reflections on liesure

7/28/2019 Reflections on Liesure

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Reflections on LeisureJACQUES ELLUL

In the Western world, the United States and Europe, thequestion of leisure presents itself ... sometimes joyfully,hopefully, and sometimes anxiously. It is said that we areprogressing toward a society in which man will no longerbe constrained by work. How will he make use of th is leisure? Is a "civilization of leisure" conceivable? A greatdeal has been written on this subject;* it should be remembered that the problem was first brought up, as far asJ know, by Thorstein Veblen in 1899, in his famous Theoryof the Leisure Class. Veblen regarded leisure as non-productive consumption of time, based on a feeling of the invalidity of productive work and on the notion of leisure asan obvious proof of possessing the means for a lite of ease.But he thought of it as a class phenomenon, and leisureappeared to him as something limited to the upper class,which in fact it was. However, if there has been an increase in the number of studies on leisure, it is becausethe situation has undergone a major transformation. Indeed, leisure in itself, or a civilization of ieisure, is toooften thought of as something radically new; which certainly reveaJs great ignorance of hfstorical fact.

Some examples: in the Roman Republic, before the firs1century B.C., during a period when the Homans did work,we tend to forget that during certain months they hard Iyworked at all: i.e., in February they had 21 days off, andthe greater part of October and December were not working days. Later, when Rome had conquered the Mediterra

* Since 1960, in France alone, t have found 34 books on the subiect. Re-cent contributions: Charbonneau: Dimanche et Lundi, \ 966, an d Ades duSeminaire international de 10 Havane (Decembre '966): remps libre e1recreation (more or less Marxist in tendency).

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nean world, we know that the people of Rome, and laterthose of all the big cities in the Roman world, lived in complete idleness on hando uts guaranteed by the state or itsleaders. This was the famous era of panem ef circenses.Thus a major part of the population enjoyed an existenceof leisure. And in the Middle Ages, we should rememberthat the guilds had established a very liberal work calendar. Of course, when they did work it was for 16 or :7hours a day. But is it generally known, for instance, thatin the 14th century one of the Bordeaux guilds had 200days off a year? And in Islamic and Bantu societies, thework period is always very short; there again we couldtalk about idle cultures. But in these societies leisure wasalmost always directly associated with the festival, in thestro ng sense 01 the term, as recent ethnological studieshave discovered it (a period of intense participation, witha sanctified type of communal reconstruction).

Should it then be concluded that our present situation,in which man is progressing toward a time when he willwork only a few hours a day, or a few days a month, isnothing more than the extension or recurrence of a situation which man has experienced periodically in the courseof history? Certainly not; but we can better understand thenovelty of this era by contrasting it with historical examples. First of all it must be emphasized that many people 'simpression of entering into a radically new situation islinked to a forgetfulness of comparable historical situations and to a consideration of the 19th century alone. Itis ';rue that since the Industrial Revolution, Western manhas {ost the leisure he enjoyed in pre-industrial societies;from the 18th century on, man has worked harder andlonger than in any preceding society. The possibility ofleisure, of free time, which previously existed everywhere,disappeared with industrialization; and it is generally withreference to this particular situation that people react withsurprise at the possibility of leisure now. But'if we compare leisure as it was understood and experienced nearlyeverywhe re before the 18th century with the kind of leisure we anticipate, we find three major differences.The Phenomenon ot Leisure

In the Jirst place, today it will be a question of leisurefor everyone and not just for a select group of individuals.In Rome, the slaves (who nonetheless did have their ownholidays and celebrations) worked-as did the serfs in theMiddle Ages-whereas the citizens or artisans rested. Nowwe are faced with a global possibility of leisure, more orless equally divided, but concerning all men, and so theidea of leisure as "priVilege" has to be put aside.The second difference concerns abundance: leisureused t(,o be free time, but time which was oftef) used tomake up for lesser productivity-that is to say, to compensate for fewer possibili1ies of consumption. Man had tomake a more or less conscious decision to consume less,on the whole, in order to have some free time (and to beable to take part in the festivals which everybody considered an indispensable part of community life). The processtoday is just the opposite: it is because the 1echnologicalmeans allow mass production and make possible an abundance which is theoretically limitless, that it becomes absolutely necessary to reduce the work period. Man mustJacques Ellul is a professor of economics at the University ofBordeaux. He is the author of La technologie: I'enjeu de I'avenir.

