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Leisure as an issue for the future
Leisure as an Issue f o r the Future
LEISURE AS AN ISSUE FOR THE F U T U R E
Max Kaplan
Man's attitude towards leisure is developing, and the time he has to enjoy it is expanding. The new attitudes, values, policies and even cultures that this suggests, present a challenge for interpretation and projection to the emerging discipline of futures.
Tnvi~.--physical, objective, chronological time, as well as subjective and psychological time--is the core issue of leisure as it pertains to projections for the future. A recent example is the Kahn-Wiener 'scenario' of i IOO working hours per year (147 working days and 208 days free) for the post-industrial society. 1 We are told by others that in the USA we have worked about 3 to 4 hours weekly less in each decade from the turn of the century. Thus, ff we employ elementary techniques, we could project that by the end of the century we will average 12 hours less than the present 4o hour week, or 28 hours of work. Or if we add some flourishes for automation, a simple augmentation of additional free time could suggest the figures of 5, 6, and 7 per decade, taking us to a 22 hour work week. Yet these are over-simple procedures. For we are told in recent studies that automation, while increasing our national product, need not result in either forced or voluntary disengagement from work. There may, in fact, be less displacement from work because of technological processes than some of us have assumed; more important, such new time that results from new energy may, by individual preference, be allocated in other ways than leisure. It seems correct to agree with Dr Emanuel Mesthene of the Harvard program on technology and science when he points out that the "first-order effect of technology is thus to multiply and diversify material possibilities and thereby Prof. Max Kaplan is Professor of Sociology, and Director, Institute for Studies of Leisure, University of South Florida
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Leisure as an Issue for the Future
offer new and altered opportunities to m a n " . 2 Five types of 'possibilities' that relate to time and projections are: amount, structure, content, profiles, and policy. Each is an element of time that should engage those concerned with the future.
A m o u n t of t i m e
One approach to the future could be to take the figure of 1,22o hours as the increase in non-working time in the U S A since 189o , and ask" I f we kept the present per capita income ($3,I8I in I965) as a constant as our productive capacity goes up, what are the alternatives? Testifying recently before a Senate committee, Dr J u a n i t a Kreps, economist from Duke University, noted that we could choose to drop the workweek to 2~ hours by I985; or we could choose to work full time, but 27 weeks of the year; or, again working full day and week, we could retire at the age of 38. Another alternative would be to absorb about half the labor force in retraining programs; and another would be to pay the worker for full-time formal education. Still speaking of possible alternatives. Dr. Kreps writes :3 Alternative allocations of leisure in the period 198o-85 might be as follows: given a $4,413 per capita GNP in 198o, achieved with a 37{ hour workweek, a 48 week workyear, and providing retraining for z % of the labor force, society could choose to retrain much more heavily (4" 25% of the labor force per year) or, alternatively, could add 1½ weeks per year in vacation. In i985, when per capita GNP should reach about $5,000, the choice could be between retraining almost 7% of the labor force annually or taking an additional three weeks of vacation. Obviously, other choices could be made, involving a further reduction in the workweek, a lowering of retirement age, or an increased educational span for those entering the labor force. Whatever choices we make from our enlarged technology, these observations seem fairly clear: • The alternatives suggested by Dr. Kreps will not be 'across the board', but will be approached differently by various segments of the labor force, or even by major union groups. Harold Wilensky has been in the forefront of those who break free time into kinds of occupational groups; and his position will hold not only on how each is affected by technology, but how it chooses to take the increment of energy. 4 • We m a y expect, whatever the effect of automation on employment, that the total amount of non-work time will move steadily upward; there m a y be a saturation point for the factor of boredom, but neither the Calvinist ethic nor fear of time has stopped the American worker from moving easily into the five day week, more legal holidays, longer vacations, and fewer hours. As more facilities are provided, and as more experience is gained by individuals and families in using time, more time will be accepted and negotiated. One recent study to bolster this irrevocable trend (barring war or some other major interruption) was issued by the Southern California Research Council, a
Leisure as an Issue for the Future
non-profit group sponsored by business and educational agencies) Their stress was on the current dearth of such facilities as libraries and artistic institutions. T h e well-known federal studies by the O u t d o o r Recreation Resources Commission a few years back came to about the same conclusion in its call for more parks and similar facilities, as a means of meeting growing needs, e S t r u c t u r e of t i m e
At the moment, studies seem to indicate that most workers, still at a loss in accommodating themselves or their families to long bulks of time, such as a conceivable half year at a time, will rather break up work and non-work into short, consecutive periods such as the half-week. In that event we m a y anticipate no major transformations in the social structure. It is when, and if, larger bulks become available and natural that people must be aware of radical possibilities. W e have the first alternative illustrated at present among the electrical workers of N e w York, whose contract calls for a 25 hour week with guarantee of 5 hours overtime; the second plan was chosen by the steel workers who, aside from other annual vacations, have negotiated a 13 weeks paid vacation every seven years. Studies are now going on in the latter situation to see how the time is being used. There are factors that could bring more segments of the unionised work force to something like the steel plan or even more daring, i.e., a wider popularity for foreign travel, more flexible educational schedules for children, popularity of installment payments for extended vacations, and so on. I f enough workers, say, from a cold area decide to live in a w a r m climate for months at a time, public policy would enter such matters as the taxing of the family for welfare services and education. Already we have a precedent in this country when the federal funds were used during World W a r II to pay directly to local communities as industrial needs required sizeable movements of workers. T h e present mobility and lack of land traditions in the U S A make such prospects perhaps easier to anticipate than in other countries. C o n t e n t of time
