Sociological Theories of Leisure: Marx and Weber

Sociological Theories of untenanted Marx and Weber untenanted is an argona of sociological study that has, according to umpteen sociologists including Chris Rojek1 been neglected. The literature, sure in the countries of Britain and Australia, has been dominated by views and theories that fit into a red ink modelling. Leisure is juxtaposed against what is deemed its opposite, nominate. In this essay I shall take in charge to elucidate some of that loss framework and then criticise what fanny be viewed as its limitations and so, hopefully, highlighted and beneathstanding some of the implications necessary for a unless(prenominal) and deeper understanding of the sociology of vacant.Marxs most basic premise, that man in capitalistic society is alienated from his knowledge moil, is also, unsurprisingly, the theoretical underpinning for bolshie notions of vacant. The change from older forms of economic commercialises to capitalist industrialisation forced a split in th e work/ void relationship. The identification of leisure as the sphere in which bespeaks ar satisfied and pleasure found simultaneously makes work less susceptible to criticism as failing and more than salient as that which has to be tolerated to earn the freedom of leisure. Instrumentalism about work is built into this apply separation leisure is the prize to be won.2 This demarcation is seen as the principle victory, in a pour out of relatively uncontested battles, of capitalism in regards to leisure. The alienation of comprehend is made more tolerable by leisure activities and pursuits. The idea that genius worked to live at the weekend, or outside of work, became prevalent. Work became a sum to an end.The sphere of leisure, once created, offered the ruling socio-economic classifyes the opport unit of measurementy to restrict and control workers lives further, in insidious slip charge, permeating what was supposed(p) to be free time. If the working class wants alcoho l and music, it shall gather in them simply altogether to be consumed under certain conditions.3 Under the guise of caring for workers rights and needs, and by setting up institutions of leisure, the dominant ruling classes could secure that time away from work was fatigued in activities deemed appropriate. The point of this control was, of course, to ensure the resultivity of workers and thus perpetuate the capitalist market. A hung over worker was of little use.The establishment of leisure as use of goods and serviceshas also been of considerable significance.4 This was capitalisms second great victory in regards to leisure. The capitalist process, at its most fundamental, is all about breathing in. By turning leisure into a commodity, to be bought and sold as well as used, revenue could be exploited. The irony and hypocrisy of the sphere of leisure, supposedly free of capitalist ideology, feeding that ideology with new avenues of revenue, production and reproduction, is shown by Clarke and Critcher.The freedom of leisure is a fallacy. The more vaunted democracy of the market-place rests on the rather less democratic foundations of the profoundly unequal distri bution of wealth and income.5 Instead of resistance to the accompaniment that choice is limited, nay controlled, by the market, we, the consumer, value what choices we do have all the more. Choice in leisure is curtailed by social division and unequal distribution.Those with relatively more control over work tend to have more control over their leisure class does not end at the factory gategender even less so.6 Clarke and Critcher indicate a direct link amongst the alienation of work, to an alienation of leisure, precisely because they conceptualise leisure as being a by product of what we term as work. Leisure is defined by work, caused by work and needed because of work in a capitalist industrial society.Resistance to leisure models are, according to Clarke and Critcher, ultimately fut ile. The market can not completely control how leisure products are used, the young especially tend to use them in ways never envisi whizd. This would be seen as a site of resistance except, Such strategies whitethorn modify but cannot challenge the market/consumer model. Before we can modify the meaning and use of both commodity, we must stolon enter the market as consumers to acquire it.7In a manner sometimes reminiscent of the too soon Marx, Simmel argues that modern font production is not the site of creativity, of individuality, of pleasure.8 Marx produced that workers were alienated from their species being, their creativity, individuality and ultimately their pleasure. Simmel here echoes those sentiments. He also concurs that leisure is an escape from such alienation. In this context then, the history of forms of leisure is the history of labour The exhaustion of our mental and physical energies in work lead us to require and one thing of our leisure we must be made co mfortable we only wish to be amused.9 These notions are very similar to those of Marxist and neo-Marxist theorists such as Clarke and Critcher. Leisure is a reward for time spent working and the real purpose of leisure is to repair and relax the worker ready to once more be a useful member of the industrial complex.The sphere of non-work, ostensibly that of leisure, can also be filled out by consumption and by circulation in search of what is new. Where a mass of consumers has been created, commodities can be sold for their price rather than their quality.10 It is to be noted that in sociology of the Marxist tradition, and here in Simmels own words, what constitutes leisure in a capitalist society for the workers is judged morally bankrupt and alienating. meter over quality, mere amusement over the satisfaction of any deeper needs. Many theorists question this view. Wrestling would certainly be treated as such mere amusement in a Marxist or Simmel tradition, yet for Barthes11, such low culture reproduces the species being that they see as lacking from capitalist leisure. The Marxist tradition makes those judgements with very little empirical evidence. As Rojek states, So far leisure and other studies have provided little sense of what people actually do or feel in pubs, gardens, kitchens, on pitches or package tours.12 The assumption of what people experience during leisure is dangerous. 