Critiquing capitalism: A genealogy ofvacation travel Gitte du Plessis

PhD Student, Department of Political Science, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. Mailing address: 66-060 Haleiwa Loop, Haleiwa, HI, 96712, USA.Phone number: 1-808-386-4105 Email: gitte@hawaii.edu

ABSTRACT Firmly enmeshed in the capitalist mode of production, today’s highly skilled professionalknowledge workers struggle with an imperative to realize themselves through their work.This article examines how this imperative for self-realization is also characteristic ofcontemporary practices of vacation travel, and in doing so points to forms of oppressioninherent in capitalism today in relation to a practice that is customarily celebrated as alittle freedom from the responsibilities of work. The arguments presented are based on aFoucauldian genealogy of vacation travel and the subject who pursues it, starting withthe period of industrialization and finishing with an outline of contemporary discourses.The aim is to contribute to a discussion of contemporary critiques of capitalism.

Key words: Capitalism, self-realization, vacation travel,Foucault, genealogy.

Introduction

In the writings of Karl Marx, freedom and labor are viewed as

incompatible. However, contemporary descriptions of work-life,

especially as pertaining to so-called knowledge workers, celebrate

a promise that freedom can now be reached through working.

Following anti-authoritarian rebellions in the late 1960s,

organizational changes finally paved the way for workers to become

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whoever they want, whenever they want.1 New conceptions of

management embrace the autonomy of workers and authorize them to

make their own decisions in a flat, decentralized organization.

Ideally, the workers are independent, flexible, employable,

entrepreneurial, creative, and with a view of their careers as a

series of stepping-stones not confined to only one organization.

Workers have opportunities to utilize their skills in a variety of

activities and ideally, the most attractive creative work is now

so similar to play that the distinction between work and leisure

becomes irrelevant. In sum, privileged workers today have the

opportunity to reach their full potential - to realize themselves

- through their work.

However, this positive view of contemporary capitalist work-

life has been heavily critiqued and questioned. It appears that

the freedom to be autonomous, employable, flexible and

meaningfully engaged in one’s work has turned into a demand,

creating seemingly unsolvable issues of work-life balance and

skyrocketing statistics of people diagnosed with stress or

depression.2 In other words, a promise of individual authentic

freedom through work is a damaging self-realization imperative in

disguise. In light of this contemporary diagnosis, this article

examines vacation travel as another promise of freedom for the

worker; not a freedom through work, but a freedom from work.

1 See for example Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism(London: Verso, 2005), p. 436.2 See for example Boltanski and Chiapello, The New Spirit, p. 429.

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In this article, the concept of vacation travel, the subject

who pursues it, and how these are framed within the capitalist

mode of production, is laid out by engaging Foucauldian genealogy

as a method of critique. Mapping how vacation travel has been

practiced and idealized in earlier periods as well as today

exposes the role of capitalism in these practices in a way that

allows for thinking about alternatives to the practice of vacation

travel. While critiques of a self-realization imperative in

relation to work itself are well covered within existing

literature, vacation practices have not previously been looked at

through this critical lens. Before the genealogy and discussion,

the article therefore begins by further characterizing the

contemporary situation for knowledge workers with respect to an

overriding imperative for self-realization, in order to further

conceptualize what - as we shall see - is also at play in

contemporary practices of vacation.

The self-realization imperative of high capitalism

The type of work that - at least on paper - offers an opportunity

for self-realization is inherent to knowledge- and information-

based economies. Here, knowledge workers produce output from their

thinking rather than from manual labor, and the individual

creativity and personality of the worker becomes part of the

potential surplus within the capitalist mode of production. As

existing literature, especially within the field of critical

management studies, points out, the work-life for these seemingly

privileged workers is fraught with struggle. For these workers,

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employment has become a question of individual success.

Institutionalized dependency as encouraged by the welfare state of

the bureaucratic age is now discouraged, and individual workers

are left in a situation where nobody depends on them, and they are

not supposed to depend on anyone in particular, rather utilizing

their “network.” Nikolas Rose’s concept “politics of freedom,” is

apropos here.3 The concept emerges from neoliberal ideas of free

subjects, a free society, and free markets, prescribing that as

subjects “we should strive for a style of existence characterized

by a certain way of working upon ourselves in the name of

freedom.”4 Here, “the activity of labor is transformed into a

matter of self-actualization, in which the cash return is less

important than the identity conferred upon the employee.”5 A free

individual is perceived as synonymous with an autonomous

individual, and in the “ethic of autonomous selfhood,”6 one is

compelled to manage one’s life, “understanding oneself, acting

upon oneself to overcome dissatisfactions, realize one’s

potential, gain happiness and achieve autonomy.”7 Similarly,

Charles Taylor stresses that realizing oneself becomes a moral

obligation:

There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else’s life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true

3 Nikolas Rose, Powers of Freedom; Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 61. 4 Ibid.5 Ibid., 91.6 Ibid., 90. 7 Ibid.

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to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me. This is the powerful moral ideal that has come down to us.8

With de-institutionalization, individuals become entrepreneurs for

themselves, responsible for bettering and practicing talents,

skills and accomplishments.9 Keeping track of the options from

which to make choices becomes a prime task for the individual.

Rasmus Willig terms this administering an “option portfolio,”

which entails constantly scouting for and keeping open options,

and thereby preparing to navigate in what Rose deems “a life of

incessant job seeking: Life is to become a continuous economic

capitalization of the self.” 1011 This becomes challenging for the

individual, firstly because “the demand for self-realization is

unaccompanied by any guide or dictionary that can translate the

norms to actual content.”12 At the same time, the individual has

to bear the full responsibility for all choices made in relation

to the endless options available, and a failed self-realization

project falls back on the individual itself. Under these

circumstances, work becomes flooded with insecurity:

8 Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 30.9 Erik Mygind du Plessis, ”Det utilstrækkelige subjekt – En foucauldiansk analyse af selvhjælpslitterær styring,” Dansk Sociologi 2:24 (2013), pp 11-33.10 Rasmus Willig, “Self-Realization Options: Contemporary Marching Orderin the Pursuit of Recognition,” Acta Sociologica 52:4 (2009), p. 360. 11 Rose, Powers of Freedom, p. 161. 12 Anders Petersen, “Authentic self-realization and depression,” International Sociology 26:1 (2011), p. 11.

