The age of experience: harnessing happiness to build the new economy Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt

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Notes

1. The leisure society thesis refers to a society in which leisure is valued, or viewed as significant, with leisure forms giving meaning and a sense of identity to many individuals (Henry, 1999). Keynes (1931) predicted a three-hour work day or 15 hours per week. The peak of the leisure society thesis was in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was predicted (often by the year 2000) that working hours would decrease and leisure would continue to increase indeterminately. Some thinkers in the 1960, such as Kaplan (1960) and Dumazedier (1967), argued that the leisure society was already in place. Many writers, including Clarke and Cricher (1985), posited that a future leisure society would be filled with crime, violence, and illicit drugs use, which prompted others, such as Neulinger (1990) to contend that an attitude change among people was need (leisure education) for a leisure society. Still others, such as Galbraith (1969), maintained that the leisure society thesis was ‘a conversation piece’ that goes on forever that will never materialize. See Veal (2019) for a historical overview of the leisure society thesis.

2. B. Joseph Pine II serves as a Professor in the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University and is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies. In 1999 Pine and James H. Gilmore wrote the best-selling book The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage.

3. PERMA, which comes from the profession of positive psychology, stands for Positive experiences, Engagement in community, (authentic) Relationships, Meaning, and Achievements (also referred to as accomplishments).

4. Although Hunnicutt does not reference this to serious leisure, leisure that is based on a skill set that can take weeks, months, or years to develop is serious leisure. See Stebbins (2020).

5. One limitation to this book is that historical established thinkers of leisure that Hunnicutt references are white men, but I see this as more of a troubling history in the development of western leisure studies than an error by Dr. Hunnicutt.

6. As one example, in the graduate social psychology of leisure class I teach students read Frank Lloyd Wright’s (1990) masterpiece The Art and Craft of the Machine delivered at Hull House in 1901 when Jane Addams invited him to speak to members of the Chicago Society of Arts and Crafts. Wright argues that artists and crafts-workers should embrace modern advances and not worry about losing their jobs to technology and look forward to the new leisure that will transform society and enlighten people. Students and I then discuss the same issue related to technology in the modern era (e.g. artificial intelligence).

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Notes on contributors

Rodney B. Dieser

Rodney Dieser, Ph.D., CTRS, LMHC serves as Professor in Health, Recreation and Community Services at the University of Northern Iowa and works as a Licensed Mental Health Counsellor at Wartburg College.