On Labor and Leisure in America
America’s obsession with dull, post-industrial labor remains a mystery to my sensibilities. I spent ages five through fifteen in the tiny town of San Marcos, Nicaragua, where most residents make a living through agriculture or small-scale, local businesses. I later moved to Miami, the city where I was born, and experienced great culture shock due to its fast pace and adherence to the American work ethic. My classmates at the small parochial school I had attended in Nicaragua perceived careers as a means to an end: work is the pillar that secures the stability of the family and thus of the community. By contrast, my new classmates in suburban Miami thought of careers as an end in themselves: labor itself generates fulfillment and inner harmony. After a few years of observing such a theory in practice, I came to the opinion that the service economy’s atomization of work creates a negative environment for children and badly weakens their sense of social responsibility as adults. Such an environment pressures children to over-specialize early in order to maximize capital in the future, often neglecting important concepts like the good life or the good of the community. When new generations are deprived of an ideal environment in which to pursue human excellence, young people, whether successful or unsuccessful as adults, have a poor understanding of personal fulfillment that goes beyond an empty cycle of production and consumption.
Unquestionably, both standards of living and capital generation in my Nicaraguan home town are much lower than almost anywhere in the United States. And varying degrees of poverty and hard ceilings for progress exist throughout the region. Although they live in a state of poverty, the people of San Marcos, or sanmarqueños, do not lament it, but relish the simple pleasure of socializing, talking, and sharing views with friends and neighbors. Work is secondary in their lives, understood to be unfortunately necessary, an attitude perhaps more common in Catholic societies. Leisure is ultimately considered more important than labor: it is the sacred time when people socialize in ways that promote the excellence of the body, mind, and soul.
Among the many memories I have that exemplify the importance of leisure are ones of children playing soccer on the streets, adults bringing out rocking chairs and talking about politics and genealogy, and families participating in almost-daily processions of the Catholic Church. In contrast, I find that Americans have a disordered sense of what leisure truly entails. Rather than being a matter of simple daily life and communitarian, American leisure is a brief luxury to be enjoyed in private. Given the nature of careers in the age of the service economy, it is unsurprising that American leisure, although manifested in diverse ways, is so consumerist. The individual who watches television or plays video games consumes entertainment that rarely nourishes the mind or soul, never mind the body. There is also a type of leisure in which potentially rich experiences are consumed in a shallow way: the vacation. I believe the vacation to be the greatest perversion of leisure. In modern commodified travel, there is little meaningful experience to be had. Instead, travelers tend to separate themselves from the places they visit, failing to do more than follow a sightseeing script. In addition, the concept of a vacation restricts leisure to a specified number of days and occasions, rather than letting it happen spontaneously and frequently.
Work is important too, partly because it satiates humanity’s innate desire to create. In disavowing work, I would be disavowing its own ability (not just leisure’s) to express beauty and the wonder of life. Nevertheless, I am unsure as to how employment in the increasingly fragmented service and “gig” economy reflects a passion for creation. For this reason, I believe we shouldn’t view careers as the ultimate end, but as necessary building blocks for healthy societies. These societies themselves must be fostered through the inseparable bonds between leisure, the communal pursuit of virtue, and a shared appreciation of beauty.