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Work itself has become a vulnerable zone, one in which continuedemployment must ceaselessly be earned, the employment of eachindividual constantly assessed in the light of evaluations,appraisals, achievement of targets and so forth - under theconstant threat of ‘down-sizing,’ efficiency gains and the like.Perpetual insecurity becomes the normal form of labour.13

Marx’s theory of alienation is apt as ever here. Whether knowledge

workers are wage earners or self-employed, they are alienated from

their work, because as Ursula Huws points out, even those who get

paid to be innovative and creative have to balance their urge for

self-expression and recognition with the need to earn a living.14

Either their creative output is put to use by the company they

work for, or it is owned by publishers and tightly controlled in

regimes of copyrights. As Peter Bloom writes in relation to

knowledge workers, an ideal of employability promises the freedom

of determining one’s personal career destiny. Hence, workers seek

to materially exploit the labor of their individuality for their

own personal profit, and ironically seek a right to “self-

exploitation.” In other words, workers end up fighting for their

own alienation.15 Reading Marx himself on alienation suggests that

self-realization within a capitalist system is illusionary:

Let us review the various factors as seen in our supposition: Mywork would be a free manifestation of life, hence an enjoyment of life.Presupposing private property, my work is an alienation of life, for I

13 Rose, Powers of Freedom, p.158. 14 Ursula Huws, “Expression and expropriation: The dialectics of autonomy and control in creative labour,” Ephemera 10:3/4 (2010), pp. 504-521.15 Peter Bloom, “Fight for your alienation: The fantasy of employabilityand the ironic struggle for self-exploitation,” Ephemera 13:4 (2013), pp. 785-807.

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work in order to live, in order to obtain for myself the means of life.My work is not my life. […] Presupposing private property, myindividuality is alienated to such a degree that this activity isinstead hateful to me, a torment, and rather the semblance of anactivity. […] My labour can appear in my object only as what itis. It cannot appear as something which by its nature it is not.Hence it appears only as the expression of my loss of self and of mypowerlessness that is objective, sensuously perceptible, obvious andtherefore put beyond all doubt.16

Even if some workers perceive themselves to live in order to work

rather than the other way around, alienation sneaks back in. As

Jana Costas puts it:

Whilst alienation, for Marx, related to a lack of being able to beoneself, express oneself in one’s products, etc., today’sidealized knowledge work lifestyle celebrates the fact that peoplecan be themselves at work, express themselves and so forth. Inthis sense, the kind of self-alienation I am interested in derivesfrom a reverse logic, namely the very emphasis or excess of havingto live out those ‘freedoms’ of authenticity, mobility andflexibility.17

Again, what is granted as freedom turns into its opposite as it

becomes duty. Perhaps not surprisingly, this work situation takes

its toll on the individual. Several theorists link the current

work environment to a dramatic increase in depression rates,

Anders Petersen simply writing; “depression is the social

pathology which most starkly reveals the dark side of today’s

social demands for authentic self-realization.”18 Following Axel

Honneth, who claims that “the mounting claims to self-realization16 Jon Elster (ed.), Karl Marx: A Reader (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 35. Italics in original.17 Jana Costas, Susanne Ekman, Christian Maravelias and Sverre Spoelstra, “Roundtable: Free work,” Ephemera 13:1 (2013), p. 27.18 Petersen, “Authentic self-realization,” p.6.

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are transformed into a productive force in the capitalist

economy,” 19 and Willig who states “the neo-liberal idea of

freedom, which seems to state that a free market will facilitate

all self-realization options, is incomplete,”20 this article rests

on the premise that the current mode of capitalism is where

challenges of self-realization for the knowledge worker are

rooted. The level of observation in the following genealogy is

that of the individual facing these challenges as they relate to

vacation travel, the focus being on investigating how the

individual bears the burden of the outlined structural

discrepancies. The question is whether vacation travel can provide

freedom from the self-realization imperative by providing freedom

from work.

Foucauldian genealogy as a method of critique

Genealogy is in Michel Foucault’s words a “critical analysis of

our own condition,” that aims to shed light on the contingencies

of what has shaped the reality we perceive ourselves to live in.21

In other words “it is an attempt to show that the ‘now’ is an

unstable victory won at the expense of other possible nows.”22 On

critique, Foucault notes:

19 Axel Honneth, “Organized Self-Realization; Some Paradoxes of Individualization,” European Journal of Social Theory 7:4 (2004), p. 473. 20 Willig, “Self-Realization Options,” p. 362. 21 Michel Foucault, Aesthetics, Method, And Epistemology: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984 (New York: The New Press, 1998), p. 263.22 Michael J. Shapiro, Discourse, Culture, Violence (New York: Routledge, 2012),p. 59.

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Criticism is no longer going to be practiced in the search forformal structures with universal value, but rather as historicalinvestigation into the events that have led us to constituteourselves and to recognize ourselves as subjects of what we aredoing, thinking, saying.23

The Foucauldian genealogy allows for histories alternative to

mainstream presuppositions - and thereby for new critiques - to

surface. Foucault is not looking to history as a critical method

by questioning universals, but rather by starting from the

assumption that universals do not exist:

I start from the theoretical and methodological decision thatconsists in saying: Let’s suppose that universals do not exist.And then I put the question to history and historians: How can youwrite history if you do not accept a priori the existence ofthings like the state, society, the sovereign, and subjects? Itwas the same question in the case of madness. My question was not:Does madness exist? My reasoning, my method, was not to examinewhether history gives me or refers me to something like madness,and then to conclude, no, it does not, therefore madness does notexist. This was not the argument, the method in fact. The methodconsisted in saying: Let's suppose that madness doesn’t exist. Ifwe suppose that it does not exist, then what can history make ofthese different events and practices which are apparentlyorganized around something that is supposed to be madness?24

The investigation is of “the condition of possibility of

knowledge, of institutions, of practices”:25

I deal with practices, institutions and theories on the same planeand according to the same isomorphisms, and I look for the

23 Michel Foucault, The Politics of Truth (New York: Semiotext(e), 1997), p. 125. 24 Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at Collège de France, 1978-1979 (NewYork: Picador, 2008), p. 3.25 Foucault, Aesthetics, Method, p. 261.

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underlying knowledge that makes them possible, the stratum of knowledge that constitutes them historically.26

The essential characteristics of Foucauldian discourse analysis is

to view statements in their own right without referring them to

something else, and to read “regularity in statements.”27

Foucault’s discourse analysis is further characterized by

including not only what is being said and written, but also

material, sociological aspects such as institutions, technologies

and social practices. In this quotation, the later Foucault

describes his genealogical method of inquiry:

It was a matter of showing by what conjunctions a whole set of practices - from the moment they became coordinated with a regime of truth - was able to make what does not exist (madness, disease,delinquency, sexuality, etcetera), nonetheless become something, something however that continues not to exist. That is to say [...] I would like to show how a particular regime of truth, and therefore not an error, makes something that does not exist able to become something. It is not an illusion since it is precisely aset of practices, which established it and thus imperiously marks it out in reality.28

For Foucauldian genealogy, history is used in the philosophical

pursuit of an attempt to problematize modern knowledge about

humanity and its identity, not as a tool to tell the truth about

life as it was lived in the past. This means the genealogy does

not primarily wish to be measured by criteria for scientific

validity, but instead on its effectiveness as a critique.29 This

does not mean that the genealogy is exempt from adhering to26 Ibid., 262. 27 Michel Foucault, The archaeology of knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), p. 131. 28 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, p. 19.

