Leisure: The Basis of Culture

Description

One of the most important philosophy titles published in the twentieth century, Joseph Pieper's *Leisure, the Basis of Culture* is more significant, even more crucial than it was when it first appeared fifty years ago. Pieper shows that Greeks understood and valued leisure, as did the medieval Europeans. He points out that religion can be born only in leisure-a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. He maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture-and ourselves. These astonishing essays contradict all our pragmatic and puritanical conceptions about labor and leisure; Joseph Pieper demolishes the twentieth-century cult of "work" as he predicts its destructive consequences. translation of Musse und Keit and Was heisst Philosophieren?EPUB is Ignatius Press ed. (Alexander Dru's transl.), but St. Augustine's Press's is a newer translation.* * *I was thinking of the title of this book during the present COVID-19 pandemic, how more people are forced to be leisurely and how, consequently, *Deo volente* , a new cultural renaissance will occur. The reason so many people are overworked is, in part, Protestantism, but also feeding people's insatiable greed, concupiscence, and [frenetic intemperance](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=5155). COVID-19 is forcing people to straighten out their priorities. Technology is there to free up our time and give us leisure, not to feed our base apetites.This work contains some interesting quotes from St. Thomas Aquinas regarding the relationship between leisure (σχoλή = *scola* = *Schule* = *school* ; cf. 1 Cor. 7:5: " *…ut* *vacetis* *orationi* " and Ps. 45:11: " *Vacate* *, et videte quoniam ego sum Deus* ") and contemplation; cf. "[ *otium sanctum*](http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/it/index.age?results.pageSize=50&text=%3Dotium+%3Dsanctum)". *Neg-otio* (ά−σχoλία) means "negation of *otium* ".PDF p. 38: "Because of the leisure of contemplation [ *otium contemplationis* ] the Scripture says of the Divine Wisdom itself that it ”plays all the time, plays throughout the world” [[ *Proverbs* 8, 30](http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drl&bk=22&ch=8&l=30-#x)]." [[ *Commentary on the Sentences* I, d. 2 ( *expositio textus* )](https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~Sent.I.D2.Ex.2).] (used in Masses for Our Lady, such as that of the fesat of her Immaculate Conception).St. Thomas quotes St. Augustine [*XIX de Civ. Dei* cap. 19](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120119.htm#note121292), on the relation between active and contemplative, which reminds me of St. Benedict's *ora et labora* :> holy leisure is longed for by the love of truth; but it is the necessity of love to undertake requisite business. > [lit.: "The charity of the truth seeks holy leisure; the necessity of charity takes up just business."] > ( *otium sanctum quaerit caritas veritatis; negotium iustum suscipit necessitas caritatis.* )