not want to continue working, because he is progressivelbeing replaced by the productive possibilities of technoogy. Thus the sort of leisure that today's society is concerned with is first of all a leisure due to affluence, but also involves a certain obligation to see that leisure doenot ultimately become the same thing as unemploymenFinally, the third difference concerns the "content" ouse of th is leisure. We have indicated briefly that in tradtional societies leisur,e was always ,identified with, and occupied by, the festival. Today, on the contrary, we ar

faced with leisure as "vacant"-that is, empty--time. Ouleisure is no longer identified with a collective, organizedmeaningful activity which has a value common to the community and which involves a strong emotional charge.These three differences reveal the basic ways in whicleisure has become a new problem for today's societyThus it is not at all the existence of a long period withouwork which is such an innovation, but that this leisurshould be now qualified in this way.To finish defining the problem, we should examine twmore details. In the first place, the problem of leisure onlappears in technically developed societies. The Havanseminar (see footnote on page 51) tried to show what lesure means in the underdeveloped countries. Actuallwhat it had to say on this subject was totally dull and uninteresting. Leisure is only a novelty in societies which arapproaching affluence. Elsewhere we find banal historicasituations. Secondly, the problem of leisure is exactly thsame in socialist countries as it is in capitalist countriesIt is in reality closely tied to the existence of technologicagrowth. It is a phenomenon of technological society; thkind of political or economic striJcture matters little; does not change anything. Here again I have to disagrewith the work of the Havana seminar, which tried to showthat the attainment of leisure is a problem only in capitalist countries, and that leisure in socialist countries woulautomatically be a harmonious development of man, witha sharing of common values, etc. This reveals a childlikbelief In dogma and does not take into account, for example, well-known facts which show the disquiet and lacof adjustment of young people in socialist countries, precisely because of leisure (hooligans, for example).Leisure for What?

Having thus characterized the phenomenon of leisurewe come to the famous question of a "civilization of lesure." First of all we have to remember that this term corresponds to the expectations of philosophers, and of a certain number of psychologists and sociologists-and to thaspirations of the masses. The second factor is not wortdwelling on-i t is evident that the ordinary man wants twork as little as possible, to shake off the yoke, to takadvantage of life (which seems possible to him only whehe is at leisure), to amuse himself; crowds are hungry 10amusement (but to distract them from what? To make themforget what?). This is a permanent tendency of mankindand at the same time a need which is encouraged by ousociety, with the generally accepted feeling that finally leisure is possible. It is useless to dwell on this idea, but noto point out that the progress toward a civilization of lesure is accelerated by the desire, the will of the masses

More surprising is the attitude of a great number of intellectuals: describing leisure and thinking about the possibilities of a civilization of leisure, they assert that in thi52


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free time man will become cultured, and will spend itusefully, reading, learning and expanding his knowledge(and they point out the growth in popularity of paper-back books); that he will be more interested in music andthe arts (and they mention the development of recordingand listening equipment); that he will travel, increasing hisknowledge and his contacts with other civilizations andother peoples. They emphasize, then, the development ofthe intellectual and even the spiritual side-the "noble"side-of man, thanks to leisure. Man will take a positiveinterest in his neighbor because he will no longer be com-peting with him; he will move toward a contemplative ex-istence and a spiritual elevation; his; life will be centeredaround his family, etc.I have seen this picture in innumerable studies on lei-sure (for example that of Hourdin); I hardly exaggerate ithere. Actually, it is based on practically no serious obser-vation of fact; of cou rse, certain facts are mentioned, butfacts which prove noth ing from the point of view of thereal qualitative development of man. This optimistic visionis based on a belief in the natural goodness of man. !shall not argue that point here; I shall limit myself to em-phasizing that concrete experience with leisure, both inpast societies and in the present use of "empty" time, inno way confirms this arrival of a paradise. To put it an-other way: in itself, the eventual development of leisure inour civilization will by no means be the cure for the flaws,the lack of balance and the malfunctions of our society,because leisure will create as many problems and bringas many difficulties as it is claimed it will solve. in anycase, there is a preliminary question: Are we so certain toreach in a relatively short period of time an extraordi narygrowth of leisure? Most sociologists who study work hab-its believe that in the next 30 years there will be furtherreductions of work schedules, but not the transition to afabulous society in which men would work one day a week,and only five hours on that day, whose advent some of theprophets of automation are announcing. We must be moremodest. The best evaluations are in terms of five workingdays of about five hours a day.Certainly this too is sufficient to show that the greaterpart of life will be spent in leisure, but this also revealsthat when we reach this stage, the problem of leisure timewill not be posed any differently from What it is today, andthat, in thinking about the present situation, our train ofthought will be valid for a relatively long historical period.Furthermore, if we characterize modern leisure as a lei-sure in abundance, a reduction in work which does notreduce the possibilities of consumption, we must empha-size that as yet we have not quite arrived at this point. In1965, when the French had to decide whether or not togive a fourth week of paid vacation per year to all work-men, economists (Sauvy) then calculated how many fewerhouses would be built, how many fewer tons of steel andcoal would be produced, etc. These two facts show thatwe are not yet quite as close to the situation of widespreadleisure as we imagine.Filling the Vacuum

