How people spend their time is a fundamental mark of civilization
June 25, 2023 5:52 AM Subscribe
Toward a Leisure Ethic A return to the leisure ethic might show us what we are missing. By developing such an ethos, we might find new vistas of human potential and value while fostering a more harmonious relationship with nature and each other along the way.
The structure of the average day precludes what Virginia Woolf called “moments of being,” those rare experiences of authentic self-affirmation that stick with us, crystallized in memory. Although, as Woolf observed, “every day includes much more non-being than being,” that is all the more reason to attend seriously to the limited time one has. The more harried one’s day—the more filled it is with banal busyness and fleeting frivolities—the scarcer the potential for authentic experiences becomes. The shorter one’s life becomes.
Earlier societies had a more clearly articulated understanding of how leisure ought to structure one’s life—it being the crucial space for character building, civic participation, worship, and so forth, depending on the historical context. By contrast, we today must find a glide path in what is otherwise an existentialist free fall. At least when we face the demands of work or other nondiscretionary time commitments, we don’t have to bother with the daunting question of what we should do with ourselves. Although the finitude of life ought to inspire an eagerness to seize the day, freedom, in this open-ended sense, can be agonizing, terrifying, overwhelming. Better to “keep busy,” to “have something to do,” and not to think about the fable of the horse that, growing tired of its freedom, allowed itself to be saddled, and was ridden to death.
Most of us are also risk averse, and so will seek meaning from culturally established, socially accepted, reliable sources. “Bringing home a paycheck” ticks all those boxes. It may not be ideal, but at least it is something. To find meaning without such structure requires more of what the philosopher Martin Hägglund calls “secular faith”: the belief that what you yourself have chosen to do with your limited lifespan matters.6 Thinking through this process can be unnerving. We are skeptical, or perhaps even frightened, of what we will find once we have stopped going through the motions of everyday life and begun to imagine a realm of freedom that is less circumscribed than that which we have always known.
[…]
What is time well spent? Philosophers and social critics have long pondered variations of that question and offered rather consistent insights over time, even across radically different eras. Many have extolled a leisure ethic, and none would say that time well spent lies in ambitious careerism or in drifting on a sea of addictive content. Most would agree that flourishing in time consists of free, active, thoughtful engagement with the world in accordance with one’s nature.
Such flourishing can best be achieved in activities pursued for their own sake during time that is truly one’s own. To the classical Greek philosophers (who generally had the luxury of knowing what true leisure felt like), time was best spent freely developing one’s own faculties, observing the world, and contemplating the universe. Hence, in the Theaetetus, Plato draws a distinction between a lawyer-orator, representing work (ascholia), and a philosopher, representing leisure (scholé).23 Both use knowledge, but while the philosopher lives for knowledge itself, the lawyer-orator values it primarily as a tool for achieving some other end. The lawyer-orator’s time and intelligence are committed to a servile art. When he wakes up in the morning, everything he does is in the service of his clients’ demands, his own ambition, or some other insatiable appetite. He lives a life of means with no ends.
Leisure thus represents engagement with ends—the age-old sources of meaning in life. Ends are determined by the process of eliminating means: If the reason you work is to support your family, your job is a means and your family is an end. But ends can be truly valued only when you are unburdened by life’s stresses or compulsions within your own mind.
Following this distinction between means and ends, Aristotle suggested that work and all other useful activities should be ordered around securing leisure. Just as peace is the proper end or purpose of war, leisure is the proper end of work. It exists for itself and does not answer to any instrumental demands. There are tasks that everyone must do to survive and to sustain society, but a life devoted solely to such activity is glaringly incomplete—even degraded. Since the ability to think and reason is what makes humans human, Plato and Aristotle saw contemplation as the highest end. Entertainment and recreation were acceptable as means of recuperating from—and for—work, but they were not ends in themselves.
[…]
The philosopher Kate Soper echoes Fromm in arguing for an “alternative hedonism,” which invites us to consider the possibility that reducing production and consumption would not entail even the least loss or sacrifice, because it would make us both happier and more fulfilled. She sees an opportunity to “advance beyond a mode of life that is not just environmentally disastrous but also in many respects unpleasurable, self-denying and too puritanically fixated on work and money-making, at the expense of the enjoyment that comes with having more time, doing more things for oneself, travelling more slowly and consuming less.”
Earlier societies had a more clearly articulated understanding of how leisure ought to structure one’s life—it being the crucial space for character building, civic participation, worship, and so forth, depending on the historical context. By contrast, we today must find a glide path in what is otherwise an existentialist free fall. At least when we face the demands of work or other nondiscretionary time commitments, we don’t have to bother with the daunting question of what we should do with ourselves. Although the finitude of life ought to inspire an eagerness to seize the day, freedom, in this open-ended sense, can be agonizing, terrifying, overwhelming. Better to “keep busy,” to “have something to do,” and not to think about the fable of the horse that, growing tired of its freedom, allowed itself to be saddled, and was ridden to death.
Most of us are also risk averse, and so will seek meaning from culturally established, socially accepted, reliable sources. “Bringing home a paycheck” ticks all those boxes. It may not be ideal, but at least it is something. To find meaning without such structure requires more of what the philosopher Martin Hägglund calls “secular faith”: the belief that what you yourself have chosen to do with your limited lifespan matters.6 Thinking through this process can be unnerving. We are skeptical, or perhaps even frightened, of what we will find once we have stopped going through the motions of everyday life and begun to imagine a realm of freedom that is less circumscribed than that which we have always known.
[…]
What is time well spent? Philosophers and social critics have long pondered variations of that question and offered rather consistent insights over time, even across radically different eras. Many have extolled a leisure ethic, and none would say that time well spent lies in ambitious careerism or in drifting on a sea of addictive content. Most would agree that flourishing in time consists of free, active, thoughtful engagement with the world in accordance with one’s nature.
Such flourishing can best be achieved in activities pursued for their own sake during time that is truly one’s own. To the classical Greek philosophers (who generally had the luxury of knowing what true leisure felt like), time was best spent freely developing one’s own faculties, observing the world, and contemplating the universe. Hence, in the Theaetetus, Plato draws a distinction between a lawyer-orator, representing work (ascholia), and a philosopher, representing leisure (scholé).23 Both use knowledge, but while the philosopher lives for knowledge itself, the lawyer-orator values it primarily as a tool for achieving some other end. The lawyer-orator’s time and intelligence are committed to a servile art. When he wakes up in the morning, everything he does is in the service of his clients’ demands, his own ambition, or some other insatiable appetite. He lives a life of means with no ends.
