The Future of Leisure Studies

Abstract

The creation of knowledge within universities suffers from both over specialization and parallel lines of inquiry and information dissemination, which never touch. Not only do the two intellectual cultures of science and the liberal arts rarely touch, but legions of researchers work in isolation, studying issues within their own narrow paradigms and publishing outlets. Within universities, academic departments command the loyalty of faculty. Few professors know much about what's going on in other departments. Within the there is an increasing tendency for research to be divorced from other science. Thus, our genetic heritage is largely ignored. Some social scientists studying courtship or marriage, for example, examine compatibility and other psycho social variables but ignore critical biological factors. Since biology operates on the principle that difference is better, it may surprise such social scientists that women appear to be attracted to the scent of men, through their sweat, who have different genes from their own. (Blum, 1997). When biological aspects are occasionally considered, nature is often considered to be fixed or unchanging. Thus, discussions of a sustainable society often rest on the false assumption that nature is unchanging, when, in reality, the universe churns toward its own ends in ways which deny most assumptions about what is natural in nature. The social sciences also often lack concern about historical understanding and perspective. Many kinds of behavior which recur cyclically in human history are therefore sometimes misunderstood as new and unique. Youth gangs, binge drinking, bicycling, oppressed minorities, disrespect among youth, intolerance among older people-none are new. Most families were and are dysfunctional by the definitions of social scientists. Commitment was generally not stable where individuals had choice about the matter (Coontz, 1992). A further limitation in acquiring knowledge is an increasing tendency for thinking to limit the questions which can be asked; let alone examined. Thus, real differences between males and females or among ethnic groups are ignored. Mainstreaming is uncritically accepted as good and desirable. The notion that finding pleasure makes for both a good and a healthy life is suspect. Behind such denial is a misunderstanding of the interplay of the genes and culture. Ironically, politically correct thinking reduces diversity of thought, a diversity which it claims to think is good in the composition of a culture and would inevitably accompany such diverse cultures. It produces a kind of Puritanism which currently characterizes much research in the social sciences. Part of this Puritanism, which seeks to deny real differences among ethnic groups, age groups, genders, races, and other divisions of society, is actually a sort of pessimism about human ability to change. The Japanese, for example, raised the average IQ of school age children dramatically over a period of a few decades (Jones, 1993). This was obviously not the result of genetic change. Thus, the good news is that, while human groups differ with regard to intelligence, such differences are not immutable but rather capable of being changed by human endeavor. Such good news is largely lost on those who seek to deny difference among human groups in the name of political correctness. Leisure Studies Within this milieu, leisure studies and recreation and park management continue to emerge with great uncertainty. The intellectual content for these related but very different subjects of study evolved from at least two different and often conflicting perspectives. The first, which came from the various movements to reform and rationalize recreation during periods of industrialization and urbanization, was almost never interested in recreation or leisure per se. Rather, interest was in the ability of recreation and leisure activity to improve the health, education, social adjustment and life chances of poor people, children, the elderly, handicapped, and others who had few resources to help them replace the recreation patterns of peasant life. …