But let us consider how .Ieisure is currently used. Dowe see that its use by modern man prepares or foreshad-ows a new civilization? Leisure as it is conceived in oursociety is in itself "empty" time. There is, so to speak, thetime of social and economic obligation and then, opposed

to it, a time without contact-given to man to fill as he seesfit. This void is created by the separation (noted above)of leisure from the festival. But it would be a mistake toconfuse empty time with free time. Man has never gainedanything from a void. He has never received anything froma void. Nothingness is only an illusion at freedom. Actu-ally this ,man, who apparently can fill this empty lime ex-actly as he pleases, terribly conditioned and predeter-mined. To make an ideal of empty time is the mark of ourincapacity to organize and to dominaie our existence asa whole.To hand over some time to a man in the belief th at th isis sufficient is on the one hand, as we said earlier, to have

ai', irratiohal confidence in the natural goodness of man,and on the other hand to be ignorant of the real condi-tions of his life. Actually we shall have to consider later onif the very conditions of life of the modern man do notmake him unfit for positive use of leisure. But first let usconsider for a moment if the collectivity could not validlytake the place of the individual. To put it another way: if,man being incapable of using validly the empty time whichis given him, it would not be legitimate for this empty timeto be filled by society. This is the organization of lei-sure. Whether it consists of organized tours, youth clubs,cruises, vacation clubs (like the Club Mediterraneen), clil~ u r a l centers, etc., these organizations which are designedto fill up the vacuum of leisure are being developed every-where.Organized Recreation

Of course, it is not a question of denying the usefulnessof such organized leisure, which was pushed to the Iimiiin Hitler's Germany and in the USSR. In these societies

theater, the cinema, the vacation in the mountains,sport became obligatory and are organized by the political power. But there is no diHerence of kind in the organ i-zation of I@isure in a democracy; it is only a question 01degree. Now there can be some perfectly good elementsin this "organized leisure": excellent entertainment andinteresting journeys. But we should clearly understand thatthe act of the man who leafs through a travel agency'scatalogue and chooses a tour or a cruise in which every-thing is organized for him has little in common, on the'evel of human values, with the act of the man who getsmaps, studies a country, chooses Jar reasons of his ownsome particular village or camping site, organizes his owntransport and his own route, etc. In the first case there isa use of leisure; in the other there may be the exerciseof freedom (but not necessarily, as we shall see below). Inshort, organizing leisure rules out the possibility of con-sidering it as a zone of freedom for man. Furthermore, organized leisure can only encourage the birth of a falseculture, or superficial knowledge; collectively, one racesthrough a museum pausing with the guide at those paint-ings which cannot be missed, those which are ~ a c r e d , butwhich the man of leisure is completely unprepared tor interms of artistic maturity. He will have seen the "MonaLisa" or Rembrandt's "Night Watch," but afterwards?Lastly, the organization of leisure gives no particularmeaning to empty time.Here we reach the main point: leisure in our society isin itself insignificant. It is worth nothing. Let us say simplythat at the superficial, sensual level it is pleasanter to bestretched out in a comfortable chair or to be watching TV

