The Idle Living Effort

Abstract

Ortega asks himself which activities man is going to perform with all the energies he has managed to save thanks to modern technology. Human beings are animals whose desire to live happens to be a desire to livewell. A man only behaves as such when, after making sure his basic, strictly biological necessities have been satisfied he creates with his own efforts a program of life that can afford him comfort. Living comfortably is not a matter of doing nothing; just pure leisure is a way of life inferior to other fully creative options of living. Thorstein Veblen, the great philosopher of leisure,presents us with a theory that, paradoxically enough, coincides with Ortega's idea that a life without occupations would not be truly human. He shows us how leisure can be in itself a sort of activity, very absorbing for many. For the new leisure class --a privileged product of the Industrial Revolution and a direct descendent of the old barbaric class--, its actions must be ostensibly unproductive, "honorable", a clear proof that they are not necessary for daily subsistence, but required as a proof of leisure. Both authors coincide in saying that the creation of superfluou goods is the foundation of human living --a fact that Veblen expresses most radically when he applies it to the peculiar necessities of the so-called "leisure class".