this opinion seems to be a relatively recent development as human civilization industrialized and material wealth reached more and more plentiful. However, it is an entitlement that not everyone equally has.
Life is not meant to be anything, but survival. The fact that there's the idea that you can enjoy life, is a huge sign of privilege. Of course, one should chase it, but don't believe for a minute that anyone is entitled to it.
> "Bread and Roses" is a political slogan as well as the name of an associated poem and song. It originated from a speech given by American women's suffrage activist Helen Todd; a line in that speech about "bread for all, and roses too"
> What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist – the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bread_and_Roses
Or in the 1930s when Keynes was speculating that advances in productivity and machinery would reduce the work week to 15 hours:
https://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we...
Or on 1906 in Our Riches on Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgrpwwN8zM0
So that covers the begining of the 1900s on the USA, England, and Russia.
Other more direct examples would Paul Lafrague's 1883 The Right to be Lazy or the 8-hour campaign that got us the shorter 8-hour work day we have today. ( https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Eight-hour_day )
My curiosity led me to the following:
The Right To Be Lazy by Paul Lafargue - https://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/ch01.htm
But I did see many people eke out happiness with whatever they seemed to have. Some groups had family-wide soccer games in the evenings. There seemed to be informal leagues (no uniforms or dues). It was clear parents had just arrived from work and were spending time with children in the parks. There were almost daily BBQs, again, in public parks. Clothing/etc would clearly convey it was all on a tight budget, but wow, they were always happy!
For other groups, there seemed to be a rat race of studying.
Yet for others, the kids never saw their parents, they seemed to be taken from one after-school activity to another by nannies.
I'm not sure what was better - A, B, or C. My family was in the rate race category (b) and -- while I enjoy the "success" it brought -- i'm not sure if I've lived my life as much as others.
The kids in category C that went from swim practice to forced piano lessons to kumon to forced karate didnt seem that happy either (then or now.)
I'm not sure if there is an insight here, but i'd say: whether we're entitled to it or not -- if you have a moment to enjoy happiness in whatever way you can, do it. Why not?
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates (350BC)
Your general point on the luxury of choice stands, but I think it goes much farther back than the industrial age. It's ultimately a question on meaning which is not new.
Hunters and gatherers had a lot of oral culture and other art precisely because they didn't spend most of their time "working". They had more leisure time than early farmers. But, of course, hunting and gathering will only support relatively small populations, especially compared to agriculture.
Agriculture without industry was brutally demanding on the small folk, but as civilization progressed, we have reached the state when many of us have significant leisure time again.
why yes, and even a convenient bottle to piss in when that person doesn't have time to get to the bathroom.
don't underestimate the amount of quasi-slavery in our modern economy.
While we have bad jobs until today, nowhere near 75 % of the population does them. A lot of the worst, most backbreaking and repetitive activity is now done by machines.
My ancestors who were subsistence farmers ran away into heavy industrial jobs in the 1920s because they considered life of an industrial worker easier. Subsistence farming is hell.
Honestly, I think it's a simple logical realization. Most people happen to be smart enough to see that life can and could be enjoyed and lived, we've long outpaced animals and survival now involves much more our self organizing then anything else.
Basically, the biggest obstacle to one enjoying life and one surviving is other people. You're absolutely entitled to take that opportunity and demand of others better.
Live free or die. Entitlement isn't just about whining, it's the inherent resistence to a society that isn't logical about giving you your fair share, and working towards the common good of our specie.
That entitlement is the will to survive, and it's the reason people want to survive, so that they can enjoy life.
And if you go looking in history, you'll see it everywhere, people fighting because they believe they deserve better and because they logically see that better is feasible.
Simple; the reality of my "Existence" gives me the right to Survive using any and all means.
Here is a passage between Hump and Wolf Larsen from Jack London's The Sea-Wolf.
[Hump] “What do you believe, then?” I countered.