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scientific rules of referencing and documentation, and it is

therefore crucial to have a clear, concrete and transparent

analytic reading strategy when hoping to conduct this type of

analysis in a reliable way.

Analytic Strategy

In order to examine possible liberating potentials of vacation

travel, the focus of the genealogy is the worker’s self-

relationship as it is constituted by his or her vacation travel.

On the question of how to choose what history to read in order to

conduct a genealogy, Foucault’s answer is uncompromising:

The choices one could make are inadmissible and shouldn't exist.One ought to read everything, study everything. In other words,one must have at one's disposal the general archive of a period ata given moment. And archaeology is, in a strict sense, the scienceof this archive.30

This genealogy follows three principles for constructing an

archive and conducting an analysis based on it.31 Firstly, mundane,

down-to-earth, and private instead of official texts acquire

central roles while canonical works pointed out by the traditional

history of ideas are sometimes omitted.32 Secondly, one begins with29 Kaspar Villadsen, “Genealogi som metode – fornuftens tilblivelseshistorier,” in Ole Bjerg and Kaspar Villadsen (eds); Sociologiske metoder – fra teori til analyse I kvantitative og kvalitative studier (FrederiksbergC: Samfundslitteratur, 2006), pp. 87-109, p. 103.30 Michel Foucault, Aesthetics, Method, p. 263. 31 See Villadsen, “Genealogi som metode,” p. 100.32 Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen, Discursive analytical strategies: Understanding

Foucault, Koselleck, Laclau, Luhmann (Bristol: The Policy Press, 2003), p.

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material directly relating to the object of study, and from here

continues to read explicit references to other texts as well as

implicit references to concepts and practices until circularity

can be observed in the body of texts referencing each other.

Thirdly, the constructed archive forms the background for picking

the texts that become essential in the genealogy. These are texts

that clearly illustrate the discourse itself or that display

continuities or discontinuities in the discourse.

The periods on which to focus are those that show cracks and

discontinuities in the discourses - the periods that justify

conducting this sort of genealogy in the first place.33 New

ideals, discourses and practices that emerge and replace others

that then become out-phased or marginalized mark discontinuity and

hence a new period in the genealogy. Other discourses, ideals and

practices continue throughout the span of the genealogy. The

changes between periods are based on analytical choices and are

never clear-cut.

An archive of vacation travel includes a vast amount of text

about vacation travel, leisure, enlightenment, work, capitalism,

idleness, industrialization, tourism, and so on. Sources are

diverse: in this case, academic texts, guidebooks, political

discussions, novels, advertisements, poems, blog postings, and

newspaper articles all play a role. To claim implicit circularity

this study refers to the concept of “genre,” in this case meaning

“a type of story.” The archive is studied until genres in the

13.33 Foucault, Aesthetics, Method, p. 263.

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discourses and practices of vacation travel persist within a

period of time - it is about seeing similar stories told again and

again.

Out of the very broad reading in the beginning of the

process, this analysis is primarily centered on the archive of The

New York Times, which was found to be comprehensive and inclusive.

This limits the majority of the study to be of New York City and

the surrounding northeastern states. In order to ensure more

reliability, other material - books, websites, other newspapers -

is included, limiting these however to a U.S. context in order to

prevent too much complexity. Hence, this genealogy of vacation

travel is radically different from one with a focus on Europe,

where vacations are written into law. Even though the analysis may

seem like a coherent narrative, and it thus may seem as though the

texts were chosen to fit the argument, it is in fact the other way

around. As a genealogist, there is no way of anticipating the

conclusion until it presents itself.

Pre-industrial times

During the assembly of the archive for this genealogy, it has

become clear that vacation - understood as a rest from work that

is viewed as compensation - did not exist before the

industrialization. Nonetheless, it is useful to briefly introduce

the period preceding industrialization. In this period, especially

the upper class did travel and refer to themselves as tourists,

and the term “holiday” also figures, understood as a celebration

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of for example Christmas. However, there is no mention of

vacation. Letters from an American farmer, first printed in 1782,

written by a farmer in Pennsylvania to an “enlightened European,”

gives a little insight into everyday life before industrialization

and capitalism became essential shapers of society.34 At this time

both leisure and recreation pertain to the bourgeoisies as a

“leisured class” who merely live off their land and assets, but

are not particularly focused on “relaxing,” instead educating

themselves academically, managing their assets, taking walks,

going hunting, and so on. In the introductory letter the farmer

tells his receiver of his wife’s hesitations on his behalf:

James, wouldst thee pretend to send epistles to a great European man, who hath lived abundance of time in that big house called Cambridge; where, they say, that worldly learning is so abundant that people gets it only by breathing the air of the place? Wouldst not thee be ashamed to write unto a man who has never in his life done a single day’s work, no, not even felled a tree; whohath expended the Lord knows how many years in studying stars, geometry, stones, and flies, and reading folio books? Who hath travelled, as he told us, to the city of Rome itself! Only think of a London man going to Rome! Where is it that the English folks won’t go?35

This is a very different relationship between leisure, travel,

work and knowledge from the present. Here, leisure and knowledge

go hand in hand, for example when the local pastor says to the

letter-writing farmer: “neighbor James, we want much the

assistance of men of leisure and knowledge,”36 placing the ideal34 J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur, Letters From an American Farmer (Publishernot stated, 1926). 35 Ibid., p.8. 36 Ibid., p.13.

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far from today’s knowledge workers. In the 18th century, knowledge

is leisure rather than work, and the mind can be at leisure while

one works:

After all, why should not a farmer be allowed to make use of his mental faculties as well as others; because a man works, is not heto think, and if he thinks usefully, why should not he in his leisure hours set down this thoughts? I have composed many a good sermon as I followed my plough. The eyes not being engaged on any particular object, leaves the mind free for the introduction of many useful ideas [...] Of all tasks which mine imposes on me ploughing is the most agreeable, because I can think as I work; mymind is at leisure; my labour flows from instinct, as well as thatof my horses.37

Orvar Löfgren describes how leisure was simply a part of everyday

life in pre-industrial Europe and America, and for the privileged

gentlemen and gentry, leisure simply was everyday life.38 It was

in the industrial society of the nineteenth century that the idea

of leisure as compensation developed.

