An Overview of Historical Attitudes Toward Work & Leisure
I will discuss aspects of each period’s thought in the future, but for now, here is a (very) basic overview of the major development of thought about work and leisure throughout Western history.
In the Classical view, work was seen as undignified and leisure was pursued as the ideal. The elite pursued education and philosophy and spurned manual labor. Aristotle saw leisure as the highest human state and believed that work is only good for us in as far as it makes it possible for us to obtain leisure. Socrates said, “The mechanical arts carry a social stigma and are rightly dishonored in our cities.” This went along with the classical disparagement of the physical world. Manual work in the classical view is bound up with slavery. Seneca said, “To despise our bodies is pure freedom.” Platonic dualism reinforces the idea that physical work is not something inherently good for people.
During the Middle Ages, life became divided between sacred and secular. Leisure was viewed with suspicion – one Benedictine rule reads “Idleness is the enemy of the soul; and therefore the brethren ought to be employed in manual labor at certain times, at others, in devout reading.” This view tends to open the door to asceticism and an undervaluing of the goodness of creation.
The Reformation rejected the medieval sacred/secular distinction and taught there was a dignity to manual work. The reformers developed a notion of “vocation” (calling) that broke from the more restrictive Catholic conception – They saw that all people had a vocation in this world, not just the monks. Max Weber said that during the Protestant Reformation “the whole world became a monastery and every man a monk.” (Heintzman, 142) Contrary to modern popular belief, the Puritans didn’t reject leisure outright, though they did spend more time emphasizing the goodness of work and were “too uneasy” about leisure. They developed many rules about recreational activities that created a general distrust of leisure. In their minds, its value was mostly in its utility – that is, it was good only because it improved our work. Paul Heintzman has put it, “Protestantism has generally overemphasized work at the expense of rest.” (144)
The Enlightenment secularized the Protestant ethic. This can be seen in Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack.It taught essentially a pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot-straps mentality. “God helps those who help themselves.” “Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” It was in this Enlightenment framework that Adam Smith wrote Wealth of the Nations, which based work ethic on economic self-interest. This focus on material wealth catalyzed industrial development, which viewed the worker as a commodity.
This ushered in the Industrial Revolution that brought division of labor, specialization, and mechanization. The abuses of the factory system such as 14-16 hour long workdays, miserable conditions, and child labor created one of the most extreme segregations of work and leisure (which, for the aforementioned reasons, came to be known as “free time”). Apprentice-trained journeymen became factory workers – machine operators no longer taking pride in the work of their hands. This gave rise to a Victorian nostalgia and the Arts & Crafts Movement that sought to regain dignity to skilled labor.
The 20th and 21st centuries can be characterized by an increasingly extreme segregation of work and leisure due in part to highly developed mechanization and automation. In general, workers are now more separated from their work than ever before – the 21st century is called the “Information Age” because of digital technology and automation. “Information technology is changing the nature of human work in industrial production. The machine operator has become the machine overseer. Whether this change is making work more humane is another question.” (Volf, 34) There are at least two primary moral problems that Christians can readily identify in this scenario: 1. The economic imperative to participate in consumerism – the ever-increasing purchase of commodities. 2. The technological disassociation of the worker from the work at hand. Heintzman explains, “Our society now appears to be experiencing tension between the traditional values associated with the work ethic, which taught that work was a virtue that contributed to moral character, and the rising trend to pursue leisure (really pleasure and consumption) through experiencing, gratifying, playing, getting as much discretionary time as possible, living it up, acting on impulse, doing what feels good now, and so on. Meanwhile, it is likely that the average citizen lives out the paradox. . . . [that] he or she is less than satisfied with work, yet at the same time knows that work should be a central part of meaningful human experience.” (Heintzman, 149)
Resources:
Paul Heintzman, Leisure and Spirituality: Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives (Baker Academic, 2015)
Leland Ryken, Work and Leisure in Christian Perspective (Multnomah, 1987)
Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work (Wipf and Stock, 2001)