At least four sub-factors m a y engage those planning for the future on the content of leisure in regard to amount of time and its alternative uses: expansion, classlessness, differentiation, and influence. • Expansion Projections of objective or physical measurements of time in the future available for non-work are b o u n d to be inaccurate, no matter how carefully drawn, without an understanding of the expansion of the hourly potential. The question is not how m a n y minutes less we work now than we did a century ago, or tomorrow; rather, what are the constraints or possibilities of a given time unit. I f we can travel farther, communicate faster, be assured of better health, have the wide world brought to us b y television, or have more literacy to read more journals, then in each case the value of the hour has gone up, just
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as, and for m a n y of the same social or technological reasons, the value o f the dollar has gone down. Indeed, almost a social law emerges of one increment at the expense o f the other! Thus, if Buckminster Fuller were to help us by including time in his inventory of new energy resources, he would do well to add this fact of institutional economics and engineering. Now, two sets of alternatives are apparent. W h e n the dollar or the hour contracts, we must choose to rearrange what is left. T h a t is the basis of Szalai's question o f leisure in H u n g a r y : ~ as workers move to the cities and take more time to transport themselves to work, what do they eliminate ? We all know the familiar question in reverse: I f you had an unexpected month (or a large sum of money) to do with as you please, what would you do ? All industrialized areas confront in the next few decades, the possibility of the dual expansion: more non-work hours and the expansion in possibilities for the use of each hour. De Grazia argues well t h a t free time is not the same as leisure, s just as the recent Russian studies accept leisure as only one form of activity within the larger umbrella, non-work. 9 These distinctions are of the utmost importance, for by the last two decades of the century, distinctions between work and non-work m a y be quite diminished. Even if, in the USA, a m a x i m u m freeing from work by automation were to be envisioned, there are numerous jobs to be done, as in the current V I S T A and Peace Corp programs. And even if, as m a y be predicted, the U S A comes to some form of guaranteed annual wage in place of the current collection of relief and welfare programs, there will always be jobs waiting to be done, even if not within the familiar economic work structure. Being paid as an adult for a university education is one such illustration. Dennis Gabor has called for more inventing of new commitments. 1° Freda Goldman, an American authority in adult education, has conceptualized new meaningful roles for work-free women, u •
Classlessness
Almost a corollary of industrialization, classlessness raises the aspirations and expectations of large masses. In the process, we m a y expect that as masses see better chances to obtain access to goods and services, they will first turn to income, housing, and other material gains. But here there is a circle. I n a society where the television and cinema are material aspirations and early possessions in the priority scale, leisure-time uses of new images and entrees to the world of fancy are not only consequences but also stimuli to further possessions and to time itself. For leisure, we cannot forget, was a most powerful symbol of the rich, and as the middle classes gain this access, they m a y want more of this image and symbolic increment. I n the USA, for example, golf, winter vacations and travel abroad have in m a n y individual cases become a style of life before they could be comfortably paid for by their consumers. It is therefore m y view that the American Negro, as he dramatically obtains access to jobs, education, houses, and material goods, is the segment to be watched with great interest. Recall that the American Jewish minority searched out its identity and became a major literary force from a position of inner freedom, but only after it had won its outward struggle; so the Negro m a y also move into creative self-examination by the use of his
Leisure as an Issue f o r the Future
free time, a leisure which serves doubly as a source of symbolic achievement and as a literal resource in his middle-class status of the next few decades. • Differentiation Margaret M e a d had called attention to the pin-pointing of leisure facilities that will develop with higher literacy and more experience of the consuming public. IS Further, increased urbanization permits more individual choice among alternative leisure experiences and friendships. For example, as the restlessness that now pulls millions on to the highways becomes more mature, there m a y be clearer distinctions and purposes in respect to history, geography, or regional traditions. Following Mead's thinking, it m a y be that as large numbers of families eventually possess two television sets (one in color) mass media audiences will break into taste groups even within the family. • Influence T h e writer has dealt elsewhere with the influences that shape the person's selection of alternatives in his free time: personality, group associations, current fads, income, resources of the community, and so on. 13 In a detailed analysis for a federal study, Paul Lazarsfeld and I tried to observe the influence of television in the relation of urban m a n to the outdoors: television as a barrier, as vicarious experience, as a source of information, and as a m e m o r y box. :4 None of these and other forms of influence can be projected singly, for they need to be seen as complexes which relate to varieties of persons and situations. I n the next two or three decades there will probably be no dramatic changes; the commercial forces, especially those that control television, will continue to dominate attitudes and expenditures of time by the even more sophisticated techniques of soft or hard sell. The major public factors that will probably counteract them are the continued expansion of such public facilities as national or regional parks and adult education. I f international travel grows more rapidly than in the present period, it will be because of huge new planes with prospects of low fares. We m a y expect that a new discipline of counselling for leisure will emerge, for all ages, which m a y have impact on educational curricula. Profiles