The Industrial Era: Sustaining life by the seashore or in the

mountains

In the industrial period, discourse and practice of vacation

travel is closely linked to a concept of nature as life giving.

Vacation travel is an annual escape, “a season of respite from

labor, during which they may run away for a few days from their

work-shops, stores and counting-houses, and breathe fresh country

37 Ibid., p.16.38 Orvar Löfgren, On Holiday: A history of vacationing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p.109.

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air.”39 During the summer, lucky workers “escape the dust and heat

of the city,” and travel to the mountains or the seashore, not

only to have a pleasurable and fun time.40 The main purpose of

vacation is to be in nature to restore health, or even life to the

worker:

In the peace and rest of natureFar above the haunts of menFanned by breezes, kissed by sunlightWe'll renew our lives again.41

shattered nerves, tired bodies, and weary brains may escape from the labor and wrench and strain of our American life, and find in water, air and sky a balm and a restorative.42

In this quiet retreat one might dream the day away, for the great heart of Nature beating so close to his own soon lulls the senses to rest.43

Give your vacation fair play and it will be the making of you - orbetter yet, the re-making. You shall in due time come back to us, literally recreated.44

Vacation travel is framed as something of existential importance

for the life and soul of the jaded worker, and the purpose of the

vacation is to gain strength and life for another year of work: 39 Anonymous, “Rest for the Toilers; Vacation Terms in the City of New-York,” The New YorkTimes, July 25, 1870. 40 Anonymous, “How to Spend the Summer Vacation,” The New York Times, July 29, 1864. 41 Anonymous, “Vacation,” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences 11:2, (1873).42 Anonymous, “The Summer Vacation,” The New York Times, July 6, 1875. 43 Orlo E. Moore, One Vacation (St. Louis: Christian Publishing Company, 1906), p. 85. 44 Anonymous, “The Summer Vacation for City Folks - The Duty of Relaxation,” The New York Times, July 24, 1869.

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I carry home with me, I hope, sufficient of the glories of nature to give strength and courage for the year’s duties.45

Both nature and vacation travel is opposed to work and life in the

city. A lot of the discourse is occupied with arguments for the

concept of vacation. Rest from work is human nature:

no such tension of human existence, no such hustling competition, nor any of the hot conflicts that now dominate the efforts of men and women in every walk of life were even dreamed of in the days of our ancestors. Nor is the average man or woman of to-day more liberally endowed with strength or resistance than at that time. Neither in brain nor physique do we find any material change in normal conditions. We must, therefore, meet the exigency of the situation by the conservation of forces. There must be a time for rest and relaxation, complete and unreserved; a period in which toregain and build up lost energy and vital force. This is the sanitary aspect of the vacation on its practical and serious side.Natural laws cannot be set aside with impunity.46

A part of arguing for the concept of vacation is a discussion of

idleness: “Your really idle man has no right to a Summer

vacation.”47 The ideal of the leisured gentleman has been

abandoned in favor of an ideal of work ethic:

some regular employment is absolutely necessary for the development of any decent kind of manhood. The young man, however intelligent and clever - who sits down to lead what is called a gentlemanly life of leisure almost invariably becomes a stupid oldman - a superfluity and bore, a burden to himself and everybody else. Be it remembered that vacation means intermission from labor, and that only he has a fair claim to it who has faithfully

45 Arthur C. Longwell, Vacation Impressions (Publisher not stated, 1902), p. 51. 46 Howard Hendricks, Guide to the Catskill Mountains for Vacationist and Tourist (New York: The New York American System of Information Bureaus, 1903), p. 5.47 Anonymous, “The Summer Vacation for City Folks.”

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done labor. It is only in the case of such a man that leisure is dignified, commendable or enjoyable.48

During the industrial period, vacations are described as a priori

wonderful times. For the worker, the vacation is a means to

sustain a saner, more alive self by being in nature. Overall,

there is a sense of something lost in the wake of

industrialization, urbanization and wage laboring. The vacation is

not viewed as a part of the oppression of workers, but rather as a

nugget of life-sustaining freedom that must be protected and

expanded:

what a pity that society is so organized that the great mass of humanity have to wear their lives away in our large cities, existing, but not really living, save for the few precious days each vacation time when they can get away from it all.49

Here, the worker lives when on vacation; he collects the humanity

he needs for the rest of the year’s necessary work. As the next

part of the genealogy will show, after two world wars, this has

changed.

Post-War USA: Planning and potential disappointment

In the post-war decades, automobiles and the democratization of

vacation has changed the practice of vacation travel dramatically.

The big issue facing the individual in relation to vacation travel

is now avoiding vacation crowds, and gone is the discourse of

arguing for the concept of vacation that was so prominent in the48 Ibid.49 Moore, One Vacation, p. 25.

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industrial period. Rather, going away on vacation is now

“essential to the American way,” and the purpose of the vacation

is a far cry from the existential-to-life discourse of earlier

times:50

These days the worker in every field enjoys more time off than he used to have. [...] For most Americans vacation satisfies the national urge for change - of scene, of pace or of occupations. Look at the railway stations, the highways and byways, the beaches, the mountain trails, the trailer camps and motels during the summer season and you perceive that our idea of ‘rest’ is not slowed-down but accelerated motion, not contemplation but physicalactivity.51

Vacation is now “probably the most planned-for fourteen days out

of the 365,”52 and this planning is done from a wide plethora of

choices both in terms of activities and destinations. It is the

individual who bears the responsibility for the planning, and

despite uncontrollable elements, a good vacation falls back on

good planning:

I like to think that all the work and time invested in making the final choice helped make this first vacation as memorable as, looking backward, it now seems.53

50 Paul J.C. Friedlander, “Outlook Bright for Vacationers: Resort Industry Is Ready With Variety of Holidays at Prices That Reflect the Trend to Better Values in Facilities and Service,” The New York Times, June5, 1949.51 Anne O’Hare McCormick, “Abroad; Afterthoughts on an August Vacation,”The New York Times, September 10, 1952.52Anonymous, “Clean House Adds to Joys of Vacation,” The New York Times, May10, 1955.53 Constance Lerner “Vacation for a Working Girl; Advance Planning Pays Off on First Holiday On Her Own,” The New York Times, September 21, 1952.

