Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'work'

July 03, 2019

‘Regulated leisure’, the basis of culture?

Every summer, as I prepare for much needed vacation, I am reminded of my favorite book, Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture. It was written by the neo-Thomistic philosopher who condemned a world of “total work.” The context in which Pieper’s masterpiece was authored is his native Germany in the late-1940s during a furious rebuilding of Europe after the Second World War. Continue Reading...
August 10, 2017

Brains and brawn: Does manual labor belong in the modern economy?

As economic prosperity continues to spread, and as the American economy completes its transition into the age of information, manual labor is increasingly cast down in the popular imagination. When our youth navigate and graduate from high school, they receive a range of pressures to attend four-year colleges and pursue various “white-collar” careers, whether in finance or law or tech or the academy. Continue Reading...
July 11, 2017

The ‘end’ of work

In the Q&A part of a session I led at last month’s Acton University on Abraham Kuyper and Leo XIII (based on this recent volume), I was asked about specific areas where the two figures have something concrete to contribute today. Continue Reading...
June 20, 2017

Exulting in the monotony of fatherhood

Fatherhood is a wild ride, yet in my own personal reflections on and around Father’s Day, I’m routinely reminded that amid and alongside all the adventure, the challenges of fatherhood mostly play out in the small and intimate moments of daily life. Continue Reading...
April 26, 2017

When work as ‘calling’ becomes an idol unto self

Propelled by an expansion in economic opportunity and the resounding cultural calls to “follow your passions,” today’s workers are more easily latching on to the notion of work as “calling,” or a pursuit of “deeper meaning.” Of course, in many ways, it’s a positive development. Continue Reading...