O n e Of the major conceptions that seems to be developing with some clarity among those actively concerned with the future is the weakness of extrapolation as a method and the usefulness of models, constructs, or profiles. H e r m a n K a h n and Anthony Wiener use the term, canonical variations. :5 Weber's construct, perhaps best supplemented by H o w a r d Becker and Talcott Parsons, has long ago provided the tools for such a method. It is a general, not a specific picture or a statistical average. It contains the basic elements of a situation against which a real case can be assessed. The 'ideal type' is something "applicable to the analysis of an infinite plurality of concrete cases". :e A profile or construct of leisure, which we have seen touched upon in writings of de Grazia and Dumazedier, but not explicitly explored in detail, could provide a tool for both analysis and projection. As analysis, a profile removes
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Leisureas an Issuefor the Future
the danger that is inherent in time budget studies, no matter how well they are interpreted. The time budget, unless it covers a long period (preferably a year) reveals much that is useful, but the fragments from a day or a week may be just that fragments--that need to be put into a longitudinal picture that accounts for seasons, broad patterns of behavior, styles of life. We may be sure that if a field of leisure counselling does develop, it will be most useful if it can help the client to an assessment of himself and of his unfulfilled experience in reference to long-range alternatives rather than to immediate, isolated types of prescriptions. An even more important use of leisure profiles is the construction of regional models, first as they now exist, then as a total projection for that region in its potential variations. The Institute for Studies of Leisure now being created at the University of South Florida, T a m p a , will pursue both objectives. Central Florida is in many ways an intriguing model. It is the leading state in population over 65 years (8oo,ooo) and the T a m p a - S t . Petersburg area is the heart of retirement. But for all ages the central aspects here are sun, beaches, and year-round warmth, a mecca for visitors during the winter and increasingly through the year. A generally hedonistic picture appears on the surface, but deeper down there are many opportunities for education, symphony concerts, art galleries and significant companionship. The Institute wants to obtain a complete inventory of the region within a 75-mile radius, to determine its total resources for leisure and the uses made of them. The profile of tomorrow, in other words, must begin with the actualities of today. But aside from an intensification of present factors such as more retired people and more tourism, a crucial factor beginning in I971 will be the presence of Disney World, an updated version of Disneyland in California, five times larger, and covering an area twice the size of Manhattan. A cautious estimate is that 6 million people will be attracted annually to the project, moving up many millions within a decade. Here, then, we have a present-day model that is already valuable for an understanding of similar areas (sun, vacationland, beaches) in this country or abroad. In addition, a fascinating problem of forecasting arises from the known interjection of a calculated factor assisted by prediction of economic and traffic impact already being studied by other public agencies of the state. If the profile of leisure in this region is pluralistic, creating models that differ on the supposition of various mixtures of values, material resources and influences upon behavior alternatives, those working on futures may find that within the models, they have allocated items that approach a model in the traditional sense of preference. The question arises of how a conception of the future in itself becomes a force on public policy, whether it wants this or not. In the leisure field this is a realistic issue. Public policy Governmental policies on leisure matters will, of course, be subject to the same forces of pressure, ideology and circumstances that affect policies in general. A few examples of the differences make this clear. The present patterns of leisure in the USSR, built into the way of political and social life, are in good
Leisure as an Issue for the Future
part an extension of union decisions and practices, and in part a manifestation of official attitudes toward sports, the arts, and so on. I n Germany, the conservation movements and other bodies are having an impact on a society in which an area about equal to the size of Munich becomes urbanized every year and a national viewpoint is emerging among recreational groups. In D e n m a r k there has been some debate on the increased subsidy for the arts in I965 as an overt attempt to prepare its population for more free time. 17 T h e issue here is how leisure developments m a y have a special impact on governmental policies that in any way m a y affect larger patterns. Political scientists would be more useful here, but a few impressions are in order. T h e areas in which, now or later, government is most clearly concerned with leisure matters include: • the provision for facilities or resources open to public uses • the preparation of leadership to function within such resources • the creation of programs that m a y take place under these leaders • policies that permit or restrain certain forms of behavior within those programs • tax or other financial supports for all the above Further, as in any matter that concerns public policy, the general items that enter into the formation of public policy are the presence of relevant data, the framework of ideology or philosophy that brings j u d g m e n t and interpretation to this data, actual decrees by whatever legal units exist, implementation devices to carry out the decrees in line with the data and philosophy, and some form o f evaluation. We m a y expect that the next few decades, wherever technology is developing, will see governments at all levels increasingly facing issues of policy that come from non-economic