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If he leaves the decision to someone else, the chances are good that it will, or it might just as well, rain for the whole two weeks he is away.54

Here, we see that a potential for disappointment has entered

vacation travel discourse – something that was nowhere to be found

in discourses of the industrial period. Also the crowds are a

source of potential disappointment:

We arrived at Yellowstone late in July with what looked to us likeabout half the population of the United States. We and hundreds ofother visitors could not get even unheated cabin space. [...] The traffic out of the park that afternoon was almost as heavy as the incoming line with disappointed tourists heading for the fast-disappearing accommodations. [...] The endless number of out-of-state licenses and the midsummer heat discouraged us completely.55

Another new aspect is the “idea of vacation ‘togetherness,’ which

has an economic motivation as well as an emotional one.” Not too

long ago, an article states, children were not accepted at

oceanfront hotels during the peak month.56 But also travelling

with family is a source of disappointment, and a tone of sarcasm

has now also entered the discourse:

There is nothing in the marriage vows forewarning a man that some day his shoulders will be bent and aching and his arms half-torn from their sockets under the weight of vacation luggage, or that he will be called upon to remain nonchalant when his travel-weary offspring hurl bottles of pabulum to the concrete floors of day

54 Friedlander, “Outlook Bright for Vacationers.”55 Dorothy Carew, “Off-season travel: Tourist on Late or Early Vacation Has Hotels and Highways to Himself,” The New York Times, October 2, 1949. 56 Martin Schwarz, “Travel en Famille; Vacation Travel Seems to Be Growing Into More of a Family Activity,” The New York Times, November 16, 1958.

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coaches. Perhaps, for the future of the race, it is as well that he enters upon marriage innocent of these things.57

These potential pitfalls of vacation travel are accompanied by a

search for “doing nothing” on vacation, a search for authenticity:

After all, what makes a vacation is not doing things - not gettingup early for breakfast, not competing with the twins or teenagers for first crack at the bathroom, not wiping dishes and helping with the housework, not making conversation when you feel like nottalking, not trudging dutifully through a schedule drafted by somebody else. And, perhaps most important of all, not being on parade.58

Given that vacation has become a mass phenomenon, the worker is

now tasked with planning a vacation that is meaningful and good.

Many options are open, and individual preferences play the leading

role in vacation travel rather than an existential human need as

in the earlier industrialization period. Going away on vacation is

not closely connected to notions of freedom or escape from work-

life. Rather, vacation travel is just something it is granted that

one does, and it is up to each family to create it however they

wish to, navigating crowds and other pitfalls.

Late 20th Century: The difficult vacation

In the decades leading up to the 21st century, the potential for a

disappointing vacation has become more pronounced that in the

57 Anonymous, “Topics of The Times; Bag and Baggage,” The New York Times, August 21, 1948.58 Ted Olson, “Host vs. Guest in the Game of Vacation Visits,” The New York Times, May 17, 1964.

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post-war decades. Now, vacationers “set off groaning for self-

improvement,” and instead of restoring health to motivate working

another year, one restores guilt to do so:59

The guilt was overpowering. And then I sensed that I was, indeed, doing something useful simply by doing nothing. I was restoring mysense of guilt to get me through another great year. What would America be without a constant rise in the gross national guilt?60

During this period, texts convey an overall disillusion with the

concept of vacation travel. Vacation is often portrayed as an

impossible and paradoxical endeavor:

it was pretty depressing. You save all winter and the best part ofthe vacation is thinking how it will turn out.61

you bring all your anxieties with you when you go camping, and everyone else does, too. You worry about getting up on time, and whether your car will start. Then you roar along the highway, trying to make your 300 miles. You see something interesting but you can’t stop. So you make 8,000 miles on the trip and everythingyou see is a blur.62

Now “One can only admire the fortitude of citizens who set off

with their families […] in search of that elusive period of rest

and freedom.”63 It is undeniably difficult to achieve the purpose

of vacation:

59 Russel Baker, “Observer: The Father of the Family Vacation,” The New York Times, June 28, 1966.60 Ibid.61 Jon Nordheimer, “Vacation and the Single Girl: Tireless Pursuit of a Dream,” The New York Times, July 29, 1970.62 Steven V. Roberts, “America Takes to the Road at Vacation Time,” The New York Times, July 27, 1971.63 David Bouchier, “Out of order: Relax? I Can’t! I'm on Vacation!” The New York Times, July 13, 1997.

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Indeed, for many two income households the family vacation represents the ultimate in quality time, the big attempt of the year to create a family experience that everyone will remember and, with some luck, treasure.64

The burden of a responsibility to have a good time takes its toll

on the vacationing individual. Another article describes how “with

cars battling trucks, vans passing buses, speeders dodging the

police, children fighting boredom as well as one another and

motorcycles buzzing in between, Americans streamed onto the

nation’s highways today, determined to make good time on wheels

and have a good time on vacation,” and cites a father saying

“these kids, they’re going to have a good time on this trip

whether they like it or not.”65 Despite the hardships, families

continue to venture out:

“never mind that last year the children almost strangled oneanother in the back seat of the car [...] This year is a new year,a new opportunity. This time things are going to be different.”66

Vacation travel has now become so difficult for the individual

that it is spoken about in psychiatric terms; psychologists,

psychiatrists, sociologists and therapists hold important subject

positions in relation to it. The risk of a disappointing vacation

is explicated through a discourse in with psychiatric-sounding

64 Carol Lawson, “Surviving Vacation (It's a Family Battle),” The New York Times, August 1, 1991.65 Andrew H. Malcolm, “The not-so-open road as vacation time starts,” TheNew York Times, July 4, 1986. 66 Lawson, “Surviving Vacation.”

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diagnoses such as “travel-induced stress,”67 “pre-vacation

anxiety,”68 “vacation-addict,”69 “vacation withdrawal syndrome,”70

and “post-vacation dysphoria”71 are common. A large number of

experts are called in to provide the troubled traveler with

advice:

A vacation is - or should be - a time of relaxation, a time to putaside the daily routine and avoid petty annoyances. In short, a time to escape from stress. But vacation travel is fraught with situations that bring on stress: getting stuck in traffic on the way to the airport, waiting in line to check in, sitting on the runway wondering when the plane will take off, arriving at a hotelonly to be told you have no reservation. Or, saving all year for what you hope will be the trip of a lifetime, then worrying whether or not your expectations will be dashed; going off to confront unfamiliar currencies, languages and ways of life and fearing you will suffer homesickness; encountering crowds at tourist sites; fighting lines at box offices. What can you do to cope with travel-induced stress? A check with several medical authorities offers some answers.72

A psychiatrist is cited as saying that “people have unrealistic

expectations about what vacations can accomplish. They think that

by going off to some romantic spot, all their problems will

disappear. This doesn’t happen because they bring their problems

67 John Brannon Albright, “Practical Traveler; Take It Easy! You're Going on Vacation,” The New York Times, January 15, 1989.68 Florence Isaacs, “The Pre-Vacation Willies: New Hope For the Fearful,” The New York Times, May 1, 1977.69 Barbara Dubivsky, “Labor Day: The Battle Against The Post-Vacation Blahs,” The New York Times, September 5, 1976.70 Jane Stern and Michael Stern, Horror Holiday: Secrets of Vacation Survival, (Boston: E.P. Dutton, 1981).71 Michael deCourcy Hinds, “Vacation's Over, but the Mind Still Wanders,” The New York Times, September 4, 1988.72 Albright, “Practical Traveler.”

