the exclusive use of the master of the house; this chair was typically too heavy to move (to keep it from getting stolen when the house got sacked).

Um... so... let me restate this: the upper classes in Medieval Europe were nomadic, in that each family had one chair that was too heavy to move. I... I am assuming that this is intended as humor...
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:41 AM on May 2, 2012 [4 favorites]


As a cubical drone for the past 9 years of my life, I heartily agree with this. I should be allowed to walk around every ten minutes for my health and well being.

In all seriousness, sitting all day, every day is a literal pain in the arse. I would love a proper standing desk.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:42 AM on May 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


But the throne, Sma had said once, is the ultimate symbol for many cultures. To sit, in splendour, is the highest articulation of power. The rest come to you; lower, often bowing, frequently backing off, sometimes prostrate (though that is always a bad sign, said the Culture's blessed statistics), and to sit, to be made less animal by that evolutionarily uncalled-for posture, signified the ability to use.

There were some small civilisations - barely more than tribes, Sma had said - where they slept sitting, in special sleep chairs, because they believed that to lie down was to die (did they not always find the dead lying down?).
- Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
posted by theodolite at 10:43 AM on May 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


You can have my Aeron when you can pry it out from under my cold, dead ass.

I hear that's now available in True BlackTM!
posted by curious nu at 10:44 AM on May 2, 2012 [6 favorites]


It sounds absurd to claim that chairs are dangerous.

There's a reason for that...
posted by yoink at 10:46 AM on May 2, 2012 [3 favorites]


To be more serious, I am looking at swapping my desk at work for a standing model. I do a lot of brief work, then getting up to do something, and, while I am not sure that the sitting is as much of a problem as some like to think, all that standing up and sitting back down is a pain in the knee.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:46 AM on May 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


The Galen Cranz quoted in the article wrote this book, the first few chapters of which this article tries to summarize in a somewhat muddled fashion. I recommend grabbing a copy of the book if you are interested in the topic.
posted by enn at 10:47 AM on May 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


We've visited the field of chairism before.
posted by Iridic at 10:48 AM on May 2, 2012


Bureaucracy = rule of the desk
Klismocracy = rule of the chair?
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:51 AM on May 2, 2012


As a cubical drone for the past 9 years of my life

At least you fit snugly in your cubicle.
posted by mr vino at 10:51 AM on May 2, 2012 [16 favorites]


And as an entomologist, appropriate.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:55 AM on May 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Get up and walk around more, ok sounds great. Stand up in one spot all day? No thanks, that's how my feet GOT this way, and they ain't ever gonna get better. Walk yes, stand no. Chairs are not evil.
posted by rahnefan at 10:56 AM on May 2, 2012 [4 favorites]


Chairs are not evil.

For one thing, "chair and chair alike" is a good rule to live by.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:58 AM on May 2, 2012 [5 favorites]


I'm still not sure if this is serious or not. I feel conflicted, because I think its totally feasible, and even worthy if this is serious. If its not serious, it is hilarious and awesomely well done.
posted by Joh at 11:00 AM on May 2, 2012


"Western intellectuals are all sitting-addicts. That's why most of you are so repulsively unwholesome. In the past even a duke had to do a lot of walking, even a moneylender, even a metaphysician. And when they weren't using their legs, they were jogging about on horses. Whereas now, from the tycoon to his typist, from the logical positivist to the positive thinker, you spend nine tenths of your time on foam rubber. Spongy seats for spongy bottoms---at home, in the office, in cars and bars, in planes and trains and buses. No moving of legs, no struggles with distance and gravity---just lifts and planes and cars, just foam rubber and an eternity of sitting. The life force that used to find an outlet through striped muscle gets turned back on the viscera and the nervous system, and slowly destroys them."

- Aldous Huxley, Island.
posted by BigCalm at 11:00 AM on May 2, 2012 [15 favorites]


FETCH THE COMFY CHAIR!
posted by mwhybark at 11:08 AM on May 2, 2012 [3 favorites]


Last job I worked, I spent a lot of time on the phone.

Cube came equipped with one of those wireless phone headsets, which was a godsend for a job like that.
Slap it on, and you can wander to your hearts content (or ~150 feet, whichever comes first).