time; more parks, more leadership, more tax money, more resources that are now visible within various nations and cultures (comm u n i t y centers, vereins, water resources, public arts, etc.). Barring outright war on a major scale, it does not seem as though there will be a diminution of these tendencies, or for the motivation among all peoples that Georges Friedm a n n terms simply the search for happiness. I n the USA, the present political movement toward the right does not suggest a turn toward public ownership of mass media, nor tighter control over private owners of the media. However, financial resources from satellite communications, as indicated in the Ford and Carnegie Foundation proposals, m a y make larger sums available in the next decade for a larger output of public television. There m a y be, in the USA, the formation of consumer groups devoted to public education ontaste, and pressure on commercial interests, but the protection of mass media consumers by the Federal government would probably not be a prominent factor for the decades ahead. Universities, in the sense that m a n y here are tax-supported and therefore enter as major factors in public policy, will become increasing forces in educating the masses and in bringing the arts (as one example) to larger community publics. T h e data for public policy on leisure will be clearer in the decades ahead than they are now, for government, industry and education have become aware of work and free-time changes. A more unified methodology m a y be B
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Leisure as an Issue for the Future
expected, especially with the European start toward systematic national and international studies. Need for a philosophy for the post-industrial order has already begun to attract thinkers of m a n y countries. There can be no philosophy without values; even within the range of American sociology, there are signs of some responsibility in this direction. Professor H e n r y Winthrop writes on the sociologist in relation to his studies of the future, " A frank choice b y sociologists of the values they intend to serve is just as much their prerogative as it is that of the other professions...,,.is No one in sociology has gone as far as Joffre Dumazedier in one of the key statements of his recent volume, Toward a Society of Leisure: 19 Leisure is the expression of a whole collection of man's aspirations on a search for a new happiness, related to a new duty, a new ethic, a new policy, and a new culture. A humanistic mutation is beginning. It may even be more fundamental than the Renaissance. It has advanced slowly, almost imperceptibly on doves' feet, since the end of the nineteenth century when, for the first time, labor unions demanded not only a raise but a reduction in hours of work . . . . This is the central hypothesis that emerges from our sociological investigations and in the critical study of the works of our European and American colleagues concerning leisure. It is noteworthy that the next conference of Mankind 2ooo International (Osaka, 197o ) will turn to " h u m a n development in a critical future". It is to be hoped that the conference will absorb the leisure theme among others. Leisure is a clue to observers of the quality of life; its issues, as this paper has sought to illustrate, leave wide latitude for factual projection, subtle interpretation, and concern with values in the emerging discipline of futures.
References
I. Herman Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener, The Year 2000: A framework for speculation on the next thirty-three years (New York, Macmillan, i967) 2. Emanuel Mesthene, "How technology will shape the future", Harvard University program on technology and society, reprint number 5 from Sdence, i61, 3837 (12 July, x968 ) 3. Juanita M. Kreps, testimony before subcommittee on retirement and the individual of the Special Committee on Aging (United States Senate, Part I, June 7-8, I967), p. 59 4. H. L. Wilensky, "The uneven distribution of leisure: the impact of economic growth on 'free time' ", Social Problems 1961 (9), PP. 32-56. See also his essay, "Varieties of work experience" in Man in a World at Work, Henry Borow (ed.) (New York, Houghton Mifflin, I964), pp. 125-I54 5. New York Times, April 6, I968 6. Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, 27 reports available through U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1962-1963 7. For a description of the multinational comparative time budget research project of the European Coordination Center for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences, see Alaxander Szalai, "The multinational comparative time budget research project: a venture in international research cooperation," American Behavioral Scientist, December, 1966 8. Sebastian de Grazia, O f time, work and leisure (The Twentieth Century Fund, New York, I962), pp. 68-79
Leisure as an Issue for the Future
9. Report of the Institute of Public Opinion, directed by B. A. Grushin, reported to the American Sociological Society meetings, Boston, 1968; summarized by Alex Simirenko in forthcoming Sodal thought in the Soviet Union (Chicago, Quadrangle Press, 1968) 1o. Dennis Gabor, Inventing thefuture (New York, Knopf, I964) x 1. Freda Goldman, .4 turning to take next: alternative goals in the education of women (Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults, Boston University, Boston, 1965) 12. Margaret Mead, Outdoor recreation in the content of emerging cultural values, Study Report 22, Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (Washington, US Government Printing Office, I962), pp. 2-26 13. Max Kaplan, Leisure in America: a social inquiry (New York, John Wiley, 196o) 14. Max Kaplan and Paul Lazarsfeld, The mass media and man's orientation to nature, Study Report 22, Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (Washington, US Government Printing Office), pp. 187-2I 4 I5. Kahn and Wiener, Op. cir., p. 9 and Chapter VI 16. Talcott Parsons, The structure of social action (New York, Free Press, I949), p. 606 17. Max Kaplan, "Leisure: national and international issues", Lo Spettucolo, Rome, XV, (4), 1965 18. Henry Winthrop, "The sociologist and the study of the future", The American Sociologist, May, I968, pp. 136-145 19. Joffre Dumazedier, Toward a society of leisure (New York, Free Press, I967), p. 236
99
LEISURE AS AN ISSUE FOR THE F U T U R E
Max Kaplan
Man's attitude towards leisure is developing, and the time he has to enjoy it is expanding. The new attitudes, values, policies and even cultures that this suggests, present a challenge for interpretation and projection to the emerging discipline of futures.
