78
Popular Culture Review
resort to stealing clothes or food because he is cold or hungry is a sufficient cure
for such crimes” Aristotle argued or explained. “But to secure the necessities of
life is not the only purpose for which men commit crimes against property. They
also wish to enjoy things which they have long coveted; and if their desire goes
beyond mere necessities, they will seek a remedy in crime” (Aristotle/ Sinclair,
1962, p. 75). He noted that humans desire much beyond what Maslow
eventually called the necessities, foreshadowing the famous diagram beginning
at food and traveling toward self-actualization.
Three currents, then: leisure studies based in Greek antiquity. Eastern
wisdom contained in Buddhist philosophy, and today’s Positive Psychology,
seem tantalizingly close to concordance in spite of important and powerful, if
subtle, individuation. For example, it is very clear that Aristotle is a great
believer in contemplation (which focuses on knowledge of first principles; that
is, the Gods, mathematics, metaphysics, logic, as opposed to practical reason
which involves the mere affairs of men and women), which we may see as
active—quite dissimilar to the clarity of vision and free-mindedness sought in
Zen’s rigorous though passive meditation, the meditation I most understand.
Zen, a school of Mahayayana Buddhism is indeed the Japanese pronunciation of
chan, Chinese for what would approximately be “meditation” or perhaps that
state attained during meditation. As practice, Zen does strive for experience—it
includes walking meditation—in preference to a theoretical approach toward
self-realization.
Aristotle and Socrates were often at some fairly strong disagreement. If I
follow the narrative correctly, Aristotle powerfully disagreed with Socrates who
was of the opinion that knowledge would necessarily lead to what he called
“right action.” For Aristotle, “living well,” that is, properly, was an “every day”
aspect of appropriate human life experience. Right living was not a thing to be
cherry-picked as convenient, an option that one can do on special occasions.
Thus, predictably, the philosopher felt that the greatest foul deed was to know
the proper action, but fail to do it.
Greek philosophers speculate about the highest goal of life, concluding that
a well-lived life leads to “happiness” (eudaimonia) meaning satisfaction with
existence; they are not describing an emotional state. Eudaimonia is more about
struggling to be the best that particular human being can be, fulfilling one’s
intrinsic human “duty” as engaged in social communities. The idea is that by
living in a way that reaches whatever potential a person has—like a horse being
allowed to run at its best speed—the display of a best version available outside
the thrall of answering basic needs. Because the Greek city-states rested on a
slave economy, and there is little regard for the idea of the necessity of earning a
living, this is not the same as saying that leisure is ultimately elite or composed
of disengaged contemplation.
These matters are discussed by John Hemingway in his important 1988
paper. Leisure and Civility: Reflections on a Greek Ideal (1988). While noting