13In Freudian psychology, An irresistible verbal transiteffortlessly replaces theterm leisure, with a substitute, pleasure.14 In essence our existence, at the polymorphous perversity stage, begins as fun. The processes of society, the rules of the ego, attempt to cage that fun. The world of fun is repressed.15 Freud noted the classic bourgeois ego, perhaps best represented by Veblens Leisure class.16 For Freud, it was, Just this objectivity which justified the utilitarian tradition in psychology, and, viewing the individual as a consumer rather than a producer, regarded ple asure as the consequence of possessing valued objects.17 Freud depicted the mercenary ego as deriving its pleasure from owning commodities. This pleasure was leisure and inexorably, in both implicit and declared ways, the subordinate classes were compelled to adopt this view because, as Rojek points out, the ideas of the bourgeois class are the ruling ideas in society.18Interestingly, Freudian psychology breaks with Marxist tradition. The pleasure of fun is not to be found in commodities. Commodities are the only form of leisure since, under capitalist ideology all leisure is a commodity. So, reacting to the psychological need to escape from the alienation of work, people seek excitement from their commodities instead. Consumption has become excitingPossession, of course, remains its prerequisite, but necessity is held in abeyance.19 The act of shopping in it self has become the excitement, the commodity itself holds less importance. Evidence of this comes from, The comparative l ongevity of modern goods (Which are) overwhelmed by the wish for continual newness.20 Freud, rather pessimistically, saw no real way out of this ideological trap, hence his claim, For psychoanalysis the modest therapeutic aim of transforming neurotic misery into popular unhappiness.21Kelly argues that, If something has to be done then it isnt leisure and that leisure is generally understood as elect activity that is not work.22 Sociology is replete with such ethereal and vague definitions of just what exactly leisure is. Clarke and Critcher state that their work, Does not attempt to lay to rest all those complex definitional questions about what is or is not leisure. We do not believe that these questions can be solved by ever more elaborate analytic juggling.23 H F Moorhouse24 takes issue with this. He raises the very salient point that one could consider it happily ignorant to conduct a whole study without first defining what it is one is researching. Clarke and Critcher rely on a self evident truth of what leisure is. Self evident truths are, quite lots, less than self evident. They rely on common sense notions, but sense in this case is not of necessity common. It operates with the simple and stereotyped view of what most work is like, seeing it as impoverished, routinised, deskilled etc..What is a very obscure issue is oversimplified.25 For Moorhouse, their treatment of work is crude and their definition of leisure spurious. They refuse To allow that paid labour can be, for most, a source of satisfaction, purpose, creativity, qualitative experience, and so on.26This can only be seen as a weakness.Classical assumptions of the nature of work and leisure may no longer be sufficient. Clarke and Critcher state that they are writing during a time (1985) of transition to post-industrial society. If one take this claim seriously then it has pregnant implications. The introduction of flexi-time and the development of human relations techniques in management have made the workplace less oppressive and monotonous for many workersMoreover, technical progress enables paid employment to be conducted from the home.27 Technology, in grouchy that most wide of world webs, has magnified the possibilities of working from home and blurred the lines of what constitutes work and leisure lock in further. The dualistic and simplistic theme, as found in Clarke and Critcher and other works in the Marxist tradition, may no longer be completely adequate to explain the sociology of leisure. Their account seems isolated in a very specific moment, a moment of change. Older accounts, Veblens, Marxs, Simmels, may have been entirely accurate at the time they were published, but that time has long since past. Other considerations may need to be taken into account.My conformation is that the distinctions between work and leisure, public and private life, duty and excitement, have blurred.28 If one takes the work of Rojek seriously, what implications for the tired and simplistic definitions of what constitutes work and leisure? Freud defines leisure as pleasure as fun. If the boundaries of what constitutes leisure and work are indeed eroding could it mean that leisure, pleasure and fun can be found in work? Or work in fun? A cogent example would be of a party that one feels obliged to attend. You do not like the food, you hate the music, youre surrounded by people you reject and you would give anything to be anywhere else. Yet this is your leisure time? The sociology of leisure needs to address these concerns.Relationships and structures of leisure help mitigate human problems, foster cohesion in communities, alleviate personal suffering, maintain economic stability, and encourage political activity.29 Some sociologists see leisure as being a site for evolution essential social cyberspaces, places that maintain and improve cohesion and interaction. If one considers Simmels conception that sociability is the, subtile form of intera cting independence of individuals,30 then one might conclude that the development of leisure profits are a morally good occurrence that let actors enjoy true or pure leisure, pleasure and fun. perhaps for the good of the sociology of leisure, There is a need to shift attention away from the characteristics of individuals or groups as the unit of analysis, and focus on the characteristics of social relationships between people.31Social structure may also be manipulated by the intentional activities of actors.32 The Marxist based argument is one sided. The bourgeois are the active oppressors, the working class the submissive victims and there is no room for any real dialogue between workers desire and capitalist ideology. 