Leisure thus represents engagement with ends—the age-old sources of meaning in life. Ends are determined by the process of eliminating means: If the reason you work is to support your family, your job is a means and your family is an end. But ends can be truly valued only when you are unburdened by life’s stresses or compulsions within your own mind.
Following this distinction between means and ends, Aristotle suggested that work and all other useful activities should be ordered around securing leisure. Just as peace is the proper end or purpose of war, leisure is the proper end of work. It exists for itself and does not answer to any instrumental demands. There are tasks that everyone must do to survive and to sustain society, but a life devoted solely to such activity is glaringly incomplete—even degraded. Since the ability to think and reason is what makes humans human, Plato and Aristotle saw contemplation as the highest end. Entertainment and recreation were acceptable as means of recuperating from—and for—work, but they were not ends in themselves.
[…]
The philosopher Kate Soper echoes Fromm in arguing for an “alternative hedonism,” which invites us to consider the possibility that reducing production and consumption would not entail even the least loss or sacrifice, because it would make us both happier and more fulfilled. She sees an opportunity to “advance beyond a mode of life that is not just environmentally disastrous but also in many respects unpleasurable, self-denying and too puritanically fixated on work and money-making, at the expense of the enjoyment that comes with having more time, doing more things for oneself, travelling more slowly and consuming less.”
I’m in favor of more leisure and of an ethic that values leisure - but, even more, that values having personal choice over our daily activities - but this essay seems to have some issues in common with the Victorian prison reformers who introduced solitary confinement because they liked sitting alone in a room and thinking deep philosophical thoughts, so thought it would be a good and healthy thing to impose on others - that if those who had been convicted of a crime (as defined in that time and place) simply had the opportunity to pause and ponder life, they would become better humans. And now we know that solitary confinement can be considered a human rights violation. We also know that keeping busy is often an adaptive mental health strategy for people who don’t have access to other treatment options (especially for trauma), that neurodiversity exists and that different ways of being in the world are equally valid, and that non-Western philosophies that emphasize doing your daily tasks mindfully over the sort of Western contemplative ideal alluded to in the pull quotes are also a valid way of being that some people prefer.
posted by eviemath at 6:48 AM on June 25, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 6:48 AM on June 25, 2023 [17 favorites]
I appreciate how this essay situates the current state of the world where a work ethic is primary in context of a history where this wasn’t always the case. Talking about the ways that we can put ourselves into a different frame of mind a reference point with what’s valued and what marks out a successful society. I think crucially that envisioning the society we want has been stolen from us by means of crushing work, and that this essay invites us to imagine a different relationship to time not just by saying “hey wouldn’t this be great” but by saying “this was actively stolen from us and we have society models.”
It makes me think of how when missionaries arrived to Hawaii they felt that there was something immoral in Hawaiian society because they got all their work done early in the day and spent the rest of their time playing and enjoying themselves. That this was seen as something to “fix” rather than something to emulate.
Having examples of examined societal structures that we can return to is something quite important, for me. We don’t need to create things from whole cloth and we don’t have to build leisure on the backs of oppression. Egalitarian society where leisure is evenly distributed is possible and we have examples.
posted by Bottlecap at 6:51 AM on June 25, 2023 [14 favorites]
It makes me think of how when missionaries arrived to Hawaii they felt that there was something immoral in Hawaiian society because they got all their work done early in the day and spent the rest of their time playing and enjoying themselves. That this was seen as something to “fix” rather than something to emulate.
Having examples of examined societal structures that we can return to is something quite important, for me. We don’t need to create things from whole cloth and we don’t have to build leisure on the backs of oppression. Egalitarian society where leisure is evenly distributed is possible and we have examples.
posted by Bottlecap at 6:51 AM on June 25, 2023 [14 favorites]
Egalitarian society where leisure is evenly distributed is possible
Definitely, and we should absolutely be aspiring to this--I think very few things are more freeing to any person than having time that is yours to spend as you choose, daily. As I age, this is the only habit I've found that helps slow the (subjectively) increasingly fast passage of time: pay attention, slow down by not doing so much, take time to think and be and just do things that are worth doing because you choose to do them. (Fortunately, I realized a long time ago that time was the most valuable currency I could work for, and found a profession that lets me keep a lot of it under my own control. It's made me feel pretty wealthy over the years, actually, even though the pay is only OK.)
Thanks for this post, lots of food for thought and this kind of cultural conversation will maybe help start to de-stigmatize leisure and not working all the time, and put that awful Protestant work ethic to rest.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:26 AM on June 25, 2023 [8 favorites]
Definitely, and we should absolutely be aspiring to this--I think very few things are more freeing to any person than having time that is yours to spend as you choose, daily. As I age, this is the only habit I've found that helps slow the (subjectively) increasingly fast passage of time: pay attention, slow down by not doing so much, take time to think and be and just do things that are worth doing because you choose to do them. (Fortunately, I realized a long time ago that time was the most valuable currency I could work for, and found a profession that lets me keep a lot of it under my own control. It's made me feel pretty wealthy over the years, actually, even though the pay is only OK.)
Thanks for this post, lots of food for thought and this kind of cultural conversation will maybe help start to de-stigmatize leisure and not working all the time, and put that awful Protestant work ethic to rest.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:26 AM on June 25, 2023 [8 favorites]
This article makes it sound like workaholism is something that most people choose rather than is thrust upon them under the gun barrels of potential medical bills, homelessness, and jail (because being homeless is illegal.)
She believed that every investment and allowance should be made to support a leisure class—a fortunati—not so that its members could consume conspicuously, but so that they could create a lasting and worthy culture.
Oh, but every investment and allowance DOES go to this leisure class...
posted by AlSweigart at 7:31 AM on June 25, 2023 [30 favorites]
She believed that every investment and allowance should be made to support a leisure class—a fortunati—not so that its members could consume conspicuously, but so that they could create a lasting and worthy culture.
Oh, but every investment and allowance DOES go to this leisure class...
posted by AlSweigart at 7:31 AM on June 25, 2023 [30 favorites]
The first thing to do, maybe, is invent a word with a less negative feel than "leisure".
posted by amtho at 8:02 AM on June 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by amtho at 8:02 AM on June 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
There's the added wrinkle to this whole discussion that, thanks to *hustle culture*, even leisure has been redefined by many to mean "hobbies I can monetize".
posted by Zargon X at 8:08 AM on June 25, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by Zargon X at 8:08 AM on June 25, 2023 [12 favorites]
100% worshipper of Bob Dobbs, slack, leisure, sleep, nap, entropy, restoration, zzz's.
