Throughout this week one of the themes that really stuck with me was the contradiction between work and leisure and how the definitions of these words have changed over time. I studied Latin for 6 years before coming to Bucknell and we always talked about the fact that the Romans did not have a true word for “work”. They had words for vacation, leisure, rest, and slavery but they did not have a word for “work”. To them the only people that were supposed to truly work were slaves and that already had a word: slavery. To them, their time should be spent in leisure. Of course many of them had a craft that they kept up with to make a living, but to them it was not important to strain themselves making a lot of money. They sold their craft when they needed to and other than that they enjoyed life.
I see a similar mentality shared by the people of the 6th century. When Hank first arrived he was so astonished that nobody was working. They were all wandering around with no sense of where they had come from or where they were going, and they lacked all sorts of drive or motivation. Hank presumed that he must be in an insane asylum because nobody of their right mind would spend the day just walking around with no purpose, destination or any sort of work. Hank’s view bring us to the more modern view of our definition of work and leisure. To us work is a necessity for all to live. We believe in the “American Dream” where if you work hard, you can move up in the world and in society and make a good life for yourself. We see leisure as a time of reward and something that is earned. It does not come around all the time and it must be earned and it is enjoyed in small doses. However, leisure is not always so accepted when it is abused or when it becomes the focus of ones life. In modern day we see work as the main time commitment and leisure as a small reward at the end. Most of our lives are spent in work not leisure. In contrast, the Romans saw work as a time when they weren’t in leisure, we see leisure as a time when we are not in work.
These are two very different viewpoints and shows that throughout time, work and leisure took up a different amount of people’s time and was regarded much differently in their lives. Currently, those who are unemployed are seen to be in a state of unrest. They are looked down upon by society for not having the ways and means for providing for a family, and they rush to the unemployment office or their next interview to try and fix this. It is very interesting how work has evolved from something only for the slaves, to a coveted position in life that ensures (or we hope that it will ensure) stability for our lives and our families.