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than to be in the office under an employer's orders. Butthat is all. Aside 1rom that, it is time with no meaning. Andthe existence of a leisure organization which is objective,administrative, etc., does not give any sense to the timeavailable to us; it fins it, and no more. This is particularlyserious because many psychologists and sociologiststhink that it is during this empty leisure time that manshould rediscover a meaning in his l i fe-or give it one-tothe extent that one admits that participation in politics orwork today no longer lends meaning to human life. In reality, to surrender to an organization of leisure signifiesthat one has despaired of imparting this meaning to oneself. I think that we can expect everything from the organization of leisure as far as filling empty time is concerned,but we should expect nothing in terms of its giving anykind 01 vali di1y to leisure.The Struggle for Freedom

.1 have conslantly used the term "empty time." I believethat the reader aclually thinks of leisure time as free time,but it seems to me' that this is a deplorable confusion.Leisure time is not free time because it is a holiday whichhas been granted rather than won. I obviously cannot gointo a long explanation here of my views on freedom. Forme, it is never a neutral, indefinite zone in which one cando as one likes: this is nothing more than the freedom ofindifference (the situation of Buridan''S donkey). Freedomis something which man conquers by himself in strugglingagainst whatever holds him down, determines him, makeshim conform, or whatever identifies him with the others_And this struggle is never over: freedom is never won- i t isalways in the process of being won. It is really the actof struggling which is freedom. One is never a completelyfree man (a fin ite thing), but a man constantly f igh ting tobe iree. Hence what is given us from the outside by a government, a constitution, a legal or economic system, isnever freedom; il is only another form of determinationMan car: try to give a meaning to the empty time of leisure,try \0 make of it a free time; but that does not happen byitself; ii is not si mple. Just because at that moment manstops working it does not mean that he is free; all thesociological constrictions are still weighing him down. But,it will be said, at ~ e a s t at that particular moment he has apossibility of freedom which he does not have anywhereelse. This is not certain; I am afraid that the illusion offreedom in leisure might be more destructive to the possib l ity of a real freedom than the existence of the "nonfreedom" of work.

To develop th is idea somewhat, we have to considerwhether Western man is in fact likely to utilize his leisuretime to give meaning to his life. I would like to emphasizehere only three aspects. The first is that ot amusement inthe Pascalian sense. 11 is never either pleasant or spontaneous to r man to take a good look at himself and to thinkabout his fate. Everything in our society is designed to distract him from a spiritual examination of himself, frombringing problems up into his consciousness. Both theorientation of studies and the work system exterio'rize anddistract hi m. This general orientation is carried to its highest point with leisure, For it is essential to note that modern man does not approach the empty time of his leisurewith a fresh outlook tree from preconceived ideas. He livesin a society which furnishes him with an image of leisurethat he is supposed to want to imitate (get a tan in Miami,

tour the world by plane, etc.), and because of the masmedia and advertising, he accepts this image of leisureBut it is always an image at amusement, that is, somethinwhich distracts him from himself. Instead of being thmoment when man, because he is no longer in the grip oeveryday worries, rediscovers himself, thinking abouwhat he is and what he ought to be, leisure becomes othe contrary the moment when amusements succeed tthe maximum in making him forget. But it is so becausman is oriented in this direction by the whole movement oour society.In the second place, leisure confirms man's general inclination to be passive; we live in a society which turneverything into a spectacle. We experience the most important events as spectators; that is, on the one hand weare made to conform by more and more powerful sociamechanisms, and on the other hand we are passive, hopingthat the state, some public power, a trade union or someideology will transform our own situation. In every aspecof our lives, political or religious, aesthetic or ethical, weIive as spectators of events wh ich take place before oueyes and with respect to which we are helpless even they are of vital concern to us.

This general attitude is confirmed by leisure time. Weuse our leisure more and more to SUbmerge ourselves ina world of conformity, Far from enjoying a time of innovation or initiative, or of free acts, during our leisure moments we are much more susceptible to the mechanismof conformity because we are available; we are all temptedto go to the same place which publicity has given such big buildup: we undertake auto excursions by routes usedby everyone, we go caravaning (under the impression thawe are doing something individual and rediscovering nature!), or we go yachting. But in reality we do what everybody else does, and everybody else does it as a conseWeekend traffic on West Germany's autobahn