33 Also it assumes that capitalist ideology is uniform and coherent. The ideological structure is rarely that simple. feminist theorists such as Wearing34 raise the issues of the problem of womens experiences of leisure. Though raised in Clarke and Crichters work, their account does not, perhaps, delve deeply enough into the feminist sociological perspective. The geomorphological and pervasive economic ideology of Marxism is, in many ways, present in feminist accounts, however particular attention should be paid to the fact that this ideology is exclusively the preserve of men, and is not exclusively economic. Theorists such as Butler35 indicate the problem of explaining womens position in society while being forced to use the only wording available, the language of masculinity. Still further Collins critiques feminism as the preserve of white women only.36If one is a woman then that is surely not all that one isgender intersects with racial, class, ethnic, sexual and regional discursively established identities.37In conclusion and as stated above in the introduction to this essay, leisure is very often regarded as having been neglected in the arena of sociological study. Perhaps one of the reasons for this indifference has been the genui ne problem of even defining exactly what leisure is. The Marxist tradition has held dominance in the field much since the time of Marx himself. Even those who I have used to criticise some of the Marxist perspectives themselves share many similar views38. This is because it is incredibly difficult to understand leisure without its opposite. This study is really as much of a study of work as it is of leisure and this author actually can not find shortcoming in that approach. What I do find fault with is the quite often simplistic dualism that is depicted between the two. As Rojek concludes, the edges between work and leisure are blurred and this is something that is important to the future study of leisure.Marxist ideas are frequently accused of being economicly deterministic. Whilst I personally find that accusation a spook harsh, many of the theories outlined above could be accused of considering the economic, the capitalist, a little too much in their theorisations. LeisureIs ac tion in structureproduced by action in the real world of roles and responsibilities as well as the division of race, class, age and gender.39 All of these particular characteristics must be considered in any study of leisure.Moorhouse suggests a methodology. Weber used the concepts of status group and lifestyle to refer to specific patterns of consumption and culturally based attachments. 40 What is certain is that by using such concepts, and still further, the sociology of leisure can only broaden its knowledge.BibliographyRoland Barthes Mythologies pub by J. Cape 1972Roland Barthes Image, music, text pub by Fontana fix 1977Leisure for leisure edited by Chris Rojek. make by Macmillan press 1989The devil makes work Leisure in capitalist Britain by J Clarke and C Critcher. print by Macmillan 1985Leisure in society, A network structural perspective by Patricia A Stokoswki. Published by Mansell 1994Ways of hedge by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan Press 1993Leisure and Feminist Theory by B Wearing. Published by Sage 1998 sex activity trouble by Judith Butler. Published by Routledge 1999Black feminist conception by P H Collins. Published by Routledge 1990The theory of the leisure class by Thorstein Veblen. Published by The new American library 1959Footnotes1 Leisure for leisure edited by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan press 1989Ways of Escape by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan Press 19932 The devil makes work Leisure in capitalist Britain by J Clarke and C Critcher. Published by Macmillan 1985 p94-953 Ibid p954 Ibid p955 Ibid p966 Ibid7 Ibid p2018 Leisure for leisure edited by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan press 1989 p789 Ibid p8310 Ibid p7811 Roland Barthes Mythologies pub by J. Cape 1972Roland Barthes Image, music, text pub by Fontana Press 197712 Leisure for leisure edited by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan press 1989 p3113 Though Rojek himself reaches many of the same himself conclusions regarding the banality of modern leisure, in particular package tours, travel and tourism.Ways of Escape by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan Press 199314 Leisure for leisure edited by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan press 1989 p5315 Ibid p6416 The theory of the leisure class by Thorstein Veblen. Published by The new American library 1959 The ruling Bourgeois idea of leisure, for Veblen, was large consumption, the ostentatious display of wealth through the purchase of commodities.17 Leisure for leisure edited by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan press 1989 p6918 Ibid p10119 Ibid p7020 Ibid p7021 Ibid p5722 Ibid p1723 The devil makes work Leisure in capitalist Britain by J Clarke and C Critcher. Published by Macmillan 1985 pxiii24 Leisure for leisure edited by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan press 198925 Ibid p2226 Ibid p2527 Ibid p10828 Ibid p10829 Leisure in society, A network structural perspective by Patricia A Stokoswki. Published by Mansell 1994 p11230 Leisure for leisure edited by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan press 1989 p8731 Leisure in society, A network structural perspective by Patricia A Stokoswki. Published by Mansell 1994 p3832 Ibid p11233 At least not in any meaningful way as we have seen in the above example, from Clarke and Critcher, that the very entry into the market process taints any action with is ideological stigma.34 Leisure and Feminist Theory by B Wearing. Published by Sage 199835 Gender trouble by Judith Butler. Published by Routledge 199936 Black feminist thought by P H Collins. Published by Routledge 199037 Gender trouble by Judith Butler. Published by Routledge 1999 p638 Ways of Escape by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan Press 199339 Leisure in society, A network structural perspective by Patricia A Stokoswki. Published by Mansell 1994 p3740 Leisure for leisure edited by Chris Rojek. Published by Macmillan press 1989 p31