Tnvi~.--physical, objective, chronological time, as well as subjective and psychological time--is the core issue of leisure as it pertains to projections for the future. A recent example is the Kahn-Wiener 'scenario' of i IOO working hours per year (147 working days and 208 days free) for the post-industrial society. 1 We are told by others that in the USA we have worked about 3 to 4 hours weekly less in each decade from the turn of the century. Thus, ff we employ elementary techniques, we could project that by the end of the century we will average 12 hours less than the present 4o hour week, or 28 hours of work. Or if we add some flourishes for automation, a simple augmentation of additional free time could suggest the figures of 5, 6, and 7 per decade, taking us to a 22 hour work week. Yet these are over-simple procedures. For we are told in recent studies that automation, while increasing our national product, need not result in either forced or voluntary disengagement from work. There may, in fact, be less displacement from work because of technological processes than some of us have assumed; more important, such new time that results from new energy may, by individual preference, be allocated in other ways than leisure. It seems correct to agree with Dr Emanuel Mesthene of the Harvard program on technology and science when he points out that the "first-order effect of technology is thus to multiply and diversify material possibilities and thereby Prof. Max Kaplan is Professor of Sociology, and Director, Institute for Studies of Leisure, University of South Florida
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Leisure as an Issue for the Future
offer new and altered opportunities to m a n " . 2 Five types of 'possibilities' that relate to time and projections are: amount, structure, content, profiles, and policy. Each is an element of time that should engage those concerned with the future.
A m o u n t of t i m e
One approach to the future could be to take the figure of 1,22o hours as the increase in non-working time in the U S A since 189o , and ask" I f we kept the present per capita income ($3,I8I in I965) as a constant as our productive capacity goes up, what are the alternatives? Testifying recently before a Senate committee, Dr J u a n i t a Kreps, economist from Duke University, noted that we could choose to drop the workweek to 2~ hours by I985; or we could choose to work full time, but 27 weeks of the year; or, again working full day and week, we could retire at the age of 38. Another alternative would be to absorb about half the labor force in retraining programs; and another would be to pay the worker for full-time formal education. Still speaking of possible alternatives. Dr. Kreps writes :3 Alternative allocations of leisure in the period 198o-85 might be as follows: given a $4,413 per capita GNP in 198o, achieved with a 37{ hour workweek, a 48 week workyear, and providing retraining for z % of the labor force, society could choose to retrain much more heavily (4" 25% of the labor force per year) or, alternatively, could add 1½ weeks per year in vacation. In i985, when per capita GNP should reach about $5,000, the choice could be between retraining almost 7% of the labor force annually or taking an additional three weeks of vacation. Obviously, other choices could be made, involving a further reduction in the workweek, a lowering of retirement age, or an increased educational span for those entering the labor force. Whatever choices we make from our enlarged technology, these observations seem fairly clear: • The alternatives suggested by Dr. Kreps will not be 'across the board', but will be approached differently by various segments of the labor force, or even by major union groups. Harold Wilensky has been in the forefront of those who break free time into kinds of occupational groups; and his position will hold not only on how each is affected by technology, but how it chooses to take the increment of energy. 4 • We m a y expect, whatever the effect of automation on employment, that the total amount of non-work time will move steadily upward; there m a y be a saturation point for the factor of boredom, but neither the Calvinist ethic nor fear of time has stopped the American worker from moving easily into the five day week, more legal holidays, longer vacations, and fewer hours. As more facilities are provided, and as more experience is gained by individuals and families in using time, more time will be accepted and negotiated. One recent study to bolster this irrevocable trend (barring war or some other major interruption) was issued by the Southern California Research Council, a
Leisure as an Issue for the Future
non-profit group sponsored by business and educational agencies) Their stress was on the current dearth of such facilities as libraries and artistic institutions. T h e well-known federal studies by the O u t d o o r Recreation Resources Commission a few years back came to about the same conclusion in its call for more parks and similar facilities, as a means of meeting growing needs, e S t r u c t u r e of t i m e
At the moment, studies seem to indicate that most workers, still at a loss in accommodating themselves or their families to long bulks of time, such as a conceivable half year at a time, will rather break up work and non-work into short, consecutive periods such as the half-week. In that event we m a y anticipate no major transformations in the social structure. It is when, and if, larger bulks become available and natural that people must be aware of radical possibilities. W e have the first alternative illustrated at present among the electrical workers of N e w York, whose contract calls for a 25 hour week with guarantee of 5 hours overtime; the second plan was chosen by the steel workers who, aside from other annual vacations, have negotiated a 13 weeks paid vacation every seven years. Studies are now going on in the latter situation to see how the time is being used. There are factors that could bring more segments of the unionised work force to something like the steel plan or even more daring, i.e., a wider popularity for foreign travel, more flexible educational schedules for children, popularity of installment payments for extended vacations, and so on. I f enough workers, say, from a cold area decide to live in a w a r m climate for months at a time, public policy would enter such matters as the taxing of the family for welfare services and education. Already we have a precedent in this country when the federal funds were used during World W a r II to pay directly to local communities as industrial needs required sizeable movements of workers. T h e present mobility and lack of land traditions in the U S A make such prospects perhaps easier to anticipate than in other countries. C o n t e n t of time
