Leisure and Real Individuality

 Jennifer Spatz

Geography 101

Response Paper 7 

Simpson

“Everyday life” is a concept explored by Henri Lefebvre in his essay Work and Leisure in Everyday Life. What creates an experience of everyday life is the sum of an individual's choices regarding how they spend their time between work and family through acts of leisure and the freedom of having that choice. Lefebvre goes through the social history of the concept on a global level in which the ideas vary based on geographical and economic status. 

The history and development of leisure is heavily focused on in this essay in regards to the division between the work and home setting. Lefebvre explains, in a sense that there is no difference between leisure and work as “a man is still the same man.” (30). However, he offers a counter idea, that “work leisure” exists in the sense that freedom of choice exists at work, but differs from the choices brought from home leisure. The separation of life between work and home in this case dissolves as it describes the naturally occurring phenomenon in sociological history. In the Middle Ages, leisure was directly paired with work. In the seventeenth century, leisure was only developed through the lack of work of a man. In the bourgeois society, individualism only develops outside of labor through the chosen leisure. There is a sense of unity in work and home leisure that evolves over time. What it may be now, could be very different in many ages from now.