Never gonna happen with the people in charge. And with the extenuating circumstances (pressures from global warming) as an excuse to entrench suffering amongst migrants and demand ever more capital increase (this is in opposition to Slack).
The longer we wait to get rid of this mentality - the worse it will be down the line.
The 4 day week demand is good but only if it's max 8 hours (32 week) personally I think a 24 hour week would be best.
It took a few deaths to change things in the US + a lot more violence in that process.
We see what happens when a massive uprising and failures happen for 20 years.
I don't think this is gonna happen.
Sorry,
pessimist me.
posted by symbioid at 8:30 AM on June 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
Never gonna happen with the people in charge. And with the extenuating circumstances (pressures from global warming) as an excuse to entrench suffering amongst migrants and demand ever more capital increase (this is in opposition to Slack).
The longer we wait to get rid of this mentality - the worse it will be down the line.
The 4 day week demand is good but only if it's max 8 hours (32 week) personally I think a 24 hour week would be best.
It took a few deaths to change things in the US + a lot more violence in that process.
We see what happens when a massive uprising and failures happen for 20 years.
I don't think this is gonna happen.
Sorry,
pessimist me.
posted by symbioid at 8:30 AM on June 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
You can have all the leisure you want if you're okay with being poor. If you're intelligent, you'd better start young by adopting or developing a philosophical framework for tolerating this condition. But those philosophies rarely hold up through middle age - at which time you will likely be scrambling to catch up with your harder-working peers. The best idea is to kill that little Walt Whitman* in inside you and get busy. It's not "capitalism". It's the hard truth of the human condition. Seriously. Work. Work hard.
* I lean and loaf at my ease observing a leaf of summer grass.
posted by Modest House at 8:30 AM on June 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
* I lean and loaf at my ease observing a leaf of summer grass.
posted by Modest House at 8:30 AM on June 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't think this is gonna happen.
Sorry,
pessimist me.
I'd encourage everyone interested in this topic of how to balance work and non-work time, and especially the uhm pessimists, to read Jenny Odell's latest book Saving Time. It addresses a lot of these same issues (specifically global warming) in the framework of capitalism.
Specifically she addresses declinism, defined as "the belief that a society is headed for inevitable and irreversible doom".
posted by jeremias at 9:03 AM on June 25, 2023 [14 favorites]
Sorry,
pessimist me.
I'd encourage everyone interested in this topic of how to balance work and non-work time, and especially the uhm pessimists, to read Jenny Odell's latest book Saving Time. It addresses a lot of these same issues (specifically global warming) in the framework of capitalism.
Specifically she addresses declinism, defined as "the belief that a society is headed for inevitable and irreversible doom".
...declinism is probably one of the more dangerous forms of linear, deterministic time reckoning there is. After all, it is one thing to acknowledge the past and future losses that follow from what has occurred: it is another to truly see history and the future proceeding with the same grim amorality as the video playhead, where nothing is driving it except itself. In failing to recognize the agency of both human and nonhuman actors, such a view makes struggle and contingency invisible and produces nihilism, nostalgia, and ultimately paralysis.I found it useful anyway.
posted by jeremias at 9:03 AM on June 25, 2023 [14 favorites]
Bottlecap - absolutely. My point is rather that the essay also seems to have a point of view about what a valuable use of that leisure time would or should be. I think that watching movies or playing video games all day, while it wouldn’t be my long-term preference for myself, is just as valid a choice as anything more contemplative, though, and that we should be advocating for a society that also allows people to spend their time thusly rather than merely replacing the current work with something that will also feel like work to some subset of people even as it feels like leisure to some.
posted by eviemath at 9:09 AM on June 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 9:09 AM on June 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
Bear in mind that capitalism fucks with your "leisure" on both ends... there's the need for (often too much) work, but then there's the fact that late-stage capitalism and technology try to co-opt as much of your free time as possible.
I've recently been witnessing my mother-in-law's extremely rapid decline in physical and mental health to a point where her last year of life is likely to be awful. I've realized that realistically I probably have no more than 9,999 "good" days left to me. So I'm starting to think about how I want those days to be. Thankfully I've navigated my way to a job that pays reasonably well and doesn't exhaust me, so I'm OK in that angle. I've decided I want to be more intentional about my free time though. Going to cut down in time spent dicking around on my phone reading garbage clickbait articles and social media, as ultimately they do not nourish me nor give me real pleasure.
posted by microscone at 10:11 AM on June 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
I've recently been witnessing my mother-in-law's extremely rapid decline in physical and mental health to a point where her last year of life is likely to be awful. I've realized that realistically I probably have no more than 9,999 "good" days left to me. So I'm starting to think about how I want those days to be. Thankfully I've navigated my way to a job that pays reasonably well and doesn't exhaust me, so I'm OK in that angle. I've decided I want to be more intentional about my free time though. Going to cut down in time spent dicking around on my phone reading garbage clickbait articles and social media, as ultimately they do not nourish me nor give me real pleasure.
posted by microscone at 10:11 AM on June 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
In any case, most people today would agree with the idea that we should not live to work; rather, we work so that we might live.
This probably should have framed the essay to begin with, because one attitude is far more servile and slavish than the other, counterintuitively perhaps. Living to work may seem dull, but it means that one owns their work, which may be a pursuit of excellence and the effort it requires. The latter, working to live, implies that one's survival is dependent on work. Many can do this in under eight hours a day, but it doesn't mean anyone else can where there is a glut of workers. Also, the essay only mentioned children in passing, which is unfortunate because work, industry, and economic prescriptions are simply efforts to feed them, as population growth, which fall into the working to live condition of survival. Writing an essay about this subject while not considering family planning is a blind eye that most people have due to their upbringing.
posted by Brian B. at 10:25 AM on June 25, 2023
This probably should have framed the essay to begin with, because one attitude is far more servile and slavish than the other, counterintuitively perhaps. Living to work may seem dull, but it means that one owns their work, which may be a pursuit of excellence and the effort it requires. The latter, working to live, implies that one's survival is dependent on work. Many can do this in under eight hours a day, but it doesn't mean anyone else can where there is a glut of workers. Also, the essay only mentioned children in passing, which is unfortunate because work, industry, and economic prescriptions are simply efforts to feed them, as population growth, which fall into the working to live condition of survival. Writing an essay about this subject while not considering family planning is a blind eye that most people have due to their upbringing.
posted by Brian B. at 10:25 AM on June 25, 2023
You can have all the leisure you want if you're okay with being poor
or okay with being obscenely wealthy.
posted by flabdablet at 11:24 AM on June 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
or okay with being obscenely wealthy.
posted by flabdablet at 11:24 AM on June 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
“One reason for this is that the values and culture that created our current abundance may be incompatible with actually enjoying it. Sparta had the same problem. After mastering the art of war and achieving supreme domination, it could no longer preserve itself, because its citizens didn’t know what to do with the leisure they had won.”