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Mass absorption of sun, at Lake Balaton in Hungary (above)and on the beach at Nice, France (below)quence of a global conformity. Now when we are forcedto do something (by our,employer), we may have a certainfeeling of rebellion or refusal; conformity is not total. Onthe contrary, during our leisure time, we have the impression that we are making our own decisions (when reallythey are dictated by publicity, etc.) and in this way we aremuch more completely integrated into the social unit. Thusle'lsure becomes the opposite of what we believe it to be.But we must begin on the third and most' important aspect. We often think of leisure as the possibility for mannot only to be free of a servile day-to-day existence, to be

himself in the face ot the alienation of work, to make upfor fatigue and overwork, but also to give meaning to hislite. It is frequently admitted that work no longer has meaning, that family life is disappointing, that political liie hasno value, that human relations are degrading _ .. fortu-nately there is leisure! What seems serious to me aboutthis attitude is the acceptance of the fact tnatlife can ihusbe cut up into " s l i c e s ' ~ ; a man works in his oHice or at thefactory seven or eight hours; that time is sacrificed, lost,spoiled, without value. But he leaves, goes home, and hehas two or three hours in front of him, and now he has aslice of life which can be full, rich, significant, etc_ I think,alas! this. is nothing but a dream; if one is dazed, exhausted, disgusted and overwhelmed by uninterestingthings at work, one is not suddenly going to become anactive, alert man who is interested in everything. It is verypossible that one will wish only to erase this bad workingtime or to plunge into the maximum of comfort or unconciousness in order to forget ...The Continuity of the Personality

In other words, I do not believe that human life can becarved up in pieces, but that it implies a fundamental unity,and if one spends hours doing dull, absurd things, onedoes not come out of it unchanged. One is marked by whatone has done; one is drawn in a certain direction. It mustnot be thought that on the one hand there is work whichwid be alienating and absurd, and on [he other, leisure,which will be a moment of freedom, of meaning and enrichment. The results of a great many recent studies show thatthere is a close relationship between leisure and work. Themore "valid," intelligent or substantial one's work is, thebetter the chance for leisure to be the same. Leisure willnot give meaning to life, but rather the opposite: it is therichness of a personal life which can give meaning to thisempty moment which is leisure. And there is especially areciprocity of meaning and value between work and leisure. If work is meaningless, if it is a time "between parentheses," lost, squandered, this futility reflects on the wholeperson, and makes a leisure that is a value all the moredifficult to achieve. But reciprocally, if man squanders hisempty time in silly occupations or in conformist behavior,this has an effect on the person as a whole, and makes i1e"en harder to find a value in the unavoidable work whichsociety imposes on us.

It is essential to emphasize the continuiiy of the personality in time (and psychologists agree on this today). However, we should not yield to the view that work is the supreme value, that it represents the essential nature of man,or that it is through work that man distinguishes himself;this metaphysical value of work is the basis of the thoughtof Marx, and we must recognize that if work has greatimportance, there are in the life of man many other pointsof reference, expressions, values just as characteristicand :mportant. But, inversely, it is also quite impossible toisolate work as "dead" time. That prevents man from establishing an eqUilibrium in his life. And it is not in leisurethat the meaning and the balance will be found. Somepeople believe that we must therefore resiore meaning andworth to work. I cannot, in the limits of this article, discussthe many proposals of this nature, but I must say that, taking into account the general evolution, this idea seemshighly improbable to me. It is hardly possible to go againstthe current of the organization of work and of automat'lon.

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Sociologists like Friedmann, who 20 years ago hoped tofind ways 10 make work significant, are today very disillusioned.But here we are confronted with a new problem: manused to attach value to using h s leisure positively through

artistic or intellectual creation. However, computers andvarious other electronic devices enter into this domain,and "creative" machines are beginning to appear in musicand painting: machines which will be capable on an intellectual plane of assimilating infinitely more than thehuman brain and of giving results that are infinitely moreexact. Man may then be tempted to despair: what is theuse of doing something when a machine can do it better?In 1h is way he is pushed back toward an absolutely uselessand meaningless leisure; he is tempted to indulge in madness, drugs, alcohol, to furnish this empty time, and toescape from this over-organized world in which he noIanger fee Is he has a place.I do not think the last word has been said on this subject,but we ought to be well aware that we are face to face witha crucial preble m for man. Let us start from these two assertions: Leisure in itself has no meaning, and it is nolonger possible for work as it exists in our society to become satisfying and meaningful again. 'However, work is indispensable to man as an outlet forthe expression of his creative instinct. The solution is thatleisure cannot be rendered significant, satisfying, enriching and s t a b i l ~ z i n g J o r man unless it is made creative, thatis, occupied by some other work. Leisure must no longerbe empty time, but time utilized for real work which expresses man's personality. For it to be real, however, thiswork must offer characteristics opposite to those of ihework which we have to do to live in this society, becauseit is generally recognized that the latter is unsatisfying. Inother words, this work must be voluntarily chosen, invented, and not obligatory or imposed; it must be purelypersonal and not part of a collective organization. It mus;express the free choice and the creativity of the individual.It must lead 10 the creation of an oeuvre, and not to earning what is necessary to live. But such a use of leisure,such an orientation (which alone can give a meaning tothis empty time, which may, eventually, make life satisfying) presupposes an extraordinary reversal of our habits.Three Approaches

