The Work-Leisure Dichotomy - Assignment Example

Leisure AS WE KNOW IT is a construction of industrialisation. The work-leisure dichotomy means that we are socialised to viewing leisure as the antithesis of work. Therefore, in relation to the broader social perspective of work and leisure, they are opposite poles of a continuum. Therefore leisure CANNOT exist without work..” In its modern avatar, the term leisure is in standard manner defined as creatively self determined activity experience that falls into one economically free time roles that is seen as leisure by participants, that is psychologically peasant in anticipation and recollection, that potentially covers the whole range of commitment and intensity, that contains characteristic norms and constraints and that provides opportunities for recreation, personal growth and service to others (Kaplan, 1975, p26). Some of the more accepted definitions of the term leisure include the one by the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation/Royal Australian Institute of Parks and Recreation (1980) Recreation Working Paper, Adelaide: ACHPER Publications, p 3, which explains leisure as “state of mind which ordinarily is characterised by un-obligated time and willing optimism. It can involve extensive activity or no activity. The key ingredient is an attitude which fosters a peaceful and productive co-existence with the elements in one's environment.” According to Charles K. Brightbill (1960): Leisure, then, is a block of unoccupied time, spare time, or free time when we are free to rest or do what we choose. Leisure is time beyond that which is required for existence, the things which we must do, biologically, to stay, alive (that is, eat, sleep, eliminate, medicate, and so on): and subsistence, the things we must do to make a living as in work, or prepare to make a living as in school, or pay for what we want done if we do not do it ourselves. Leisure is time in which our feelings of compulsions should be minimal It is discretionary time, the time to be used according to our own judgment or choice. At the heart of the idea of leisure is an imbroglio so complex and in many others resects so simple that it does not transfer easily into words. We often mistake leisure for idleness, and work for creativity. Of course work may be creative, but only when informed by leisure. Work is the means of life; leisure is the end (Scruton, 1998). Such an understanding of leisure is no longer suitable for explaining modern realities: on the one hand it might sound utopian and on the other hand it evokes the kind of sanguinity that our more cynical modern age has forgotten (Blackshaw, 2010). In modern times, there has been a considerable interest in work and leisure and the changing relationships between them, this stems in [art from a concern with how society is structured and functions, and with the implications of change for policy (Blackshaw, 2010). It also stems from a concern with quality of life and well being, and or the type of society we may wish to become. Classical sociological theories o the relationship between work and leisure include the hypothesis of Wilensky (1960) that work attitudes and practices can spill over or generalize into leisure time and that alternatively an individual can compensate in leisure for work practices. A further classical theory proposed by Dubin (1956) considers that the two areas of life are segmentalised and lived out independently with a particular area of significant social experience constituting a central life interest. A related debate addresses the extent of fusion and polarity in work and leisure (Reisman and Blomberg, 1957), examining the extent to which they are becoming similar to each other, and the degree to which individuals divide their lives into work and leisure (polarity) or see them as an integrated whole (fusion). Reviewing studies on work and leisure and the implications of policy Parker (1983) concludes that we are not leisure centered. He argues cogently for improving the quality of both work and leisure in an analysis of empirical and theoretical studies of the relationship between work and leisure (Blackshaw, 2010). He notes that advocates of the view that work and leisure are becoming fused or integrated and those who see work and those who see work and leisure are becoming polarized and lived out separately, should realize that their evidence concerns sub-cultural an occupational-cum-cultural levels rather than whole societal trends and that there is some truth in both positions (Blackshaw, 2010). He also notes that the ideologies associated with work and leisure such that we are becoming a leisure-centered society, have no always been consistent with the facts about how much free time people have and how they spend it (Blackshaw, 2010). Kabonof and O’Brien (1986), studying the relationship between stress at work and attributes and activities distinguish between the different forms of compensation. Supplementary compensation is considered to be where stress and distraction produced by undemanding routine job help to energize people’s non-work behavior and direct it towards leisure activities that supplement restricted opportunities for self expression at work. Reactive compensation suggests that where stress is an outcome of overload or over utilization, as is more likely in high level jobs, there will be a tendency to prefer passive recuperative activities in reaction to excessive work demands. Their research found that for managers stress was associated with passive recuperative leisure (reactive compensation), but for professionals stress was associated with both recuperative and active compensatory leisure. Among cletical and ble collar workers here was no simple association between stress and leisure possibly because different forms of relationships were occurring. They concluded that occupational differences in the sources and effects of stress and differences in coping patterns are also complicated. Interesting here is the concept of work and leisure as explained by Buddhists. The Buddhist would consider it little short of criminal to organize work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stulyfying or nerve racking for the worker (Needleman, 1983). It would then indicate the fact that an evil lack of compassion and soul destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence, equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work leisure are complimentary parts of the same living process and cannot be departed without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of nature (Needleman, 1983). Other