This reminds me of the alt-right meme that goes, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
Neither stands up to scrutiny.
I didn’t know the popular belief in the supremacy of Sparta was still around. There was a good fpp about that a few years ago.
It seems to be a throwaway line but it makes me wonder how well understood the other bases of the argument are.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 11:40 AM on June 25, 2023 [10 favorites]
This reminds me of the alt-right meme that goes, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
Neither stands up to scrutiny.
I didn’t know the popular belief in the supremacy of Sparta was still around. There was a good fpp about that a few years ago.
It seems to be a throwaway line but it makes me wonder how well understood the other bases of the argument are.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 11:40 AM on June 25, 2023 [10 favorites]
I believe this is the FPP that @The Monster at the End of this Thread is referring to. It's very interesting, thank you for referencing it.
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:49 AM on June 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:49 AM on June 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
That's it, OrangeDisk. Bret Devereaux's account is that ancient Sparta was basically North Korea, impressive only in its propaganda. They lost more wars than they won.
Sparta's story: hard times create oligarchy. Oligarchy creates warmongering. Warmongering creates defeat. Defeat creates hard times.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:40 PM on June 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
Sparta's story: hard times create oligarchy. Oligarchy creates warmongering. Warmongering creates defeat. Defeat creates hard times.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:40 PM on June 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
Modest House, we remember Walt Whitman, but do we remember the names of the countless hard-working factory and mine workers of his time?
Did they accomplish more, for that matter, by working longer harder hours, than modern Western European workers protected by unions and labor/safety laws? Working hard sometimes means accomplishing things for other people, which is good. Much of the time it just means killing yourself for the boss, so he/she can have leisure that you and your loved ones will never get.
This seems obvious, so maybe I don't understand your point?
There is a New Yorker cartoon showing ancient Egyptians hauling stones for a pyramid, and one of them is saying
"if I work hard, maybe someday I'll have my own pyramid".
(On the other hand, Walt Whitman worked all kinds of menial jobs... So, maybe he is an example of your ideal after all.)
posted by Vegiemon at 12:50 PM on June 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
Did they accomplish more, for that matter, by working longer harder hours, than modern Western European workers protected by unions and labor/safety laws? Working hard sometimes means accomplishing things for other people, which is good. Much of the time it just means killing yourself for the boss, so he/she can have leisure that you and your loved ones will never get.
This seems obvious, so maybe I don't understand your point?
There is a New Yorker cartoon showing ancient Egyptians hauling stones for a pyramid, and one of them is saying
"if I work hard, maybe someday I'll have my own pyramid".
(On the other hand, Walt Whitman worked all kinds of menial jobs... So, maybe he is an example of your ideal after all.)
posted by Vegiemon at 12:50 PM on June 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
Most of us are also risk averse, and so will seek meaning from culturally established, socially accepted, reliable sources. “Bringing home a paycheck” ticks all those boxes. It may not be ideal, but at least it is something. To find meaning without such structure requires more of what the philosopher Martin Hägglund calls “secular faith” generaltional wealth
FTFY
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:06 PM on June 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
FTFY
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:06 PM on June 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
Good points, Vegiemon, especially about Whitman. Whitman worked his butt off as a poet and hack journalist, in addition to all his other jobs. You don't write a poem as long as "Leaves of Grass" if your real object in life is leisure.
As far as the coal miners and other working class people of his day -- well, my great, grand-father was a coal miner of a somewhat later day, and I'm glad he didn't go in for leisure pursuits like sleeping late, playing cards and drinking moonshine like some of his relatives and neighbors. He worked hard in the mine until he couldn't take it anymore, then he joined a team that was mending fences, worked hard with them, going from county to country until they got to a big city.
Then he got a job in a factory and worked hard there for 40 years until he retired. I don't think he was unhappy with his life or thought he deserved more leisure. He was a clean, modest, frugal man, and if he hadn't been, I wouldn't be here.
posted by Modest House at 3:14 PM on June 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
As far as the coal miners and other working class people of his day -- well, my great, grand-father was a coal miner of a somewhat later day, and I'm glad he didn't go in for leisure pursuits like sleeping late, playing cards and drinking moonshine like some of his relatives and neighbors. He worked hard in the mine until he couldn't take it anymore, then he joined a team that was mending fences, worked hard with them, going from county to country until they got to a big city.
Then he got a job in a factory and worked hard there for 40 years until he retired. I don't think he was unhappy with his life or thought he deserved more leisure. He was a clean, modest, frugal man, and if he hadn't been, I wouldn't be here.
posted by Modest House at 3:14 PM on June 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
You can have all the leisure you want if you're okay with being poor
or okay with being obscenely wealthy.
Only one of those allows you to have actual leisure time, given the society we live in doesn't allow any way to do anything but survive through hard grind if you're poor. The constant pressure to have more, to own more, to do more has swallowed up most ways to live a simple life - particularly there is almost no affordable housing anywhere I've seen. By affordable housing, I mean housing that gives you shelter and reasonable comfort at a low cost that is close to the services you need to survive. Where can you buy (or rent for that matter) a home that just gives you the basics and allows a family to live a minimalist life free from the cost of owning multiple cars and spending half their time just getting to and from work?
Capitalism as practiced today has destroyed any chance of most people actually living a thoughtful life free from excess. Living such a life in today's society is not impossible, but it requires so much pushing against everything that we're told we must do to be happy that it becomes in and of itself hard work.
posted by dg at 4:09 PM on June 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
or okay with being obscenely wealthy.
Only one of those allows you to have actual leisure time, given the society we live in doesn't allow any way to do anything but survive through hard grind if you're poor. The constant pressure to have more, to own more, to do more has swallowed up most ways to live a simple life - particularly there is almost no affordable housing anywhere I've seen. By affordable housing, I mean housing that gives you shelter and reasonable comfort at a low cost that is close to the services you need to survive. Where can you buy (or rent for that matter) a home that just gives you the basics and allows a family to live a minimalist life free from the cost of owning multiple cars and spending half their time just getting to and from work?
