The Unbearable Lightness of Free Time

2024-06-07

Thematic issue of State of Affairs, edited by Tomasz Maślanka, PhD, DSc (Department of Sociology, University of Warsaw) and Andrzej Waśkiewicz, PhD, DSc, Professor at the University of Warsaw (Department of Sociology)

Deadline for submitting abstracts: 20 July 2024

Artificial intelligence will also put people out of work – we generally hear about this fact right after hearing that artificial intelligence will enable widespread surveillance. And work, after all, is not just a source of livelihood. Even if our professions have long since ceased to be matters of divine calling, for many people – perhaps even for the majority – work still provides a more meaningful social identity than does family status, nationality, or religion. Psychologists believe that losing a job is one of the most stressful moments in life. Furthermore, it is not only unemployed people who feel socially undervalued; to say at university that you have free time is to admit that no one wants to make use of it and also that you have no plans of your own for filling it. Thus, a series of issues appears for us to consider: who will we be when we are deprived of a job that occupies at least a third of our adult lives? What can replace work in its identity-forming function? Is free time a social problem?

A utilitarian – though we should say narrowly utilitarian – attitude to time is already inculcated during primary socialisation. From an early age we are taught not to waste time. There is no need to share Durkheim’s vision of social life to see social control in this dictum. But perhaps leisure should be viewed from a different perspective, one that might be suggested by Simmel’s concept of socialisation (Vergesellschaftung)? Is free time not precisely time free from social control and left to the discretion of the individual? It may not be at all a complete freedom but more like pocket money, which children can spend on various nonsense, so long as it isn’t forbidden stimulants. Which of these sociological perspectives seems more fertile in a society where work is losing its importance? Or perhaps there are others?

Other people are working hard at the competition to manage our free time. The culture industry is essentially an entertainment industry (even if entertainment is also provided by politicians on so-called news channels). It is, however, entertainment after working hours. If we do not do work, will there be nothing left for us to do but “amuse ourselves to death”? There is no otium without negotium – or so the Romans believed: first social duties, then some form of leisure, preferably a noble kind, cum dignitate. But does not the ability to spend meaningful leisure time originate in work itself? After stultifying work does a person not choose equally stupefying entertainment? Sociologists have long pointed out that the class structure is reflected and reproduced in consumption – which requires means but also educated tastes. Nevertheless, the social structure is shaped by work and not by what we do afterwards. Is this relationship still so obvious today, though? And how might it be if labour becomes a scarce good?

In this issue of State of Affairs, we would like to invite writers to reflect on the following themes, although we are also open to other questions. Free time:

as an idea – transformation, reconfiguration – from antiquity to contemporary times
in sociological, philosophical, or anthropological theory
in connection with reimagining work in late capitalist conditions
in connection with the shaping of social ties
as a sphere of rivalry for status (the new and old “leisure class”)
in connection with lifestyles – new forms of social stratification
in contemporary culture – from theory to criticism
as a mass phenomenon – a condition and result of mass culture
in connection with the culture industry – the problem of the appropriation (colonisation) of free time by the capitalist system.

/// Submissions, including the title of the work, an abstract of no more than 500 words, and the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and email address, should be sent by 20 July 2024 to redakcja@stanrzeczy.edu.pl.

/// The editors will inform authors about the acceptance of their abstracts by 30 July 2024.

/// We will expect to receive the articles, of a size not to exceed 60,000 characters, and edited in accord with the journal’s technical requirements, by 30 September 2024.

/// The issue is planned to be published in March 2025.

Language of submissions: English