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and styles of coping along.”73 Here, the focus of the problems and

potential solutions of vacation difficulty are all centered on the

individual. As in the previous post-war period, the vacation ideal

is in the search for the authentic vacation where one manages to

rest and have fun, or manages to “do nothing,” which is something

that is in fact only achieved by doing quite a lot, such as

planning, going away, booking, packing, getting aboard and then

letting go of worry:

What we also took away from Captiva was refreshment, physical and spiritual. Perhaps that is just a fancy way of saying rest and play. But we did find ourselves slowing down, relaxing, letting the days and nights unwind randomly. We made no plans. We drifted in to breakfast after our early morning shell hunts. We whiled away many hours at the pool. We sunned ourselves on the beach. We took long walks. We lunched out of our own cupboards and refrigerator. We examined the many boats in the marina and played the game of if-you-could-choose.74

All in all, vacation is now fraught with worry, cynicism and

disillusionment. Experts advise the individual to admit if you had

a bad vacation, admit you have vacation anxiety, admit to yourself

that your vacation will not be perfect, cope with your post-

vacation blah’s, don't plan your joy in life only coming from

vacations, and so on - then you can have a “good” vacation. For

the individual, the task becomes to somehow keep the right mind-

set in order to avoid mental pitfalls associated with vacation. It

seems that the right mind-set is going vacation travelling

73 Sharon Johnson, “Relationships; Couples’ Vacation Problems,” The New York Times, December 12, 1983.74 Michael Sterne, “Close to Nature on Florida’s Sanibel and Captiva; A Family Vacation Close to Nature,” The New York Times, December 14, 1980.

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equipped with a sarcastic distance that helps to keep expectations

lower, or an overall view that vacation is meaningless and we

might as well get the best out of it - which sometimes is not so

bad after all.

The 21st Century: Letting go of work for a better you

After two periods during which vacation travel was taken for

granted as a practice for everyone, the concept of vacation travel

is under pressure in contemporary discourses. Encroachment of work

on vacation, either by people not going on vacation or by people

working whilst on vacation is a large discussion topic. Now, “The

idea of somebody going away for two weeks is really becoming a

thing of the past […] It’s kind of sad, really, that people can’t

seem to leave their jobs anymore.”75 The responsibility for this

work encroachment is largely placed on the individual:

People, this has got to stop. We Americans earn only a tiny fraction of the vacation time enjoyed by workers in every other industrialized nation. Many of us don’t even use what little we get. And now this insidious technology is making it easier and easier for us to bring our work along on the piddling little vacations we do manage to take [...] Not to put too fine a point on it, but the net result of all this is that we’re committing karoshi – we’re working ourselves to death. Health care studies consistently show that by failing to take time off we're shortening our lives.76

75 Timothy Egan, “The Rise of Shrinking-Vacation Syndrome,” The New York Times, August 20, 2006.76 John Flinn, “Americans need more vacation - and so do our laptops,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 1, 2004.

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Other examples of this discourse of responsibility are: “what the

hell is wrong with Americans? I have 20 regular vacation days a

year and 20 carryover days, yet can’t seem to take more than 18

days off a year on average for the past five years,”77 “mostly

people work because they want to […] It’s mostly something that

we’re doing to ourselves,”78 “I realized that nothing really falls

apart if I don't get to it after a week. To be honest, it was an

epiphany and my life is less stressful now due to realization that

my stress was self created,”79 “I used to be one of these people

who worked on vacation; bringing my laptop and cell phone. I was

an idiot.”80 At the same time, workers fear loosing their job if

they go on vacation. Now, “employees may be reluctant to take time

off because of towering workloads and fears that their jobs are

vulnerable.”81 For example a worker in a start-up company states

that “in reality hardly anyone takes time off, and the few who do

are looked down upon.”82 Nonetheless, a psychologist lists the

77 Sam Dogen “Feeling Guilty And Afraid Of Taking Vacation?,” Financial Samurai, <http://www.financialsamurai.com/2011/11/09/feeling-guilty-and-afraid-of-taking-vacation/>.78 Stephanie Rosenbloom, “Please Don’t Make Me Go on Vacation,” The New York Times, August 10, 2006.79 Lisa Belkin, “Life’s work; Hello, Vacation: It’s the Boss,” The New York Times, November 15, 2007, <http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/fashion/15Work.html>. 80 Ibid.81 Phyllis Korkki, “The working vacation,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 21,2011.82 Marci Alboher, “Does Unlimited Vacation Equal No Vacation?,” The New York Times, July 31 2008, <http://shiftingcareers.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/does-unlimited-vacation-equal-no-vacation/>.

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consequences of chronic stress:

When you’re stressed out and tired, you are more likely to become ill, your arteries take a beating, and you're more likely to have an accident. Your sleep will suffer, you won’t digest your food aswell, and even the genetic material in the cells of your body may start to become altered in a bad way. Mentally, not only do you become more irritable, depressed, and anxious, but your memory will become worse and you’ll make poorer decisions. You’ll also beless fun to be with, causing you to become more isolated, lonely, and depressed.83

The psychologist continues; “Vacations have the potential to break

into the stress cycle. We emerge from a successful vacation

feeling ready to take on the world again. We gain perspective on

our problems, get to relax with our families and friends, and get

a break from our usual routines.”84 Some workers then face the

paradox that it’s wrong if they go on vacation (they are looked

down upon or risk losing their jobs) and wrong if they don’t go

(they neglect their families, risk their health, become less fun

to spend time with, and are idiots).

The struggles are not over even if one manages to leave

without bringing any work. High expectations making vacation

travel a difficult endeavor persists in the 21st century:

And if they finally do make their escape? “You picture this great fantasy trip and it’s nothing like you ever imagined in your head [...] Nothing will ever be good because you have an expectation level that’s so high, and that’s the problem.” Ms. Sullivan said

83 Susan Krauss Whitbourne, “The Importance of vacations to our physicaland mental health,” Psychology Today, <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201006/the-importance-vacations-our-physical-and-mental-health?page=2>. 84 Ibid.