By the end of it, I had all of the dead spots mapped out, figured out where the windows with the best views were, who had the cube with the best decorations.

If your job involves a lot of conference calls, I highly recommend one.
posted by madajb at 11:17 AM on May 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


I switched to a standing desk setup a couple years ago. It's helped my back feel a lot better. The past month, I got sick and didn't have the energy to stand up for long stretches - so I sat in my one cushy chair. A lot.

And my back started hurting again. And I now keep just sprawling in that with the iPad - or the laptop, sans Wacom tablet - and getting little work done.

This article is making me think that I need to spend some time today cleaning off the damn coffee table so that when I'm not in the mood to stand, I can still quickly throw the laptop and tablet on there and sit on the damn floor in front of it, and get stuff done.

(oh yeah. Issues of fucked-up feet aside, standing desks are great precisely because you don't have to stand in one place allllll day. It's much easier to decide to pop off to the bathroom when you're already standing, easy to take a moment to dance around when a bouncy song comes up in iTunes' rotation, easy to bounce out to refil your glass of water...)
posted by egypturnash at 11:20 AM on May 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Oh no! I'm sitting in one right now!
posted by ErikaB at 11:21 AM on May 2, 2012 [10 favorites]


Plus çes chaises, plus c'est la même chose.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:26 AM on May 2, 2012 [3 favorites]


A friend's yoga instructor once said "You might say the chair has resulted in the downfall of western civilization.... If you believe in the downfall of western civilization."
posted by Phredward at 11:28 AM on May 2, 2012


In all seriousness, I think the author has the wrong end of the right argument.

It's clear by any measure that a sedentary lifestyle is a lethal one. But I think chairs are the product of a sedentary lifestyle, not the other way around.
posted by ErikaB at 11:28 AM on May 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


The real problem is that sitting, in our society, usually means putting your body in a raised seat with back support – a chair. Sitting wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t sit on things that are bad for us.

Because I'm that kind of a granola-person, and I'm a little in love with my zafu, I'm thinking of getting a some sort of low-level desk to work at while I sit cross-legged on the zafu.

I should probably blog about it and start a new trend or something.
posted by BrashTech at 11:33 AM on May 2, 2012


There's a photo on this site of something called the Indian Steps. As my forebears lived on Mount Washington but worked in downtown Pittsburgh, several walked these stairs every single day, along with many, many other Mt. Washington residents. Nowadays, folks would not even consider making this climb even if it still existed. In fact, most would consider the idea unthinkable.

Oh, we're all getting softer, all right.
posted by kinnakeet at 11:33 AM on May 2, 2012



Funny story - the first time I went out west to fight forest fires, I spent three weeks living in dirt. My food was coated in dust, I slept in a sleeping bag laid out in the dirt, everything about me was covered in a patina of grit and soot.

The only time I sat down on a seat that entire time was on those few occasions when we were on the bus. Otherwise, it was stand or sit on the ground.

Sitting on a hill is hard. Your butt slides down little by little, and resisting that motion is hard on the knees. The trick is to take your pulaski and cut a small butt notch in the hillside. Now you can sit comfortably for some small time.

But the thing that really got me - when I got home, sitting in a big cushy chair was hard. It was far too soft and warm and not comfortable at all. I had similar problems sleeping in a bed, and it took a few nights of sleeping on the floor part of the night to acclimate to civilization again.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 11:50 AM on May 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


Oh no! I'm sitting in one right now!

The call is coming from under my butt!
posted by yoink at 12:07 PM on May 2, 2012 [6 favorites]


darksasami: “You can have my Aeron when you can pry it out from under my cold, dead ass.”

Well, given what the studies say about prolonged sitting, I guess we don't have long to wait...

he said, sitting in a much cheaper chair which will also probably kill him
posted by koeselitz at 12:09 PM on May 2, 2012


I guess I have a disability, because I can’t be on my feet for more than half an hour before my feet start killing me.
posted by davel at 12:32 PM on May 2, 2012


(And don’t tell me to lose weight, because “I’ve got nothing left to lose”.)
posted by davel at 12:40 PM on May 2, 2012


I would strongly advise everyone NOT to google "people who have died in chairs"
posted by randomkeystrike at 12:51 PM on May 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


Very interested in this topic. I really hope that when I move to my next position, they let me have a standing desk. And, when I move to my next apartment, I really hope to get a treadmill desk. woo! I would be so much more healthy that I could literally eat junk food all day long!
posted by rebent at 12:54 PM on May 2, 2012


Wow, I tried to read all of this, but I'm on a low sodium, low wild-assed extrapolation diet.