At least four sub-factors m a y engage those planning for the future on the content of leisure in regard to amount of time and its alternative uses: expansion, classlessness, differentiation, and influence. • Expansion Projections of objective or physical measurements of time in the future available for non-work are b o u n d to be inaccurate, no matter how carefully drawn, without an understanding of the expansion of the hourly potential. The question is not how m a n y minutes less we work now than we did a century ago, or tomorrow; rather, what are the constraints or possibilities of a given time unit. I f we can travel farther, communicate faster, be assured of better health, have the wide world brought to us b y television, or have more literacy to read more journals, then in each case the value of the hour has gone up, just
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Leisure as an Issue for the Future
as, and for m a n y of the same social or technological reasons, the value o f the dollar has gone down. Indeed, almost a social law emerges of one increment at the expense o f the other! Thus, if Buckminster Fuller were to help us by including time in his inventory of new energy resources, he would do well to add this fact of institutional economics and engineering. Now, two sets of alternatives are apparent. W h e n the dollar or the hour contracts, we must choose to rearrange what is left. T h a t is the basis of Szalai's question o f leisure in H u n g a r y : ~ as workers move to the cities and take more time to transport themselves to work, what do they eliminate ? We all know the familiar question in reverse: I f you had an unexpected month (or a large sum of money) to do with as you please, what would you do ? All industrialized areas confront in the next few decades, the possibility of the dual expansion: more non-work hours and the expansion in possibilities for the use of each hour. De Grazia argues well t h a t free time is not the same as leisure, s just as the recent Russian studies accept leisure as only one form of activity within the larger umbrella, non-work. 9 These distinctions are of the utmost importance, for by the last two decades of the century, distinctions between work and non-work m a y be quite diminished. Even if, in the USA, a m a x i m u m freeing from work by automation were to be envisioned, there are numerous jobs to be done, as in the current V I S T A and Peace Corp programs. And even if, as m a y be predicted, the U S A comes to some form of guaranteed annual wage in place of the current collection of relief and welfare programs, there will always be jobs waiting to be done, even if not within the familiar economic work structure. Being paid as an adult for a university education is one such illustration. Dennis Gabor has called for more inventing of new commitments. 1° Freda Goldman, an American authority in adult education, has conceptualized new meaningful roles for work-free women, u •
Classlessness
Almost a corollary of industrialization, classlessness raises the aspirations and expectations of large masses. In the process, we m a y expect that as masses see better chances to obtain access to goods and services, they will first turn to income, housing, and other material gains. But here there is a circle. I n a society where the television and cinema are material aspirations and early possessions in the priority scale, leisure-time uses of new images and entrees to the world of fancy are not only consequences but also stimuli to further possessions and to time itself. For leisure, we cannot forget, was a most powerful symbol of the rich, and as the middle classes gain this access, they m a y want more of this image and symbolic increment. I n the USA, for example, golf, winter vacations and travel abroad have in m a n y individual cases become a style of life before they could be comfortably paid for by their consumers. It is therefore m y view that the American Negro, as he dramatically obtains access to jobs, education, houses, and material goods, is the segment to be watched with great interest. Recall that the American Jewish minority searched out its identity and became a major literary force from a position of inner freedom, but only after it had won its outward struggle; so the Negro m a y also move into creative self-examination by the use of his
Leisure as an Issue f o r the Future
free time, a leisure which serves doubly as a source of symbolic achievement and as a literal resource in his middle-class status of the next few decades. • Differentiation Margaret M e a d had called attention to the pin-pointing of leisure facilities that will develop with higher literacy and more experience of the consuming public. IS Further, increased urbanization permits more individual choice among alternative leisure experiences and friendships. For example, as the restlessness that now pulls millions on to the highways becomes more mature, there m a y be clearer distinctions and purposes in respect to history, geography, or regional traditions. Following Mead's thinking, it m a y be that as large numbers of families eventually possess two television sets (one in color) mass media audiences will break into taste groups even within the family. • Influence T h e writer has dealt elsewhere with the influences that shape the person's selection of alternatives in his free time: personality, group associations, current fads, income, resources of the community, and so on. 13 In a detailed analysis for a federal study, Paul Lazarsfeld and I tried to observe the influence of television in the relation of urban m a n to the outdoors: television as a barrier, as vicarious experience, as a source of information, and as a m e m o r y box. :4 None of these and other forms of influence can be projected singly, for they need to be seen as complexes which relate to varieties of persons and situations. I n the next two or three decades there will probably be no dramatic changes; the commercial forces, especially those that control television, will continue to dominate attitudes and expenditures of time by the even more sophisticated techniques of soft or hard sell. The major public factors that will probably counteract them are the continued expansion of such public facilities as national or regional parks and adult education. I f international travel grows more rapidly than in the present period, it will be because of huge new planes with prospects of low fares. We m a y expect that a new discipline of counselling for leisure will emerge, for all ages, which m a y have impact on educational curricula. Profiles
