Sometimes, while researching an article, one experiences a serendipitous discovery of an idea for a future piece. Such an occurrence recently happened as I explored the subject of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Pondering how AI will, at best, allow humans more time for other pursuits or, at worst, atrophy the better angels of our nature, I happened upon the site Philosophy Breaks, wherein Mr. Jack Maden discoursed upon the ancient Greeks’ definition of “leisure.”

Mr. Maden recalled how

In both his Nicomachean Ethics and his Politics, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle writes extensively on the importance of leisure. Specifically, he argues that when it comes to living well, the quality of our leisure matters more than our work. People are apt to waste their leisure time, however, because they haven’t been educated in how to spend it constructively.

While most people today would agree with Aristotle that the “quality of our leisure matters more than our work.” Yet, one need not be a devotee of Edith Hamilton and her works, The Greek Way and The Echo of Greece, to realize that postmodern humanity has a decidedly different conception of what constitutes leisure and certainly finds alien the Aristotelian call to educate people on how to “constructively” spend their leisure time. After all, who does not know how to leisurely while away their time in pleasurable pursuits?

Well, the Spartans, for one. Mr. Maden reminds us how wrong they were: “Aristotle writes that Sparta, for instance, never flourishes in times of peace because its constitution only trains the Spartans well for combat: it ‘has not educated them to be able to live in idleness.’”

Fair enough, you may say. The Spartans spent all their time training to kill others. Maybe if they had chillaxed and been educated on the need for and use of leisure between slaughters and subjugations, Sparta could have staved off its arrival in history’s dustbin for a wee bit longer. Instead, they simply proved Aristotle right.

Again, you aver, this is not our problem today. While presently humanity does spend an inordinate amount of time preparing and engaging in combat, for the bulk of us, it is not a 24/7/365 job. We have plenty of leisure time for pleasurable pursuits.

Yes, today humanity’s available leisure time is unsurpassed in human history (certainly in Western civilization), largely due to technological advances in communications and “labor-saving devices.” Indeed, another exponential increase in leisure time is already occurring—and for many soon-to-be redundant workers, unemployed time as well—due to the advent of AI. If history is any guide—and, spoiler alert, it is—humanity will squander the latest and greatest opportunity presented by increased leisure time.

Granted, it is not entirely our fault. We just don’t know any better. Amidst a consumer-driven and riven society experiencing a communications revolution, few people have the time and inclination to stress to the rest of us how the constructive use of one’s leisure must be taught, and even fewer such edified folks exist to help engender our understanding of what constitutes the most beneficial use of leisure. Fortunately, Mr. Maden is one of those rare people:

For it is in leisure, not in work or recovery, that the true beauty and meaning of the human condition can be found. Amusements and distractions have their place, but they do not constitute true leisure. In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes: “Amusements are more to be used when one is at work, for one who exerts himself needs relaxation, and relaxation is the end [goal] of amusement, and work is accompanied by toil and strain… we should be careful to use amusement at the right time, dispensing it as a remedy to the ills of work.”

Postmodern humanity has spent, and will continue to spend, its leisure time pursuing its “happiness” through amusements rather than musing about “the good.” Be they passive or active amusements, we are spending our time spectating sports, ogling and manufacturing AI porn, and posting social media screeds or “look at me” selfies rather than pondering the deeper questions and meaning of life. Bluntly, in our leisure time, we are not pursuing “the good.” We are being pacified. True, it is by our own hand. The real question is who is abetting it and why.

On this, Mr. Maden has not posited a culprit, but that is not his mission here in discoursing upon the need to be educated about the proper role of leisure. His goal is to give us the key to escape today’s leisure time’s self-lobotomization by our ephemeral passions and amusements and to unlock the path to pursue true, enduring happiness and the good.

Will we step away from our keyboards long enough to seize it?

***

An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional District from 2003-2012. He served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee and as a member of the Financial Services, Joint Economic, Budget, Small Business, and International Relations Committees. Not a lobbyist, he is also a contributor to Chronicles, a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars, and a co-host of “John Batchelor: Eye on the World” on CBS radio, among sundry media appearances.

[H/T American Greatness]