Er, anyhow, yes, the style of chairs known as the sella curulis was very much a symbol of power. They were also, typically, without backs and made to be portable. You could write a book on the social significance of this chair, but the world probably doesn't need two of them. Saint Elegius (of St. Elsewhere fame) got his start making one of these (and then making another out of the extra bits rather than just pocketing the change). To the best of my knowledge, no European king's throne was a fauld stool.

In the dark ages the absence of what we call chairs probably had more to do with the absence of anything like major cities or skilled craftsmen. The "throne" included with the Oseberg ship burial was little more than a box with a woven rope seat and we're not totally sure what the significance of the Oseberg burial is so I wouldn't go crazy with extrapolation. When the high middle ages came around and a skilled middle class started to be a thing furniture exploded and one doesn't have to dig very hard to find tons of seating in paintings and illumination from the period.

Also, there is a strong selection bias on furniture where big immobile pieces get to live and more fragile day to day pieces live, die and become fire wood.

Don't even get me started on how wrong the chairman of the board thing is.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 12:58 PM on May 2, 2012 [5 favorites]


I would love to put my monitors, keyboard and mouse up high enough to work comfortably standing. But the cubes here are low enough that it'd be really weird. Maybe the next job I get I can get some sort of standing desk type thing.

I honestly think that the cubical makes the standing desk more difficult to obtain than otherwise.

I'm going to try to stand more at home though.
posted by Hactar at 1:02 PM on May 2, 2012


Chairs can be downright deadly.

Over a year ago, I converted my desk to a standing desk, and the change has been incredible. More energy throughout the day, I'm more productive because hey, I'm already standing, why not go and do this thing right now? And my back is in much better shape. Now, it is nice to sit and take a load off for a while, but for my 8+ hours at work, I love being on my feet.
posted by xedrik at 1:18 PM on May 2, 2012


Here's what i want: Hologram computer interface so I can work while FLOATING IN A HOTTUB
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:18 PM on May 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Whenever I read these things about chairs or whatever killing us, I have to wonder how long people lived back in those healthy days when only the very wealthy had chairs, and everyone else squatted around a miserable turf fire and spent their days in backbreaking labor in the master's fields. Wasn't the average lifespan around 40? Since we have gotten so advanced in treating infectious disease and preventing major childhood killers with vaccination, eventually everyone dies of something, and the longer one lives, the more likely it will be cancer or heart disease. So is it sitting that is killing us, or simply living so much longer on average? People who once would have died in infancy, childhood, or for women, in childbirth, are now living long enough to eventually die of something else. I don't think chairs are the serious threat that this article proposes.
posted by mermayd at 1:23 PM on May 2, 2012


I honestly think that the cubical makes the standing desk more difficult to obtain than otherwise.

I'm in a cubicle (panel system walls with built-on worksurfaces and filing) and, while I did have to basically dismantle my desk area, it was just a matter of raising the brackets that held the worksurfaces up to a comfortable height (desktop at 39" above the floor is comfy standing height for me) and then putting the screws back in. My under- and over-desk filing was similarly easy to reposition, and everything is just as sturdy as it was before. More difficult than a totally free-standing desk, but still very doable!
posted by xedrik at 1:42 PM on May 2, 2012


I'm holding out for the beanbagularity.
posted by davejay at 2:12 PM on May 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Wasn't the average lifespan around 40?

I think that often those "average lifespan" numbers from ages past are sharply skewed because of infant and young child mortality. If you managed to survive to the age of 5, you would generally live a decently long life, into your 50s or 60s at least. It was just getting through that first bit which was difficult, and which brought the average down so sharply.
posted by hippybear at 2:46 PM on May 2, 2012


I switched over to a standing desk over a year ago. There are excellent, but the problem is that they have to be specialized for the person. Monitor must be at eye level, keyboard at elbow level, and, if you feel luxurious, a bar for your feet to play with must be set a little above the ankle. But comfort is really a secondary benefit, the real benefit of a standing desk is the capacity to pace, in mid-thought, without breaking concentration. That alone, the ability to pace, that is a brain supercharger. Divisions of space are divisions of mind, and the chair is a hell of a dividing line.
posted by TwelveTwo at 3:25 PM on May 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


You can have my Aeron when you can pry it out from under my cold, dead ass.