O n e Of the major conceptions that seems to be developing with some clarity among those actively concerned with the future is the weakness of extrapolation as a method and the usefulness of models, constructs, or profiles. H e r m a n K a h n and Anthony Wiener use the term, canonical variations. :5 Weber's construct, perhaps best supplemented by H o w a r d Becker and Talcott Parsons, has long ago provided the tools for such a method. It is a general, not a specific picture or a statistical average. It contains the basic elements of a situation against which a real case can be assessed. The 'ideal type' is something "applicable to the analysis of an infinite plurality of concrete cases". :e A profile or construct of leisure, which we have seen touched upon in writings of de Grazia and Dumazedier, but not explicitly explored in detail, could provide a tool for both analysis and projection. As analysis, a profile removes
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the danger that is inherent in time budget studies, no matter how well they are interpreted. The time budget, unless it covers a long period (preferably a year) reveals much that is useful, but the fragments from a day or a week may be just that fragments--that need to be put into a longitudinal picture that accounts for seasons, broad patterns of behavior, styles of life. We may be sure that if a field of leisure counselling does develop, it will be most useful if it can help the client to an assessment of himself and of his unfulfilled experience in reference to long-range alternatives rather than to immediate, isolated types of prescriptions. An even more important use of leisure profiles is the construction of regional models, first as they now exist, then as a total projection for that region in its potential variations. The Institute for Studies of Leisure now being created at the University of South Florida, T a m p a , will pursue both objectives. Central Florida is in many ways an intriguing model. It is the leading state in population over 65 years (8oo,ooo) and the T a m p a - S t . Petersburg area is the heart of retirement. But for all ages the central aspects here are sun, beaches, and year-round warmth, a mecca for visitors during the winter and increasingly through the year. A generally hedonistic picture appears on the surface, but deeper down there are many opportunities for education, symphony concerts, art galleries and significant companionship. The Institute wants to obtain a complete inventory of the region within a 75-mile radius, to determine its total resources for leisure and the uses made of them. The profile of tomorrow, in other words, must begin with the actualities of today. But aside from an intensification of present factors such as more retired people and more tourism, a crucial factor beginning in I971 will be the presence of Disney World, an updated version of Disneyland in California, five times larger, and covering an area twice the size of Manhattan. A cautious estimate is that 6 million people will be attracted annually to the project, moving up many millions within a decade. Here, then, we have a present-day model that is already valuable for an understanding of similar areas (sun, vacationland, beaches) in this country or abroad. In addition, a fascinating problem of forecasting arises from the known interjection of a calculated factor assisted by prediction of economic and traffic impact already being studied by other public agencies of the state. If the profile of leisure in this region is pluralistic, creating models that differ on the supposition of various mixtures of values, material resources and influences upon behavior alternatives, those working on futures may find that within the models, they have allocated items that approach a model in the traditional sense of preference. The question arises of how a conception of the future in itself becomes a force on public policy, whether it wants this or not. In the leisure field this is a realistic issue. Public policy Governmental policies on leisure matters will, of course, be subject to the same forces of pressure, ideology and circumstances that affect policies in general. A few examples of the differences make this clear. The present patterns of leisure in the USSR, built into the way of political and social life, are in good
Leisure as an Issue for the Future
part an extension of union decisions and practices, and in part a manifestation of official attitudes toward sports, the arts, and so on. I n Germany, the conservation movements and other bodies are having an impact on a society in which an area about equal to the size of Munich becomes urbanized every year and a national viewpoint is emerging among recreational groups. In D e n m a r k there has been some debate on the increased subsidy for the arts in I965 as an overt attempt to prepare its population for more free time. 17 T h e issue here is how leisure developments m a y have a special impact on governmental policies that in any way m a y affect larger patterns. Political scientists would be more useful here, but a few impressions are in order. T h e areas in which, now or later, government is most clearly concerned with leisure matters include: • the provision for facilities or resources open to public uses • the preparation of leadership to function within such resources • the creation of programs that m a y take place under these leaders • policies that permit or restrain certain forms of behavior within those programs • tax or other financial supports for all the above Further, as in any matter that concerns public policy, the general items that enter into the formation of public policy are the presence of relevant data, the framework of ideology or philosophy that brings j u d g m e n t and interpretation to this data, actual decrees by whatever legal units exist, implementation devices to carry out the decrees in line with the data and philosophy, and some form o f evaluation. We m a y expect that the next few decades, wherever technology is