Capitalism as practiced today has destroyed any chance of most people actually living a thoughtful life free from excess. Living such a life in today's society is not impossible, but it requires so much pushing against everything that we're told we must do to be happy that it becomes in and of itself hard work.
posted by dg at 4:09 PM on June 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
I've been listening to an audiobook on Youtube of Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving.
Early in the book, he talks about how he noticed how much more affectionate parents from many non-industrial societies are toward their children.
He first noticed it while watching refugees from Bangladesh, who had been overwhelmed by some natural disaster.
This got me half-baking: Maybe industrialized societies are this way because we're in a war against nature. That's what gives us all of the certainty and wealth we enjoy: Instead of nature overwhelming us, we overwhelm it. But this takes constant effort, constant discipline, constant self-sacrifice. From doctors fighting disease to farmers fighting weeds to oilfield workers fighting dirt to engineers fighting gravity. We need to train ourselves up from birth to push down our emotions and needs so that we can successfully prosecute this war.
posted by clawsoon at 4:14 PM on June 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
Early in the book, he talks about how he noticed how much more affectionate parents from many non-industrial societies are toward their children.
He first noticed it while watching refugees from Bangladesh, who had been overwhelmed by some natural disaster.
This got me half-baking: Maybe industrialized societies are this way because we're in a war against nature. That's what gives us all of the certainty and wealth we enjoy: Instead of nature overwhelming us, we overwhelm it. But this takes constant effort, constant discipline, constant self-sacrifice. From doctors fighting disease to farmers fighting weeds to oilfield workers fighting dirt to engineers fighting gravity. We need to train ourselves up from birth to push down our emotions and needs so that we can successfully prosecute this war.
posted by clawsoon at 4:14 PM on June 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
...and to continue the half-baked theory, it seems that every society which has successfully industrialized has had to go through this process of creating a disciplined, self-sacrificing workforce. There doesn't seem to be a way around it. Multiple generations of children must be taught to forget how to enjoy leisure, or else the project of industrialization fails.
Doesn't seem to matter if it's capitalism or communism or fascism that's the path to industrialization.
posted by clawsoon at 4:20 PM on June 25, 2023
Doesn't seem to matter if it's capitalism or communism or fascism that's the path to industrialization.
posted by clawsoon at 4:20 PM on June 25, 2023
Modest House, the moonshine drinkers and card players had great-grand-children too!
In my case I descend from a Pennsylvania old-time banjo player. I don't know how much leisure he got, he traveled around with the band, but after he got married he needed to support a family, quit the band, got a job with an oil company and also kept a big farm garden (which I was sometimes drafted to help harvest, on family visits - ask me how similar potatoes and rocks look.)
I suspect many an indie band guitarist has followed a similar trajectory, into a conventional job/life.
Times don't seem to have changed that much... But factory workers are safer and have more time with their kids (who themselves don't work in the factories or mines any more the way they did in the 19th century.) Leisure is GOOD for people; playing cards is good for us.
David Graeber's big orange book (the title escapes me at the moment) describes a huge number of traditional societies with all degrees and kinds of leisure, work, egalitarianism, hierarchy, etc. Humans have tried all kinds of arrangements, he says: so, I guess it's not obvious what amount of work/leisure is "right"... but choosing the lazy option isn't automatically wrong, though, I think.
posted by Vegiemon at 5:18 PM on June 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
In my case I descend from a Pennsylvania old-time banjo player. I don't know how much leisure he got, he traveled around with the band, but after he got married he needed to support a family, quit the band, got a job with an oil company and also kept a big farm garden (which I was sometimes drafted to help harvest, on family visits - ask me how similar potatoes and rocks look.)
I suspect many an indie band guitarist has followed a similar trajectory, into a conventional job/life.
Times don't seem to have changed that much... But factory workers are safer and have more time with their kids (who themselves don't work in the factories or mines any more the way they did in the 19th century.) Leisure is GOOD for people; playing cards is good for us.
David Graeber's big orange book (the title escapes me at the moment) describes a huge number of traditional societies with all degrees and kinds of leisure, work, egalitarianism, hierarchy, etc. Humans have tried all kinds of arrangements, he says: so, I guess it's not obvious what amount of work/leisure is "right"... but choosing the lazy option isn't automatically wrong, though, I think.
posted by Vegiemon at 5:18 PM on June 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
clawsoon, nature seems to be losing the battle, and as we are part of nature, we are defeating ourselves too.
posted by Vegiemon at 5:22 PM on June 25, 2023
posted by Vegiemon at 5:22 PM on June 25, 2023
Vegiemon, I believe you're thinking of "Dawn of Everything"? That book definitely got me thinking about all this stuff.
But factory workers are safer and have more time with their kids (who themselves don't work in the factories or mines any more the way they did in the 19th century.)
A lot of that work has merely moved elsewhere in the world. I've begun to wonder if industrial society simply can't exist without a large army of underpaid, poorly treated workers somewhere in the world. There always seems to be some gap in any industrial pipeline that has to be filled with masses of humans, whether they're feeding the machines or dealing with what the machines are spewing out.
clawsoon, nature seems to be losing the battle, and as we are part of nature, we are defeating ourselves too.
Indeed. In the meantime, though, we seem to have eaten up all of the land in the world that was productive enough to use for leisurely living.
posted by clawsoon at 5:31 PM on June 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
But factory workers are safer and have more time with their kids (who themselves don't work in the factories or mines any more the way they did in the 19th century.)
A lot of that work has merely moved elsewhere in the world. I've begun to wonder if industrial society simply can't exist without a large army of underpaid, poorly treated workers somewhere in the world. There always seems to be some gap in any industrial pipeline that has to be filled with masses of humans, whether they're feeding the machines or dealing with what the machines are spewing out.
clawsoon, nature seems to be losing the battle, and as we are part of nature, we are defeating ourselves too.
Indeed. In the meantime, though, we seem to have eaten up all of the land in the world that was productive enough to use for leisurely living.
posted by clawsoon at 5:31 PM on June 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
Egalitarian society where leisure is evenly distributed is possible
I mean, your example, pre-conquest Hawai'i, was a caste society with a hereditary monarchy and chiefs and strong gender differentiation. I do think such a society is possible, and I do think there are lessons to be learned from many cultures throughout the world and history, but the quest to find a truly just society, preferably somewhere not Western, is a fool's errand.