researchers have argued that work and leisure are indeed the two dies of the same human activities, and they are always in dialectical tension. This dialectic of work and leisure could be traced throughout the history of understanding of the human action in Western thought. The decline or even disappearance of this dialectic in today’s societies raises several questions. Provided that the concepts of work and leisure help us in the creation of an understanding as to what human beings are, likewise, concepts of work and leisure are fundamental in understanding our own societies. In the times of so called pre industrial society, leisure was privileged over work. It was not only because aristocracy was a significant part of society, but it was also influenced by religious attitudes. Solemnities and festivals related to various catholic saints were holidays and the common believers were urged to celebrate and commemorate them by not working. The type of leisure predominant here was first of all social leisure; it was practiced primarily in public places f human interaction. Max Weber taught us that in capitalist industrial society the shift of values took place. The work too privileged part and it remains privileged insignificant ways. Aristocratic values of honorable leisure went down along with the festivals of catholic saints, while the new puritan religious values arose, that according to Weber were related to work. Gradually though the inner development of capitalism analyzed by Marx and Arendt the work evolved out of religious value into gainful employment just as we know it now. The aim of work became to earn one’s living, and the leisure with rare exception, was minimized to the free time and was connected with privacy. Where modern leisure is concerned, some of its most basic roots can be traced back to Milton and his Paradise Lost which reveals two major influences on leisure that lie beneath the key social, cultural, economic and political changes brought about my modernity. On the one hand, the cold comfort of compensatory leisure against the grim Protestant work ethic and on the other the warm communal togetherness of popular cultural pastimes against cold lonely individualism. In other words what we find with the emergence of modernity is the coexistence of Miltonic legacy; Milton the Puritan and Milton the Utopian. One could go so far as to say that every aspect of modern leisure turns in one what or another on Milton’s legacy, however diluted and dechritianised: this includes the ways which the present day moral entrepreneurs respond to everyday legal leisure activities such as the drinking of alcohol, sex and television and video game violence as if they were entries to sin, to the contemnporray obsession with community. Herein lies the paradox of modern phase of the work/ leisure dialectic: the more privileged was the work, the less the tensions with the leisure persisted (Neulinger, 1974). The work and leisure themselves did not disappear; they drew closer to each other. One vivid example of the step towards the decline of the work/leisure dialectic was made by the feminist social theory (Neulinger, 1974). The feminist social theory pointed to the asymmetry created by understanding of work as gainful employment, if we were to understand the work as something humans are paid for, it means that housewives were not working simply because they are not paid. But on the contrary, it might be asked, if the housewives work, when do they have their free time, when do they have leisure, if they have it at all, that is (Neulinger, 1974). In the post industrial phase, contrary to Bell and some other contemporary society theorists that it is not the white collars or service economy that predicts the new form of society and culture (Neulinger, 1974). It is not the shift in production, but the shift in human mind, which creates new forms of society and culture. This shift in human mind could be represented better through analysis of the dialectical tension between the concepts of work and leisure themselves! Then there is to consider the emerging culture of working from home (Neulinger, 1974). Modern day leisure has evolved starkly over the past few years to include the specific domain of social networking where people connect and spend time with each other in real time but on the virtual world of the internet (Johnson, 2009). These leisure activities have often ended up taking the shape of obsessions. Where social networking websites are concerned, studies in the past have often attributed their popularity to the Loneliness Phenomenon, given, especially the fact these websites and the nature of their usage tend to have the scope to be used as the standard cure for loneliness. It might also cause it in certain events, but that’s besides our point here (Johnson, 2009). The idea in essence is that these websites tend to, first, satisfy the age old curiosity about the nature and fact If you are feeling lonely, you can call a friend, go out with a group, or just spend hours sending messages to your friends’ Facebook inbox, comment on their pictures, write something fun on their wall and so on (Johnson, 2009). In conclusion therefore it may be stated that leisure and work related activities have undergone major changes and evolution since the beginning of time. Today, what one sees is the integration of work and leisure more than it has been at any juncture in history. Given the fact that people spend more and more time at work, companies have increasingly recognized and begun to provide the opportunities for leisure at the workplace itself. Examples like Google Fridays abound. But in the interest of progression, it is important that leisure continue to hold importance in our everyday existence. References: Needleman, J., (1983). The heart of philosophy. Routledge Publications. P88 Brightbill., C., (1960). The Challenge of Leisure. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice-Hall. pp4-3. Kaplan,M., (1975). Leisure: Theory and Policy. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc Wilensky, H.L. (1960) ‘Work, careers and social integration’, International Social Science Journal 12: 543-60 Neulinger, J., (1974) The Psychology of Leisure. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher Dubin, R., (1956). Industrial Workers' Worlds : A study of the central life interests of industrial workers, Social Problems, 4. pp252-266. Blackhsaw, T., (2010). Lesiure. Routledge Publishing. pp83-85 Johnson, N. F., (2009). ‘The multiplicities of Internet addiction: the misrecognition of leisure and learning’. Ashgate Publishing. p92 Read More