developing, will see governments at all levels increasingly facing issues of policy that come from non-economic time; more parks, more leadership, more tax money, more resources that are now visible within various nations and cultures (comm u n i t y centers, vereins, water resources, public arts, etc.). Barring outright war on a major scale, it does not seem as though there will be a diminution of these tendencies, or for the motivation among all peoples that Georges Friedm a n n terms simply the search for happiness. I n the USA, the present political movement toward the right does not suggest a turn toward public ownership of mass media, nor tighter control over private owners of the media. However, financial resources from satellite communications, as indicated in the Ford and Carnegie Foundation proposals, m a y make larger sums available in the next decade for a larger output of public television. There m a y be, in the USA, the formation of consumer groups devoted to public education ontaste, and pressure on commercial interests, but the protection of mass media consumers by the Federal government would probably not be a prominent factor for the decades ahead. Universities, in the sense that m a n y here are tax-supported and therefore enter as major factors in public policy, will become increasing forces in educating the masses and in bringing the arts (as one example) to larger community publics. T h e data for public policy on leisure will be clearer in the decades ahead than they are now, for government, industry and education have become aware of work and free-time changes. A more unified methodology m a y be B
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expected, especially with the European start toward systematic national and international studies. Need for a philosophy for the post-industrial order has already begun to attract thinkers of m a n y countries. There can be no philosophy without values; even within the range of American sociology, there are signs of some responsibility in this direction. Professor H e n r y Winthrop writes on the sociologist in relation to his studies of the future, " A frank choice b y sociologists of the values they intend to serve is just as much their prerogative as it is that of the other professions...,,.is No one in sociology has gone as far as Joffre Dumazedier in one of the key statements of his recent volume, Toward a Society of Leisure: 19 Leisure is the expression of a whole collection of man's aspirations on a search for a new happiness, related to a new duty, a new ethic, a new policy, and a new culture. A humanistic mutation is beginning. It may even be more fundamental than the Renaissance. It has advanced slowly, almost imperceptibly on doves' feet, since the end of the nineteenth century when, for the first time, labor unions demanded not only a raise but a reduction in hours of work . . . . This is the central hypothesis that emerges from our sociological investigations and in the critical study of the works of our European and American colleagues concerning leisure. It is noteworthy that the next conference of Mankind 2ooo International (Osaka, 197o ) will turn to " h u m a n development in a critical future". It is to be hoped that the conference will absorb the leisure theme among others. Leisure is a clue to observers of the quality of life; its issues, as this paper has sought to illustrate, leave wide latitude for factual projection, subtle interpretation, and concern with values in the emerging discipline of futures.
References
I. Herman Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener, The Year 2000: A framework for speculation on the next thirty-three years (New York, Macmillan, i967) 2. Emanuel Mesthene, "How technology will shape the future", Harvard University program on technology and society, reprint number 5 from Sdence, i61, 3837 (12 July, x968 ) 3. Juanita M. Kreps, testimony before subcommittee on retirement and the individual of the Special Committee on Aging (United States Senate, Part I, June 7-8, I967), p. 59 4. H. L. Wilensky, "The uneven distribution of leisure: the impact of economic growth on 'free time' ", Social Problems 1961 (9), PP. 32-56. See also his essay, "Varieties of work experience" in Man in a World at Work, Henry Borow (ed.) (New York, Houghton Mifflin, I964), pp. 125-I54 5. New York Times, April 6, I968 6. Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, 27 reports available through U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1962-1963 7. For a description of the multinational comparative time budget research project of the European Coordination Center for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences, see Alaxander Szalai, "The multinational comparative time budget research project: a venture in international research cooperation," American Behavioral Scientist, December, 1966 8. Sebastian de Grazia, O f time, work and leisure (The Twentieth Century Fund, New York, I962), pp. 68-79
Leisure as an Issue for the Future
9. Report of the Institute of Public Opinion, directed by B. A. Grushin, reported to the American Sociological Society meetings, Boston, 1968; summarized by Alex Simirenko in forthcoming Sodal thought in the Soviet Union (Chicago, Quadrangle Press, 1968) 1o. Dennis Gabor, Inventing thefuture (New York, Knopf, I964) x 1. Freda Goldman, .4 turning to take next: alternative goals in the education of women (Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults, Boston University, Boston, 1965) 12. Margaret Mead, Outdoor recreation in the content of emerging cultural values, Study Report 22, Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (Washington, US Government Printing Office, I962), pp. 2-26 13. Max Kaplan, Leisure in America: a social inquiry (New York, John Wiley, 196o) 14. Max Kaplan and Paul Lazarsfeld, The mass media and man's orientation to nature, Study Report 22, Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (Washington, US Government Printing Office), pp. 187-2I 4 I5. Kahn and Wiener, Op. cir., p. 9 and Chapter VI 16. Talcott Parsons, The structure of social action (New York, Free Press, I949), p. 606 17. Max Kaplan, "Leisure: national and international issues", Lo Spettucolo, Rome, XV, (4), 1965 18. Henry Winthrop, "The sociologist and the study of the future", The American Sociologist, May, I968, pp. 136-145 19. Joffre Dumazedier, Toward a society of leisure (New York, Free Press, I967), p. 236
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