I wonder if the person writing this piece has ever, e.g., been in an urban ER on a Friday night, or a rural senior center near the end of the month...anywhere where you can see the way that the ravages of aging, even just into middle age, hit the poor infinitely harder than the well-off. I don't know how many GoFundMes I've seen in recent years for people who did beloved creative work and who are now, twenty years on, trying to raise funds to cover the bills for recovering for a stroke or the like, and these were people who were in work for a long time. Most people aren't working 9-5 because they can't cope with a lack of structure.
posted by praemunire at 6:42 PM on June 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
I mean, your example, pre-conquest Hawai'i, was a caste society with a hereditary monarchy and chiefs and strong gender differentiation. I do think such a society is possible, and I do think there are lessons to be learned from many cultures throughout the world and history, but the quest to find a truly just society, preferably somewhere not Western, is a fool's errand.
I wonder if the person writing this piece has ever, e.g., been in an urban ER on a Friday night, or a rural senior center near the end of the month...anywhere where you can see the way that the ravages of aging, even just into middle age, hit the poor infinitely harder than the well-off. I don't know how many GoFundMes I've seen in recent years for people who did beloved creative work and who are now, twenty years on, trying to raise funds to cover the bills for recovering for a stroke or the like, and these were people who were in work for a long time. Most people aren't working 9-5 because they can't cope with a lack of structure.
posted by praemunire at 6:42 PM on June 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
Earlier societies had a more clearly articulated understanding of how leisure ought to structure one’s life—it being the crucial space for character building, civic participation, worship, and so forth, depending on the historical context.
....If you were a man.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:13 PM on June 25, 2023 [10 favorites]
....If you were a man.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:13 PM on June 25, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is the Eight Hour Day Memorial in Melbourne, Australia.
"In February 1856, stonemasons working at the University of Melbourne marched on Parliament House, pressing claims for a regulated eight-hour working day. After weeks of protest, the workers became the first in the world to achieve a 48-hour working week. The ‘888’ on the top of obelisk refers to the workers’ popular slogan: eight hours’ work, eight hours’ rest and eight hours’ recreation."
That's how we get more leisure time. We don't need a Leisure Ethic. We need unions.
posted by davidwitteveen at 1:38 AM on June 26, 2023 [12 favorites]
"In February 1856, stonemasons working at the University of Melbourne marched on Parliament House, pressing claims for a regulated eight-hour working day. After weeks of protest, the workers became the first in the world to achieve a 48-hour working week. The ‘888’ on the top of obelisk refers to the workers’ popular slogan: eight hours’ work, eight hours’ rest and eight hours’ recreation."
That's how we get more leisure time. We don't need a Leisure Ethic. We need unions.
posted by davidwitteveen at 1:38 AM on June 26, 2023 [12 favorites]
Unions are great, unity is better. The revolution is people deciding to care for each other, regardless of divisive identities. That change is lived, not watched, hence it will not be televised.
The truth of the economy is we need some-how to limit human activity, because serving others, for real, is invigorating and life affirming, but absent careful management, it wouldn't take long to turn every last tree into toothpicks or charcoal, and collectively go the way of the Anasazi. Capitalism is not Just, but Marx's alternative is unfree. A better balance should be possible.
How we repair the social web will be the subject of unimaginable human ingenuity; unimaginable as in too grand for any one of us to envision. What is centrally managed, and what diversity is encouraged, what paths are off limits: these are choices that each of us make every day for ourselves and each other. What arbitrary rules are necessary for efficient cooperation, when exceptions should be made, graces given or, unattractively - compulsions enforced -- these are the nuances of the cultures and the law.
I don't discount the struggle. When your cook is liberated, how will you eat? Threat responses must be anticipated and mitigated with compassion and kindness, if only because the alternative is more meaningless suffering -- and not along any clean lines.
Resist hate. Dare to see each other. Act. Live. Love. Trust, but verify.
posted by grokus at 3:10 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
The truth of the economy is we need some-how to limit human activity, because serving others, for real, is invigorating and life affirming, but absent careful management, it wouldn't take long to turn every last tree into toothpicks or charcoal, and collectively go the way of the Anasazi. Capitalism is not Just, but Marx's alternative is unfree. A better balance should be possible.
How we repair the social web will be the subject of unimaginable human ingenuity; unimaginable as in too grand for any one of us to envision. What is centrally managed, and what diversity is encouraged, what paths are off limits: these are choices that each of us make every day for ourselves and each other. What arbitrary rules are necessary for efficient cooperation, when exceptions should be made, graces given or, unattractively - compulsions enforced -- these are the nuances of the cultures and the law.
I don't discount the struggle. When your cook is liberated, how will you eat? Threat responses must be anticipated and mitigated with compassion and kindness, if only because the alternative is more meaningless suffering -- and not along any clean lines.
Resist hate. Dare to see each other. Act. Live. Love. Trust, but verify.
posted by grokus at 3:10 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
The constant pressure to have more, to own more, to do more has swallowed up most ways to live a simple life - particularly there is almost no affordable housing anywhere I've seen.
I think we all know at least one person who is not 'rich' but is comfortable with little, and loves the simple life - but IMO that life is b-o-r-i-n-g and I personally can't take it. Blame it on capitalism, but I've seen that and don't want it. Maybe more people do and it's deprived of them. Conservatives talk about this a lot. I'd agree it is being deprived of those who are dirt poor, but that's certainly not everybody.
"...the COVID-19 pandemic invited a hard look at some of the basic facts of our own time..." COVID 19 also gave a lot of people a look at the simple life, and it was soundly rejected. People were willing to risk death to get their old lives back.
IMO this article has a few ideas I just can't get past:
1) it's extremely sanctimonious about what 'leisure' time means: "Cultivating a rich appreciation of the art of filmmaking yields satisfactions that simply watching movies does not, but who has time for the former? " Piss off. If I wanted to become a film maker, I'd have become one. Even if that's a simple example it's still pompous. "I'm enjoying this more than you because I'm learned about it. "
2) In an article about extra leisure time, how can you include deep thoughts about 'bullshit jobs' as anything other than a positive? If a job can be done in 20 minutes and the other 7 hours and 40 minutes is daydreaming, how is that a negative? How is an 'unfulfilling' job anything other than a gift to the amateur philosopher, assuming the pay is ok? I'm not talking jobs that require 8 hours of mindless work - that is work even if it's not physically demanding. There has to be a difference. That most people don't feel 'engaged' at work - isn't that moving towards a leisure society? We still have the artifices of work, but without the deep responsibility for many? Also, do people 'like' working or not? Pick one. It can't be negative that they are disengaged at work and also begging for more time for passion projects.
