Free-time

Abstract

The Council has exhorted us to 'read the signs of the times'. Among these, the rise of the working-class has an evident primordial place; and the 'theology of work' has been increasingly studied. But the growth in importance of free-time calls for complementary studies, since the worker is not just a worker, but a man whose life has to be considered as a whole. Free-time is of particular relevance to young workers, although it concerns more or less everybody. To workers, in the first place, because it is a phenomenon of modern industrial civilisation. Before the industrial revolution, in an agricultural or craft's context, there was far less possibility of deciding freely how to divide a day or year between working-hours and free time, since this was largely determined by natural factors, such as light and weather. It is only technical progress which has made it possible for free-time to assume the problematic importance it already has today and which will increase with the growth of man's mastery over natural conditions. For this latter reason, it is yet more relevant to the young.