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today’s employees put a lot of pressure on themselves to have trip-of-a-lifetime vacations. “They have to pack in all these activities,” she said, “and everybody has to be happy and smiling and it has to be perfect weather.”85

Even though packing in activities is also sometimes described as

problematic and counter to the purpose of relaxing while on

vacation, it is an ideal repeated in the discourse. The focus is

on using the vacation to achieve something not achievable in work-

life, and to be active while on vacation:

Consider taking a cooking class while in Italy instead of simplyeating out, or sign up for an in-depth tour of an archaeologicalsite while in Mexico instead of lying by the pool.86

Make your vacation a true adventure. As shown by the research, anactive vacation involving new challenges will be most beneficial.Sure, you can veg out on the beach for hours at a time if that'sgoing to relax you the most. But be sure that you stray outside ofthe resort, hotel, cruise ship, or wherever you are in thatcomfort zone of yours and get off the beaten track a bit. It willbuild some new synapses and give you some of those memorable,bonding, experiences with your fellow vacationers.87

Along with an ideal of being active is a perception that one can

work towards a better, more authentic version of oneself while on

vacation - vacation is now pursued for personal enhancement. For

example, it is now possible to spend your vacation at a “Biggest-

Looser-Fat Camp”:

85 Rosenbloom, “Please Don’t Make Me Go on Vacation.”86 Michelle Higgins, “Planning the Perfect Vacation,” The New York Times, July 20, 2011.87 Whitbourne, “The Importance of vacations.”

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given my recent weight gain, and the fact that I was turning 50, Iwanted to jump-start a program that would make 2012 the year I finally got in shape.88

Regaining physical strength on vacation is now from damage done by

non-physical labor rather than from hard physical labor as in the

industrialization period:

Pick any interesting city in the world where having a car would bea waste of time and money, and walk, and use public transportationto see the sights, eat local food, walk more, and come back in better shape not only physically but mentally.89

Rest and relaxation can be completely out of the picture:

I have managed to lose weight each and every time I’ve been on vacation. How? By going out early in the mornings walking or running, doing stair repeats at the Prado, step-ups on park benches, bringing a set of yoga cards and a travel yoga mat, walking up to the next town or hill 5K away in Italy...etc. No matter where I go, I find something to do that keeps me active. It's a great way to see cities and countryside when you’re vacationing or even on a business trip. Keep yourself moving. […] There’s no excuse. Get out there and do it!90

Many resorts now emphasize health, exercise, low-calorie diets,

and living without modern amenities. Often mentioned in

discussions of these types of resorts is Canyon Ranch, who in

advertisements label themselves “all-inclusive, life-enhancement

health resorts.”91 As a woman says of her minimalist stay at a

88 Jennifer Conlin “My Week at the Biggest Loser Fat Camp,” The New York Times, December 29, 2011.89 Tara Parker-Pope, “Where to Lose Weight on Vacation,” The New York Times,April 25, 2011, <http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/where-to-lose-weight-on-vacation/#postComment>. 90 Ibid.91 NYT Style Magazine, Mens fashion issue, Spring 2012, p. 60. My italics.

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meditation resort, “there’s no ‘I’ll have that extra helping of

dessert because I’m on vacation’ feeling. It’s all about being

healthy. You come home feeling like a good person, not a bad

person.”92 This view - that vacation can not only help you to

“find yourself,” but that vacation can also bring out the best in

you, or simply make you a better person, is often repeated. For

example, the Westin Resorts runs an add campaign with the catch

phrase “for a better you.”93 For families, vacation is a chance to

reconnect with better versions of each other:

Getting both of us away from work allowed me to get my wife back. Suddenly, Karel wasn’t a mom and a stressed-out employee anymore; she was just a mom and a wife. My beautiful, smiling wife. […] It was one of the greatest weeks of my life.94

Examining contemporary practices and discourses of vacation is but

another indication that the promise of freedom through work is a

lie. If freedom is in fact attainable through work, vacation would

not be defended, discussed and idealized the way it is. What also

becomes clear in these discourses and practices, however, is that

an imperative of self-realization travels along with us when we go

on vacation.95

92 Karen Robinovtiz, “Journeys; No Talking. No Fun. It's Called A Vacation,” The New York Times, January 16, 2004.93 NYT Style Magazine, Travel, Spring 2012, p. 7.94 Aaron Traister, “Vacations from Hell,” RedBook, <http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/advice/funny-vacation>.95 These contemporary practices and discourses of vacation travel may not only adhere to knowledge workers. It may be that workers who don’t struggle with a self-realization imperative in their work do so when they travel away for vacation. Insofar as this is the case, the critiqueposited in this article is not only relevant to knowledge workers.

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A hidden critique of capitalism

As Foucault writes, the emergence of a phenomenon “always occurs

in the interstice,” in a “non-place” in the “endlessly repeated

play of dominations.”96 For example, “class domination generates

the idea of liberty” and similarly, this article argues that

capitalism and the role of the wage earner generates the idea of

vacation travel. 9798 However, in the discourses, the concept of

vacation travel emerges and continues to be described as a nugget

of freedom from work life, and hence as something that is not an

inherent part of the apparatus of work. In the periods where

vacation as a concept is not under pressure, but rather taken for

granted (the post-war period and the years leading up to the 21st

century), the workers struggle to attain or realize the freedom

they have presumably been granted by the vacation from work. In

the periods where the concept of vacation is under pressure

because not everyone gets or takes a vacation (the96 Michel Foucault, “Nietzche, Genealogy, History,” in D.F. Bouchard (ed.), Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 150. 97 Ibid. 98 When discussing the emergence of legal responsibility, Foucault himself writes that “in the nineteenth century, the development of wage-earning, of industrial techniques, of mechanization, of transportation, of urban structures brought with it two important things [...]” (Michel Foucault, “The Dangerous Individual,” in Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 1977-1984 (New York: Routledge, 1988), p. 146.) These elements also mark part of the field of possibility in this genealogy. Under industrialization, capitalism resulted in the position of the wage earner who could be granted a vacation, the urbanization andindustrialization with factory work in a polluted city framed the view that the workers had to escape for vacation, and finally transportation made getting away possible.

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industrialization and the 21st century), the workers struggle to

maintain access to the little freedom vacation is supposed to

grant in a life where work is overriding. In these periods, the

focus is less on how impossible it is to actually experience and

realize the freedom the vacation is supposed to give, but rather

on a fear of loosing it. What gets left out in all periods is a

discussion or critique of the capitalist system of labor contracts

and alienation at the heart of both struggles. Rather, throughout

the periods, the struggles are placed more and more within the

individual. In the industrial period, the workers would

automatically regain their lives by simply being in nature - the

self-enhancing outcome of vacation came from outside the worker.