3) Facetiously, one will have to work really hard to convince me much of philosophy is that different from 'doomscrolling'. The big stuff has already been found - so most are just retreading or deepening existing ideas.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:58 AM on June 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think we all know at least one person who is not 'rich' but is comfortable with little, and loves the simple life - but IMO that life is b-o-r-i-n-g and I personally can't take it. Blame it on capitalism, but I've seen that and don't want it. Maybe more people do and it's deprived of them. Conservatives talk about this a lot. I'd agree it is being deprived of those who are dirt poor, but that's certainly not everybody.
"...the COVID-19 pandemic invited a hard look at some of the basic facts of our own time..." COVID 19 also gave a lot of people a look at the simple life, and it was soundly rejected. People were willing to risk death to get their old lives back.
IMO this article has a few ideas I just can't get past:
1) it's extremely sanctimonious about what 'leisure' time means: "Cultivating a rich appreciation of the art of filmmaking yields satisfactions that simply watching movies does not, but who has time for the former? " Piss off. If I wanted to become a film maker, I'd have become one. Even if that's a simple example it's still pompous. "I'm enjoying this more than you because I'm learned about it. "
2) In an article about extra leisure time, how can you include deep thoughts about 'bullshit jobs' as anything other than a positive? If a job can be done in 20 minutes and the other 7 hours and 40 minutes is daydreaming, how is that a negative? How is an 'unfulfilling' job anything other than a gift to the amateur philosopher, assuming the pay is ok? I'm not talking jobs that require 8 hours of mindless work - that is work even if it's not physically demanding. There has to be a difference. That most people don't feel 'engaged' at work - isn't that moving towards a leisure society? We still have the artifices of work, but without the deep responsibility for many? Also, do people 'like' working or not? Pick one. It can't be negative that they are disengaged at work and also begging for more time for passion projects.
3) Facetiously, one will have to work really hard to convince me much of philosophy is that different from 'doomscrolling'. The big stuff has already been found - so most are just retreading or deepening existing ideas.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:58 AM on June 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
I've begun to wonder if industrial society simply can't exist without a large army of underpaid, poorly treated workers somewhere in the world. There always seems to be some gap in any industrial pipeline that has to be filled with masses of humans
I think it's the other way around: as long as you have a large army of underpaid, poorly-treated workers somewhere in the world, industrial capitalism will figure out some way to use them in order to increase profits.
There are very few industrial-production jobs that can't be automated, and there's tons of stuff that's done by hand in Asia but done mechanically in the US or Europe (seriously, go on YouTube and watch something like a rolling mill or injection-molding plant in Asia and the same thing in Europe; it's night and day), and the difference is entirely due to labor costs. If labor is cheap, well, you just have someone reach their hand into the die press and pull the part out; if labor is expensive, you build some extra parts into the press so it pops the part out automatically and kicks it onto a conveyor belt. (And yes, often the automation is not trivial, and requires stuff like getting all new machinery, or redesigning the plant, but the underlying reason for not doing that stuff is that in many places, having a human do a machine's work is just cheaper than having a machine do it.)
"Globalization" has basically been a labor-cost arbitrage game played by major corporations against workers, specifically against workers in high-cost, highly-regulated locales. And as long as countries allow imports of goods from countries with regulatory and cost structures more lenient than they allow within their own borders (and transportation costs stay low), it will continue to be a way to work around workers' demands and pit them against each other in a race-to-the-bottom.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:05 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think it's the other way around: as long as you have a large army of underpaid, poorly-treated workers somewhere in the world, industrial capitalism will figure out some way to use them in order to increase profits.
There are very few industrial-production jobs that can't be automated, and there's tons of stuff that's done by hand in Asia but done mechanically in the US or Europe (seriously, go on YouTube and watch something like a rolling mill or injection-molding plant in Asia and the same thing in Europe; it's night and day), and the difference is entirely due to labor costs. If labor is cheap, well, you just have someone reach their hand into the die press and pull the part out; if labor is expensive, you build some extra parts into the press so it pops the part out automatically and kicks it onto a conveyor belt. (And yes, often the automation is not trivial, and requires stuff like getting all new machinery, or redesigning the plant, but the underlying reason for not doing that stuff is that in many places, having a human do a machine's work is just cheaper than having a machine do it.)
"Globalization" has basically been a labor-cost arbitrage game played by major corporations against workers, specifically against workers in high-cost, highly-regulated locales. And as long as countries allow imports of goods from countries with regulatory and cost structures more lenient than they allow within their own borders (and transportation costs stay low), it will continue to be a way to work around workers' demands and pit them against each other in a race-to-the-bottom.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:05 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
On the recommendation of another MeFite, I've been listening to the audiobook version of (noted NPR reporter) Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss, which is both a lighthearted travelogue of a middle-aged grumpus traveling to the "world's happiest" places (and some of the "saddest" ones, by various metrics), and also a fairly serious discussion on what happiness really is and what it takes to achieve it.
Obviously, money seems to be related to happiness. Any idiot can verify pretty trivially that it's hard to be happy if you're broke (starvation and living outside are not most people's idea of a good time), but it's not clear that happiness scales with income beyond some threshold.
One of the more interesting chapters in the book involves an extended visit to the nation of Qatar, which at the time of writing was (per capita) the wealthiest country in the world by some margin. Qataris—actual citizens—have basically achieved a level of wealth that makes any need to "work" in the traditional sense unnecessary. The government gives all (married, male) citizens free housing and a generous, tax-free (there are no taxes at the individual level) stipend, which is often supplemented by no-show sinecure jobs obtained through family connections. It's a pretty sweet deal, assuming you're a Qatari and not one of the innumerable disposable laborers they've imported to do the dirty work of running everything.
But as the author digs into the data and talks to Qataris, it becomes clear that they're not especially happy by virtually any standard metric, or even just by self-identification. It could of course be the author's bias, but you get the strong impression through his interviews with Qataris that most of them chafe at the lack of meaningful activity.
Or maybe it's the lack of expectation to do meaningful activity? There's nothing stopping the average Qatari from putting their virtually-unlimited leisure time and otherwise-unused energy into something that they define as meaningful, and one assumes some do that, but apparently there are a rather large number of disillusioned Qatari guys sitting around in cafes smoking all day. And by nearly any metric, Qataris aren't nearly as happy, as a group, than Icelanders or Danes or citizens of many less-wealthy nations.