THIS
posted by hypersloth at 5:06 PM on May 2, 2012


That all said, I feel that methodical tasks, data entry, and fiddly work, all those tasks feel much more at home in the comfort of a chair. The three positions almost form a spectrum, or a triangle that Claude Levi-Strauss would draw. A lazy insightful imagination is nourished by the chaise longue, withdrawn precision activity is fostered by the chair, and what standing encourages is, what I can only describe as, thought-in-action. This is all anecdotal, but I swear, get rid of your desk and chair, mount two shelves on the wall, one for the monitor, one for your keyboard/mouse, then get yourself a white board if you don't have one, and get yourself a couch long enough to lay on.

If there is enough room remaining in your area of work, then you'll find yourself forced into a division where you can either stand-pace-dance-draw-work, or rest-sit-lounge-think-read. I cannot stress the couch enough. A lot of my friends could not keep up with the desk because they did not leave themselves a way to rest their legs. It is hard work at first. It is difficult to withstand being upright for more than a few hours for the first few weeks. You need something to collapse on to for a few minutes, or half hour at a time. Just enough time to rest the legs so you aren't feeling like death. But you need to keep the couch somewhere far enough away that you do not start typing from it. Example. I had a lightweight chair in my room when I first moved to a standing desk. Within the week, I found myself with a terrible habit. I was, balancing on top of the chair, in a kneeling posture. From this perch, I typed on the keyboard, which was a little under shoulder height, and my neck crooked sharply toward the monitor. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Reluctantly, I removed the chair from the room so as to stop myself from cheating. As a side note, I noticed that I only really tried sitting-and-computing when I was really zoning out, and often far off task. When I was on task, in those early weeks, at least according to my journal, I did not consider the fatigue of my legs. That is becoming tangential, the point is, couch, a couch is too awkward to move, and I promise, in a few weeks of standing, you just won't care. You'll instead be preaching the wonders of the standing office to all and sundry.

Oh, last thought. Put a book down on the couch, one that you've been meaning to get around to. A lot of people (often on the west coast) feel weird about laying down on the job and feeling like they are doing nothing. The solution is simple: add some thinky book to the couch. As an added benefit, you'll place reading on the restful side of the division. That means the next long scaremongering article about whether or not the diaper industry is ready for social media integration and what it means for the privacy of your child's privates will have you asking, do I really care to stand around reading this superfluous boilerplate article? Or would it make more sense to lay down, rest a while, and skip through a volume of Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook?
posted by TwelveTwo at 6:05 PM on May 2, 2012 [3 favorites]


I knew Arne Jacobsen was shifty.
posted by arcticseal at 7:58 PM on May 2, 2012


Ah, another excuse to extol the joy of a properly-executed squat. Also known as 'hunkering down.'
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:24 PM on May 2, 2012


How to do the Asian Squat.
posted by latkes at 6:22 AM on May 3, 2012 [1 favorite]


...And so it was that from the turn of the twentieth century on, chairs had society in their clutches.

Just not buying it. People have been sitting just about forever.

Now chairs as discrete manufactured objects, yeah, maybe. Until the advent of mass production, the four-legged, backed objects we now mostly use were harder to come by. Fair enough. But a board and two boxes is a bench, and any old thing can serve as a makeshift stool. Sitting straight on the ground is just uncomfortable and dirty, which is why even cultures that don't make much use of chairs squat or sit on mats rather than just dump themselves on the ground. Sitting on stuff is such an obvious thing to do that the idea that people didn't do it very much until the twentieth century just beggars belief.

The idea that people before the twentieth century led more physically active lifestyles and thus spent less time sitting is certainly plausible. But the idea that chairs--or their functional equivalents--have not been part of human history basically forever just doesn't wash.
posted by valkyryn at 7:09 AM on May 3, 2012


« Older Will   |   Spring, When the Harleys Return to British... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments