Work and Leisure

140 Jiri Zuzanekdeterminants of human health status, particularly in countries at anadvanced stage of socio-economic development are not medical care inputsand utilisation, but cultural, social, and economic factors.Traditional economic solutions to the improvement of social conditionshave, however, often relied on strategies that are laden with time and psychologicalstrains, and that have contributed to the ‘polarisation’ of societiesalong time pressure lines. Bennett Berger (1963: 27), in an article published inthe 1960s, argued that we are all victims of a compromised attempt to bridgethe ‘leisure’ ideals of Ancient Greece and those of the Protestant work ethic.The situation today is no different. The desired equilibrium of economic andtime prosperity appears to be no closer now than it was before (see Garhammer1998). We long for the comforts of the Gemeinschaft-like relationships withoutabrogating the material and cultural aspirations typical of a Gesellschafttypemass society. 4 We may have blurred traditional class lines between the‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ at the ‘lower-to-middle’ end of the social continuum,but we have created new ‘have’ and ‘have-not’ divides with regard to time thatare fraught with tensions.The relationships between stress, health and lifestyles need to be addressedfrom a broader social as well as cultural perspective (Marmot 1981; Wilkinson1986; Evans et al. 1994). If, at the individual level, a balanced lifestyle is thekey to countering the negative effects of time pressure and psychologicalstress on health, then at the societal level the key notions for changing thestress–health imbalance are a socially functional division of labour and aculturally sustainable rhythm of collective life. Durkheim (1912), Halbwachs(1925), Lynd and Lynd (1929; 1937), Sorokin (1943), Luhmann (1982) andZerubavel (1985) all discussed extensively the role of the social division oflabour and collective rhythms of life, such as calendar time, work schedulesand rites of passage, in serving economic needs as well as the needs of socialsolidarity and spiritual and cultural development.The fragmentation of time that was identified in the above analyses as oneof the main sources of time pressure is socially imposed and culturally sanctionedin today’s society, but it is neither an inevitability nor a culturalimperative. The solutions to the problems of ‘social arrhythmia’ addressed inthis chapter are not entirely out of humanity’s reach. After all, as suggestedby Frank (1995: 163), many propositions advanced by researchers, such asreduction of work overload, securing of time for relaxation, greater controlover one’s time or increased social support, coincide with the conventionalwisdom and desires of lay culture. Technological and economic progressshould and need not clash with the goals of social solidarity, cohesion, andhuman development. Let us hope that the desired lifestyle equilibrium willoccur not by default as a result of mounting conflicts, but rather by design, asa result of a gradual change in social policies and cultural values.