So while a certain level of material wealth and leisure time does seem to be a requirement for happiness, it doesn't seem to be automatic that simply having an excess of either will translate immediately into it. People seem to require other things to feel fulfilled than just being able to do what they please all the time.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:31 AM on June 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Obviously, money seems to be related to happiness. Any idiot can verify pretty trivially that it's hard to be happy if you're broke (starvation and living outside are not most people's idea of a good time), but it's not clear that happiness scales with income beyond some threshold.
One of the more interesting chapters in the book involves an extended visit to the nation of Qatar, which at the time of writing was (per capita) the wealthiest country in the world by some margin. Qataris—actual citizens—have basically achieved a level of wealth that makes any need to "work" in the traditional sense unnecessary. The government gives all (married, male) citizens free housing and a generous, tax-free (there are no taxes at the individual level) stipend, which is often supplemented by no-show sinecure jobs obtained through family connections. It's a pretty sweet deal, assuming you're a Qatari and not one of the innumerable disposable laborers they've imported to do the dirty work of running everything.
But as the author digs into the data and talks to Qataris, it becomes clear that they're not especially happy by virtually any standard metric, or even just by self-identification. It could of course be the author's bias, but you get the strong impression through his interviews with Qataris that most of them chafe at the lack of meaningful activity.
Or maybe it's the lack of expectation to do meaningful activity? There's nothing stopping the average Qatari from putting their virtually-unlimited leisure time and otherwise-unused energy into something that they define as meaningful, and one assumes some do that, but apparently there are a rather large number of disillusioned Qatari guys sitting around in cafes smoking all day. And by nearly any metric, Qataris aren't nearly as happy, as a group, than Icelanders or Danes or citizens of many less-wealthy nations.
So while a certain level of material wealth and leisure time does seem to be a requirement for happiness, it doesn't seem to be automatic that simply having an excess of either will translate immediately into it. People seem to require other things to feel fulfilled than just being able to do what they please all the time.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:31 AM on June 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
nature seems to be losing the battle, and as we are part of nature, we are defeating ourselves too.
Agreed, and it is the soul part of us that is killing nature, first by demonizing it. This makes some sense when looking at the soul organizers, who don't need to provide for our physical well-being and who benefit when nature fails us, or whenever reality is doubted, because the soul advances higher and faster into the next as we physically suffer.
posted by Brian B. at 8:51 AM on June 26, 2023
Agreed, and it is the soul part of us that is killing nature, first by demonizing it. This makes some sense when looking at the soul organizers, who don't need to provide for our physical well-being and who benefit when nature fails us, or whenever reality is doubted, because the soul advances higher and faster into the next as we physically suffer.
posted by Brian B. at 8:51 AM on June 26, 2023
This was the beauty of Sid Meier's original Civ design, primary-sector wealth surplus going to production of tertiary/quaternary sector luxuries making everybody happy
There's no physical reason housing has to be as expensive as it is. The house I'm living in in C. California was paid off 10 years ago and requires minimal maintenance to the "sticks & bricks".
It's the high-rent sectors of the economy that are enslaving us to "the 1%" (really top 5-10% but per power law the 1% takes the biggest slice of that il-gotten pie)
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:59 AM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
There's no physical reason housing has to be as expensive as it is. The house I'm living in in C. California was paid off 10 years ago and requires minimal maintenance to the "sticks & bricks".
It's the high-rent sectors of the economy that are enslaving us to "the 1%" (really top 5-10% but per power law the 1% takes the biggest slice of that il-gotten pie)
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:59 AM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
>happiness scales with income beyond some threshold.
happiness is having your needs and wants satisfied
the wants part of this equation is always the tricky bit
I'm sure the Buddhism for Dummies book covers this.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:08 AM on June 26, 2023
happiness is having your needs and wants satisfied
the wants part of this equation is always the tricky bit
I'm sure the Buddhism for Dummies book covers this.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:08 AM on June 26, 2023
The problem with people today is they don't work hard enough at being happy with what they already have.
/s
posted by tigrrrlily at 10:06 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
/s
posted by tigrrrlily at 10:06 AM on June 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Modest House: “It's not "capitalism". It's the hard truth of the human condition. Seriously. Work. Work hard.”I've waited until I slept on it and I still want to say this: The conditions of the past cannot obtain the future. If you are young and intelligent your only chance is to destroy the system that is currently trying to kill you and everyone you love and care about for money.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:06 AM on June 26, 2023 [8 favorites]
I assume that The Original Affluent Society [PDF] and the half-century of debate that it inspired fits in here somewhere.
posted by clawsoon at 6:07 PM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by clawsoon at 6:07 PM on June 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
For starters, a society with a leisure ethic would systematically deprioritize work, regarding it merely as something to be endured—and busyness for the sake of busyness as something to be pitied or scorned. Once the necessities of life were attended to...
I was surprised that an author who appears to be from the US (or at least has worked here fairly extensively) could write this piece for a publication that's based in the US, and include some critique of capitalism but not even nod to two basic realities of life here: the ruinous state of healthcare and the flimsiness of the social safety net. There's some food for thought in this piece, but it felt like a substantial gap to me to fail to acknowledge that our system makes some necessities of life expensive, unreliable, and difficult to access.
posted by EvaDestruction at 3:34 PM on June 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I was surprised that an author who appears to be from the US (or at least has worked here fairly extensively) could write this piece for a publication that's based in the US, and include some critique of capitalism but not even nod to two basic realities of life here: the ruinous state of healthcare and the flimsiness of the social safety net. There's some food for thought in this piece, but it felt like a substantial gap to me to fail to acknowledge that our system makes some necessities of life expensive, unreliable, and difficult to access.
posted by EvaDestruction at 3:34 PM on June 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
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This to me is key. The dream of true communism is right there in Aristotle’s Politics , where technology (here driven by the magic of hephaestus) eliminates labor and ushers in a universal leisure class. But the structure of capitalism, which demands ever increasing growth, just means the labor class grows larger and larger and even the rich who work in management are pushed to work 60 hours a week ensuring that the capital they are entrusted with stewarding continues to go forth and multiply. Even our leisure becomes labor now, grinding in video games, turning hobbies into side hustles. Nothing escapes the total system of capitalism. It’s not a question of whether society privileges leisure over work, it’s not a question of sentiment, because the material structure demands work and denies leisure. Only a revolution in the whole social order (or a god, like hephaestus) can rescue us to otium. What i’m saying is this essay needs more marx than augustine and plato, if it wants to get to the heart of the matter.
posted by dis_integration at 6:37 AM on June 25, 2023 [22 favorites]