[Wolf Larsen] “I believe that life is a mess,” he answered promptly. “It is like yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The big eat the little that they may continue to move, the strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all. What do you make of those things?”
...
[Wolf Larsen] Again, what’s it all about? Why have I kept you here?—”
[Hump] “Because you are stronger,” I managed to blurt out.
“But why stronger?” he went on at once with his perpetual queries. “Because I am a bigger bit of the ferment than you? Don’t you see? Don’t you see?”
“But the hopelessness of it,” I protested.
“I agree with you,” he answered. “Then why move at all, since moving is living? Without moving and being part of the yeast there would be no hopelessness. But,—and there it is,—we want to live and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would be dead. It is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your immortality. The life that is in you is alive and wants to go on being alive for ever. Bah! An eternity of piggishness!”
According to what system of law? Enforced by what level of violence? You might declare certain things to be “your rights”. But without a big stick to defend those rights they are nothing but useful thinking.
But,—and there it is,—we want to live and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would be dead. It is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your immortality. The life that is in you is alive and wants to go on being alive for ever.
"Natural Law" gives me the right for Survival. The Theory of Evolution/Survival of the Fittest lays out the environment/circumstances which control/modulate this but the instinct to Survive is inborn in all living organisms.
Another passage from The Sea-Wolf which drives home the point;
[Hump] “God made you well,” I said.
[Wolf Larsen] “Did he?” he answered. “I have often thought so myself, and wondered why.”
“Purpose—” I began.
“Utility,” he interrupted. “This body was made for use. These muscles were made to grip, and tear, and destroy living things that get between me and life. But have you thought of the other living things? They, too, have muscles, of one kind and another, made to grip, and tear, and destroy; and when they come between me and life, I out-grip them, out-tear them, out-destroy them. Purpose does not explain that. Utility does.”
“It is not beautiful,” I protested.
“Life isn’t, you mean,” he smiled. “Yet you say I was made well.
...
“Stability, equilibrium,” he said, relaxing on the instant and sinking his body back into repose. “Feet with which to clutch the ground, legs to stand on and to help withstand, while with arms and hands, teeth and nails, I struggle to kill and to be not killed. Purpose? Utility is the better word.”
The instinct to Survive has nothing whatsoever to do Morality/Ethics; it is a biological imperative.
The Instinct to Survive is inborn and every living organism exercises it as a "Law of Nature", but whether and how it will actually Survive is modulated by The Theory of Evolution/Survival of the Fittest. They are two different things. That instinct is what makes an organism do anything and everything to try and survive to pass on its genes.
>the reality of my "Existence" gives me the right to Survive using any and all means.
I am born -> I Exist -> Existence gives me the birth right to use any and all means to try and survive.
Well said and you are absolutely right! I will argue even more strongly that those whose privilege allows them to even think in these terms have no idea of what "reality" is. Reminds me of a passage in Jack London's The Sea-Wolf between Hump and Wolf Larsen.
[Wolf Larsen] “What do you do for a living?”
[Hump] I confess I had never had such a question asked me before, nor had I ever canvassed it. I was quite taken aback, and before I could find myself had sillily stammered, “I—I am a gentleman.”
His lip curled in a swift sneer.
“I have worked, I do work,” I cried impetuously, as though he were my judge and I required vindication, and at the same time very much aware of my arrant idiocy in discussing the subject at all.
“For your living?”
There was something so imperative and masterful about him that I was quite beside myself—“rattled,” as Furuseth would have termed it, like a quaking child before a stern school-master.
“Who feeds you?” was his next question.
“I have an income,” I answered stoutly, and could have bitten my tongue the next instant. “All of which, you will pardon my observing, has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wish to see you about.”
But he disregarded my protest.
“Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. You stand on dead men’s legs. You’ve never had any of your own. You couldn’t walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals. Let me see your hand.”
...
Wolf Larsen dropped my hand with a flirt of disdain.
“Dead men’s hands have kept it soft. Good for little else than dish-washing and scullion work.”