Today, the workers attain self-realization by practicing on

themselves, working with the self - the self-enhancing comes from

the inside. And while the problem in the industrial period was

that not everyone was granted a vacation, the problem today is that

not everyone takes a vacation. Again, the responsibility

increasingly falls on the individual. This genealogy highlights

how vacation has continuously oscillated between being viewed as a

wonderful piece of freedom for the worker and a burden for the

worker. It is characteristically absent that disappointment and

frustration in relation to vacation can be due to the setup and

practice of vacation itself.

A tale such as this one brushes up against critiquing the

essence of vacation disappointment:

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Three weeks of warmth and ocean, of picnics and sailing until dusk, of sleeping until you’ve slept enough, of long talks after breakfast. Three weeks of living simply, closer to what’s fundamental. And what struck me about our vacation was how good life looked, how sane. [...] Certainly this was an artificial world, but how happy and beautiful everybody seemed to be. [...] Iremember that freedom and ease, and the joy of all being together,and then I think of the mess of our intricate and pointless scheduled times. It’s then that I look at the bolted door and wonder: Which is the The Reality and which is The Dream?99

This view, which hints at vacation being meaningful reality as

opposed to work, points to the absurdness of living a life where

the where reality is confined to two weeks out of each year.

However within the discourses, this state of affairs is accepted:

Call it a vacation high or whatever, but I don’t want this feelingof lust and pure happiness to ever end. This feeling of rediscovery is why vacations are so important. Sometimes we need an escape from reality to remember who we really are and who we want to be.100

life is too short to not appreciate every moment of it. I realize that’s why I work so hard, to take these vacations.101

These are nutshell examples of the subtle oppression this article

argues that vacation is. What we see - exactly as Boltanski and

Chiapello so eloquently show - is how capitalism manages to

incorporate and take advantage of any critique of it, finding new,

99 Barbara Swanson, “Speaking Personally; Now That Vacation Is Over,” TheNew York Times, September 4, 1977.100 Meghann Anderson, “What my vacation taught me about my body,” Meals and Miles, <http://mealsandmiles.com/2011/10/18/what-my-vacation-taught-me-about-my-body/> 101 Rosenbloom, “Please Don’t Make Me Go on Vacation.”

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subtle ways to oppress the worker.102103 The practice of vacation

travel is an excellent example of how capitalism by seemingly

granting freedom, is not only granting the opposite, but also

creating a situation where critique of capitalism itself gets

hidden. The workers seeking to enhance themselves whilst away have

internalized the interests of their employer, practicing these on

themselves in what they believe to be a search for what they want.

This leaves the worker in a paradox: neither abandoning the

vacation all together, nor going away for those two weeks, brings

freedom. Vacation is not an escape from work.

Even so, the only critique getting through is one with a goal

of more vacation weeks:

No one is irreplaceable. I don’t think we’ll really learn that lesson until vacation time becomes as important to us, as it is toother (more enlightened) countries.104

On the level of critique, the belief here is that granting

everyone more vacation would make the labor contract better.

102 Boltanski and Chiapello, The New Spirit, p. 425.103 Interestingly, it is possible to pair this genealogy of vacation travel with Boltanski and Chiapello’s history of capitalism. It is the factory workers facing the disciplined work and slave-like conditions criticized during the first spirit of capitalism who are escaping to themountains and seashores to “renew their lives.” In the post-war years, the second spirit of capitalism is mirrored in how vacation has become ademocratized mass phenomenon, and in the focus on planning. The critiqueleading up to the third spirit of capitalism is mirrored in the disillusion with the concept of vacation in the decades leading up to the 21st century. Finally, the third spirit of capitalism shows through in how vacation in the 21st century is blurred with work and has become a project of self-enhancement and self-realization.104 Belkin, “Life’s work; Hello, Vacation: It’s the Boss,” Reader comment.

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Slavoj Žižek takes a very negative stance on this type of critique

of capitalism:

The main, moronic idea here involves a return to the authentic Welfare State: We need a new political party that will return to the good old principles abandoned under neoliberal pressure; we need to regulate the banks and control financial excess, guaranteefree universal health care and education, and so on. What is wrongwith this? Everything.105

Instead, Žižek argues that we need to rethink the whole notion of

a socially responsible capitalism. Capitalism cannot be humanized,

“the capitalist beast again and again escapes the benevolent

social regulation.”106 With reference to Zygmunt Bauman, Willig

distinguishes between small critiques and big critiques.107 The

small critiques are alive and kicking today, as dissatisfaction

with resort service, tourist crowds, that people in America don’t

take enough vacation, that all the technology makes it hard to

really get away, and even that the demand of self-realization

leads to stress and depression. The big critiques of the systems

of society as a whole, however, are often lacking, especially in a

form where an actual alternative outside the existing system is

proposed. A critique of the concept of vacation travel without a

critique of the capitalism it is an inherent part of, is an

example of this. Common complaints about vacation bury a “hidden”

critique of capitalism that ought to be brought out in the open.

105 Slavoj Žižek, The Year of Dreaming Dangerously (London: Verso, 2012), p. 15. 106 Ibid., p. 16.107 Rasmus Willig, Til forsvar for kritikken (Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag, 2007).

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Therefore, rethinking vacation means rethinking our current mode

of production. But as Slavoj Žižek reminds us, nobody today

considers possible alternatives to capitalism. We can more easily

imagine the end of the world through a global ecological

catastrophe than “a far more modest change in the mode of

production.”108 So, capitalist hegemony endures, and since

industrialization, capitalism has continued to adjust to critiques

of it, and has thereby continued to oppress workers even by

seemingly granting what they want. The somewhat discouraging

conclusion is that when working firmly enmeshed in neoliberal

capitalism, there is no freedom anywhere, neither through work nor

from work. We are forced to realize ourselves either way, to

struggle to attain freedoms that are requirements and oppression

in disguise. In order to break this cycle and to move from

unthinkable utopia or silently accepting subtle oppression as a

taken for granted state of affairs, we need big critiques that

suggest alternatives to capitalism as a whole, not merely small

critiques that in essence only function to cover up the

monstrosities we face because of our current mode of production.

Acknowledgements:

108 Slavoj Žižek (ed.), Mapping Ideology (London: Verso, 1994), p.1.

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I warmly thank the editors and reviewers as well as Erik Carparros Højberg, Departmentof Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School and Michael J.Shapiro, Department of Political Science, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, for their helpwith this article.

Author bio:Gitte du Plessis is a PhD student at the Department of PoliticalScience, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. She received her master’sdegree from Copenhagen Business School.

Word count: Abstract: 118 wordsArticle body: 9983 words including footnotes.

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