Big Spenders
It is a truism in our society that leisure involves spending. Drinking is the obvious example with people capable of spending hundreds of pounds in an evening. Eating out is the same. Toys and games (both the computer and old fashioned kinds), music and film and mobile phones - enjoying them on what is now considered a normal scale requires a reasonable cash flow . Shopping as leisure is the ultimate example of this.
The games schoolchildren play have changed. Whereas in the past by necessity they made use of freely available material such as conkers now playing involves the purchase of cards or even handheld consoles.
The effect of this can be detrimental to society sharpening the divide between have and have not and driving many children to petty crime as they try to keep up with their peers. The do not see why they should not have an equal right to leisure. They are no different from any other children, save for the accident of parentage.
As Aldous Huxley observed fifty years ago in A Brave New World it is vital in a highly developed capitalist economy that leisure pursuits should be complicated and expensive and preferably require the purchase of extensive apparatus.
Thus when we are not economically productive ourselves we are at least consuming and so providing markets for the economic productivity of others. In addition this connection between enjoyment and spending encourages, (or for those now in debt necessitates) us to maximise our personal earnings locking us in to jobs we cannot afford to lose (even as we try to climb above them).
I am not arguing that we should not enjoy ourselves, nor that we are in a material sense far better off than previous generations in the wealth of leisure opportunities open to us. Only that we should appreciate better what we have and also enjoy leisure pursuits that, because no one can sell them, do not get advertised on television.
Take a walk. Have a conversation outwith the pub. Play a game that doesn’t require complicated and expensive apparatus. Maybe even write a blog.
The games schoolchildren play have changed. Whereas in the past by necessity they made use of freely available material such as conkers now playing involves the purchase of cards or even handheld consoles.
The effect of this can be detrimental to society sharpening the divide between have and have not and driving many children to petty crime as they try to keep up with their peers. The do not see why they should not have an equal right to leisure. They are no different from any other children, save for the accident of parentage.
As Aldous Huxley observed fifty years ago in A Brave New World it is vital in a highly developed capitalist economy that leisure pursuits should be complicated and expensive and preferably require the purchase of extensive apparatus.
Thus when we are not economically productive ourselves we are at least consuming and so providing markets for the economic productivity of others. In addition this connection between enjoyment and spending encourages, (or for those now in debt necessitates) us to maximise our personal earnings locking us in to jobs we cannot afford to lose (even as we try to climb above them).
I am not arguing that we should not enjoy ourselves, nor that we are in a material sense far better off than previous generations in the wealth of leisure opportunities open to us. Only that we should appreciate better what we have and also enjoy leisure pursuits that, because no one can sell them, do not get advertised on television.
Take a walk. Have a conversation outwith the pub. Play a game that doesn’t require complicated and expensive apparatus. Maybe even write a blog.
posted by David at 11:31 am
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