I J'I conclusion, it seems to me th.at three approachesought to be stressed: First of all, it is a question of fightingagainst despair, and leisure must be used to this end. Consequently, amusement, evasion and distraction, which areonly destined to make us forget despair, must be rejected.At best, this Struggle against despair will find its streng:hIn the Christian faith, but I will not develop this point. Iwould only like 10 recall that it is through the creation ofwork which will express his life that each man can overcome despair. But how can we expect this consolationfrom creative work, for we are competing with a machinewhich does it better? The change consists in this; we muststress not the result, but the personal nature of the accompi ished effort. We are too used to having machines whichfunction perfectly, 10 listening to impeccably recordedr.1Lisic; etc.-We-must-accept the imperfect ion that is-linkedwith any human creation. It is belter to si1 down at thepiano and playa bi t of music badly than to listen to aperfect recording. In this work designed to express our

personality freely, the result should not count. We mustable to say, "Here is this thing. It may not be a great sucess, but I did it myself." In this manner (and it is the opossible way to achieve it) the machine must be reducto its limitations: a maker of objects which are perfect, bpurely utilitarian, and without any human significance. Mmust be the one who still creates things which are impfect but 'full of the hope, joy, suffering, anxiety or peacewhich man's life is composed. Provided that it is alwaysquestion of active expression. This is the first conditionmaking leisure a force. But we must reject everything threquires us to fill our empty time with distractions.Secondly, in order for leisure to mean something, it mbe completely personal and must be filled with individuinitiative. Each person must invent for himself his own foof expression. That means on one hand a refusal of anthing too easy, and also a rejection of every sociologictrend. He who wants to travel and relies on a travel agenis caught up in a sociological current, as we said earliand takes the easy way out. The man who, to use hleisure, gets into his car and drives a few thousand milacts like millions of other Westerners-it is an escape, aeven if the trip is interesting it cannot give a meaning life. But there can be, of course, an individualized, integent, creative use of the automobile : the important thingthat everyone must invent this use for himself. Also I thithat when I alluded earlier to an individual kind of wothe reader may have thought of a hobby or of do-it-yoself; it should be clearly understood that neither one any1hing but obedience to a sociological trend. If a mthrows his energies into making scale models from a prefabricated by big manufacturers, that has no value. Othe other hand a genuine little job of electricity or carpetry can be really formative. We must constantly refuse take the easy way out which our society is always offerius. It is good that required work, making our living, shoube made easier. But leisure must be the place where wchoose real difficulties for ourselves which we must ovecome by ourselves; only at this moment can leisure reprsent a positive element and contain gratification.Finally the third approach consists in exercising criticistowa-rd the society in which we live. Leisure time shounot be exclusively a personal withdrawal; it must servea point of departure for a new re-entry into society. Butour leisure has been a source of individual renewal, actiand creative, from this frame of reference we ought to taa new look at the society we live in, and that look can onbe a critical one (in the Greek sense), and not a commment to adaptation. By critical I do not mean negativepessimistic; it should be clearly understood that it is onthanks to criticism that a social group can evolve potively. If ' ~ h e critical function disappears, a society tendsbecome sclerotic, to close in on itself, to lose its vitaland its capacity to respond to a challenge. l\low, in osociety, everything is moving in the direction of conformity; it is only through the forceful, inventive use of his fretime that man can collect his thoughts and see, with thnew experience as a point of reference, what is unacceptble in our style of IiVing. Then he enters on the pathpositive criticism, which is useful to society. Doubtless this the highest function of leisure, which at this point ceastobe insignificant, -and-the. entire .Iife of the_.man_ involvein this dispute with his social group takes on, in his oweyes, a value which leads him to self-acceptance.

Translated by Janice Heip

reflections on liesure

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