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From International Socialism, No.19, Winter 1964/5, p.32.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Challenge of Leisure
C.K. Brightbill
Prentice Hall, 14s.
Professor Brightbill, ‘a noted authority on recreative education’, writes as if for first-year aspiring teachers, giving a superficial account of the problems of leisure, larded with cliches and devoid of relevant analysis. He treats leisure in isolation from work and from social and academic conditions, taking as given the American capitalist structure. Since the so-called problem of leisure arises from the alienating nature of work inherent in capitalism, he is unable to formulate the problem, let alone approach a solution. Instead he sees the problem as one of preventing the workers using the increased leisure likely to accompany automation on ‘immorality packaged in various forms’. He says that the solution is not ‘as simple as table-tennis versus sin’, but advances little, suggesting ‘What we cannot do in the classroom or at the office we can often do in our prayers. What cannot be done on the production line can sometimes be done with a fishing line.’!
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