Comments on: Leisure and the End of the World

By: Netardation | Society Eye

Netardation | Society Eye — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:22:16 +0000

[...] my pal Dan over at Ultrakillbot remarks, it was Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World that highlighted the anxiety that the world [...]

By: Alex Hayter

Alex Hayter — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:56:59 +0000

I think people get bored with leisure, eventually. Ever get those days where – even where you have a host of leisurely activities at your disposal: Internet, TV, video games, sunbathing and music – you get the overwhelming urge to just DO something?

I definitely relate to the picture of a dude at his desk surrounded by tv, ipods, etc – it’s kind of how I’m feeling right now actually. But I’m minutes away from bursting out of of my apartment and going for a nice walk to give myself some time to think. I like to think I’m not the only person who finds catharsis in doing this.

Then again, I like to think I’m not the only person who finds such mindless information (e.g. facebook quizzes, transformers 2) absolutely tiresome.

Ultimately, I think autonomy wins out in the battle for our brains. Some people just lack the initiative to use that autonomy.

By: Lifolo

Lifolo — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:05:39 +0000

crud – where the hell was my copy editor?! loser=losing.

Plus: what both men said about society (or, more correctly about potential society) can and could come to pass, they are not merely local anomalies.

By: Lifolo

Lifolo — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:03:11 +0000

I quite enjoy Erik’s interpretation. I’ve often wondered what the problem is, outside of the viewpoint of the business owner loser viable staff…

For me there is not, and never has been, a “Huxley v Orwell” debate. Both are correct within their frames of reference. Huxley was writing about the predilection Americans have for convenience and luxury, Orwell was writing about Soviet-style oppression.

The Matrix, on the other hand, was a really cool movie…

By: Erik

Erik — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:28:19 +0000

A Brave New World is generally considered to be dystopian, but I disagree. As far as I know Huxley was a strong proponent of better living through chemistry, and recreational (or mind expanding) drugs. For example when he died he had his wife inject him with LSD to make the passing easier (I believe he was dying of throat cancer which is generally very difficult and painful).

I think BNW was an example of an ideal system for humanity. The characters of The Savage and Bernard, who represent more conventional thinking are chronically unhappy and I think that demonstrates that the philosophies they represent are the dystopian ones. Everyone else, no matter their station in life, has a life they are happy with.

Regarding the concept of leisure vs. work time and modern society I’m more or less influenced by Daniel Quinn and the book Ishmael which I guess is kind of controversial? Anyways, I would say early human society (pre-civilization tribal culture) had much more leisure time than we do now, and it’s evolutionarily more natural for humans to have lots of leisure time. The amount of work we do now is artificially expanded by the demands of culture and industry. We don’t need to do this much work to survive as a species.

Look how apes live, they spend most of their time eating and lazing around. They don’t work 9 hours a day, what for? Why do we? The culture of modern tribal cultures is interesting too, work and leisure is kind of intertwined. They go hunting for work… now people go hunting on trips during their leisure time.