The first Monday of September sees people return in their droves to workplaces. For many of us this means just one thing: getting on to airline websites and booking the next holiday. Yes, everyone needs a break, as Christy Moore says. But do we need to jet off on trips so frequently each year?
Not to sound like an old fogey but I was 19 when I first went on a plane. These days I can’t go longer than six months without a mini-break to some European city. Why do I feel this compulsion? And how many foreign holidays are enough each year – for me, or any of us? One? Two? Three?
French historian Alain Corbin sheds some light on our escapist instinct, having studied the evolution of human holidays for the newly-released A History of Rest (translated for Polity Books by Helen Morrison).
God “rested” in Genesis after the act of creation – which gave us licence to turn Sunday into a “day of rest”. This, Corbin notes, was designed to allow us reflect on the “eternal rest” that ultimately awaits the faithful. In the 19th century, as secularism advanced, the Sabbath became synonymous with boredom, Corbin continues. Entertainment and sport helped to fill the void left by religious devotion. And, with the dawn of modern capitalism, the idea of leisure emerged.
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“Leisure replaces rest. It fills up time. It takes up space,” writes Corbin. Witness those of us who use our spare time for opportunities for self-improvement, such as jogging, learning a new skill or barrelling through museums in the hope of feeling smarter.
Corbin observes how “new forms of therapeutic rest” have developed in recent years. “These were designed to ease a whole range of problems, including those classified under the term of ‘burnout’, still awaiting its ultimate social definition.”
Monetising burnout is a natural step for capitalist societies that are the very of cause of burnout. Think of pampering weekends in spa resorts or “spiritual” pilgrimages to the Continent.
The Irish philosopher and ecologist John Moriarty saw our excessive busyness as a sign of a deeper malaise. “Our minds elsewhere, on other goals, we are forever driving past our paradisal lives,” he wrote.
The Kerryman spent stretches of time labouring as a gardener in sites around Connemara and this informed his thinking, says Kevin J Power, who holds a PhD in philosophy from UCC and researches and teaches on Moriarty’s work. “Very often the kind of environments that can nourish us are all around us, but we don’t see them, and eventually may over-correct by seeking nourishment or regeneration by flying hundreds or thousands of miles away,” Power says.
“On the topic of flight, Moriarty is also unwilling to claim that it ranks as a great human achievement, and prefigures the worry over the environmental impact.”
In his book What The Curlew Said, Moriarty writes “the experience of being propelled at five hundred miles an hour thirty-nine thousand feet up in the air ... didn’t suit me at all. It wasn’t flying. Flying is what seagulls and ravens do ... This was pure compulsion ... It wounded the world.”
Power says: “Flight is an example of what Moriarty calls ‘movement essential’. This is a form of purely physical change where we move from one location to another; there is no attendant psychological or spiritual change. The worry here is that tourism is just that; there may be some relaxation and new experiences which are gained, but our natures are not necessarily changed for the better. If they were to be, Moriarty would argue, we would encourage a greater sensibility with regard to our relation to the world around us. As it stands, the tourist experience is generally one of short-term relief from the stresses and habits of daily life.”
What would Moriarty say about our style of tourism – our compulsion to visit the same “must-see” locations? The philosopher, who died in 2007, was wary of seeing certain parts of the world “as more sacred – and therefore more deserving of our respect – than others”, replies Power.
“Once a site has gained historical, cultural and – most importantly – economic status, it facilitates a view that some parts of the earth are more special than others.”
Moriarty himself was unimpressed when he visited a “must-see” attraction in Paris – the Mona Lisa. He wrote: “Within minutes I was talking to her ... ‘Yes you are beautiful ... But I hope that I won’t hurt your feelings if I tell you that, marvellous and all as you are, you are blocking my view. So if you wouldn’t mind, would you please move aside and then I’ll have unobstructed vision of the world behind you.”
Noting the modern penchant for selfies, Power says: “In the present day, we are all our own personal Mona Lisa, inserting our heads into the frame.” As well as encouraging us to literally turn our backs on nature, smartphones ensure that even at leisure we are at work – curating, documenting and sharing content. A healthier approach to holidays means asking ourselves some tough questions – not just about environmental sustainability but also about what we value, deep down.
What does it say about us that we have become so attached to escapism?