Ancestry Magazine

You may not realize it, but two ancient cultural forces that have been at odds with each other for centuries—work and play—are finally starting to bury the proverbial hatchet, at least in the Western world.

Consider the following:

I was hiking with my friend, a doctor. We were an hour from the city, surrounded by trees, bugs, and sunshine. It was a holiday weekend, and we were there to relax.

As we pushed through an overgrown part of the trail, our pastoral jaunt was interrupted by the chirping of my friend’s pager.

“Let’s see if I can get a signal from here,” he said. He pulled out his cell phone, dialed his office, and gave some instructions to the nurse who had paged him. Then he put the phone away, and we were off again.

My friend was working while he was relaxing.

Pretty much since the first guy picked up a tool, there’s been tension between work and play. You may never have thought about it, but it’s time you realize that hard workers have been snubbing—and been snubbed by—people with too much time on their hands for thousands of years.

Chasing Virtues

We can see the roots of this debate in ancient Greece and Rome. In the ancient world, a man just wasn’t a man unless he could sit around all day. That is, of course, according to self-proclaimed “real men” like Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and others. Essentially, they thought the highest of human virtues (such as knowledge, wisdom, and so on) could only be attained by people who had the time and means to philosophize the day away. This meant having land—and servants to work it. So if you had to work for a living, you were out of luck.

You’d think Christianity would have had a counteracting effect on this culture, but in reality, it didn’t. At least not right away. Just look at Dark Ages Europe and its manorial lords. According to the teachings of Christianity, people were supposed to be equal, whether they worked or not. In practice, the serfs and peasants didn’t own anything, worked to the exclusion of all else, and lived in fear of just about everything. Meanwhile, the lords got drunk and sought the “highest of human virtues” by beating each other up, and then forcing their serfs and peasants to beat each other up as well.

People who truly valued work didn’t really arrive until well after Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the doors of Castle Church. Luther’s action led to the Reformation, which led to the “Puritan work ethic,” which led to a lot of people suddenly thinking that work was one of the most important manifestations of their faith—an idea that set some pretty strong roots in America. By the time the colonists landed at Plymouth Rock, their highest of human virtues could be obtained only through work—and forfeiting free time.

Creating Changes

Then along came the Industrial Revolution—and a lot of complications.

Suddenly, workers were facing 16+ hour workdays in factories and sweatshops, which didn’t seem to be what they’d had in mind. It’s one thing to toil on your own land, for your own well-being, partaking of the fruits of your own labor. It’s another thing entirely to kill yourself working in a factory for a few cents a day, regardless of what you think about virtue and work.

On the other hand, there were still plenty of aristocrats playing around at the worker’s expense. But as industrialization began to drastically change the life of the worker, not even the slackers could escape the wave of change. They looked up from their “virtuous pursuits” and saw the workers who sustained them rising up, clamoring for change.

So the eight-hour workday was born. In 1938, the federal government passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which ensured reasonable working hours and allowed the workers the chance to play. There was a strict segregation however. You worked when it was time to work and played when it was time to play.

Catching Progress

Today, this separation is quickly dissipating. We started with a bunch of philosophical slackers, moved through a group of religious workers, then passed through oppressed workers who wished they had more time to slack off. After a couple of world wars, hippies, and the 1980s, we’re back hiking with my friend, where the lines between work and play get finer every day.

For thousands of years, our ancestors weren’t able to agree on whether we’d find virtue by working or playing. Today, however, we are starting an age where, thanks to the technological revolution, we can do both very effectively at the same time, like my friend on our hike. As we continue to explore new wireless—and weightless—technologies, we find ourselves in a position to seek the highest of human virtues (whatever they are today) in both work and play.

This will likely lead to a whole battery of other problems, if it hasn’t already. But I for one look forward to putting this age-old conflict to rest.

Ian Pope is a freelance writer and occasional genealogist who is genuinely interested in what you think of this article. Contact him at mister.ian.pope@gmail.com.