Free Time Without Freedom: Leisure, Autonomy, and Alienation in the Age of self-affirmation

Throughout the last decades, working time in high-income countries has decreased, implying a corresponding increase in leisure time (Korea Development Institute, 2023). However, these societies still face issues related to stress and general well-being. Despite having more leisure time than ever before, we experience increasing mental health issues, social acceleration, and a growing sense of lacking free time. As Hartmut Rosa argues in Acceleration and alienation (2010), technological and social developments should free up time instead produce a sense of time scarcity and pressure (Rosa, 2010). If we look at what we spend our free time doing, the OECD reports that 40% of leisure time is spent on TV/streaming (Hustle Escape, 2020), and Data Reportal reports an average of 2 hours and 23 minutes of daily social media use (Kemp, 2024). We spend a lot, if not most, of our free time in front of screens, and while there are plenty of studies that argue against prolonged screen time, I will avoid this. Instead, my aim is to point at the need for a structural account of what it is that is bad for us in specific leisure time activities.

The paper will firstly introduce Rahel Jaeggi’s view on alienation from Alienation (2014) to outline the issues behind a theory of alienation that is tied to essentialism. Secondly, I will incorporate and discuss the basics of Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonance from Resonanz (2016) to show the potential of a less alienated life. Thirdly, I will compare Jaeggi’s and Rosa’s stances with Kierkegaard’s figure of an aesthete from Either/Or: Part I (1987) to argue that certain activities encourage the opposite of resonance. Lastly, I shall roughly sketch my solution by engaging with Nguyen’s Autonomy and aesthetic engagement (2020), to argue for autonomous activities which foster resonance.

Alienation and World-Relations: Jaeggi

Before arguing about a right way to relate to the world, the issues of such an account must be explored. Here, Rahel Jaeggi argues against a concept of alienation that refers to an essentialist notion, stating the following:

“Saying that something is alienated (...) suggests that there is something essentially ‘one’s own’ from which one has become alienated. (...) Alienation is not merely something that ought not to be, but rather something that, in a certain sense, is not.” (Jaeggi, 2014, p. 27).

As Jaeggi notes, the issue with an essentialist account is that it opens up for paternalism, arguing that, firstly: “the concept of alienation belongs to a perfectionist ethical theory that presupposes… that it is possible to determine what is objectively good for humans” (Jaeggi, 2014, p. 29). Thus, a theory of alienation that relies on objective perfectionist ideals appears to reject this idea in favor of a paternalist perspective that claims to ‘know better,’ thus leading to paternalism, or, in other words, deciding how other people live their lives based simply on ‘knowing better’ through assumptions. Jaeggi’s solution is to categorize alienation as a specific relation to the world. She argues that:

“[A]lienation is a specific form of relation, not a nonrelation or the mere absence of a relation. Alienation describes not the absence but the quality of a relation. Formulated paradoxically, alienation is a relation of relationlessness.” (Jaeggi, 2014, p. 25).

Jaeggi’s aim is to shift the alienation debate from an essentialist account that determines what individuals should relate to qua human nature into a more relational account. For Jaeggi, alienation should be a term that points to where we have deficient and distorted relations. Regarding activities, Jaeggi specifically gives examples of alienated accounts by arguing the following:

“‘Alienated’ describes relations that are not entered into for their own sake, as well as activities with which one cannot ‘identify.’ The worker who thinks only of quitting time, the academic who publishes solely with a view toward the citation index, the doctor who cannot for a moment forget her fee scale—all are alienated from what they do.” (Jaeggi, 2014, p. 4).

This is a relation of relationlessness, where subjects are alienated from certain activities, as they cannot delve into them, indulge in them, and feel themselves in them, but instead yearn for them to finish, i.e., yearn for something that is outside of them, or even beyond them.

Resonance and Connection: Rosa

While Jaeggi’s account offers a nuanced and non-essentialist reconstruction of alienation, her approach remains largely formal, i.e., she refrains from providing a substantial account of what it means to be meaningfully connected to the world. In light of this, and with the overall aim of the paper in mind, we need a short outline of such an account. Here, Rosa’s theory of resonance will be particularly important, since it addresses some of the same concerns as Jaeggi, but instead offers a more substantial account of the subject’s relation to the world. Rosa’s theory is firstly inspired by neurobiology and psychology, where mirror neurons serve as the basis. Rosa argues that:

“Resonans vil sige, at noget kommer i svingninger eller stimuleres til at lyde klart og tydeligt. (...) Det, der skal fungere i denne forbindelse, er et system, der gennemfører udvekslingen af indre forestillinger og følelser, og som desuden kan stimulere de udviklede forestillinger hos modtageren, så de bliver til en resonans, dvs. lyder klart og tydeligt. (...) Som det har vist sig, er systemet af spejlneuroner det neurobiologiske format, der gør disse udvekslings- og resonansprocesser mulige.” (Rosa, 2014, Kapitel V: 1. Spejlneuroner og Ønskekviste: Intersubjektivitet som antropologisk basis)

The theory of resonance is therefore inspired by the fact that there are certain neurons that make us hear, feel, and become connected to that which is outside us. In Jaeggi’s terms, it could be said that the worker is not yearning for the working day to end, but instead is properly engaged in their work in a way that triggers these mirror neurons. Rosa further explains this intrinsic connection with the world by explaining what it means in the following:

“Resonans er en form for verdensforhold, der dannes ved af←fekt og e→motion, intrinsisk interesse og forventninger til egen formåen, og hvori subjekt og verden gensidigt berører og samtidig transformerer hinanden.” (Rosa, 2014, Kapitel V: 3. Resonans).

With Jaeggi’s example of the academic, he would not publish with a sole view of the publishing index, but would instead publish solely for the sake of publishing, i.e., the relation between the academic and the paper is one of resonance, such that the academic does not just use it for external needs, but sees the publishing and writing as an end in itself, ultimately resulting in a mutual transformation of both paper and academic. The unalienated relationship is, for Rosa, a relation of mutual transformation in which subjects feel the world and the world echoes back.

In my reading, the strength of Rosa’s resonance is that it brings both societal benefit and intrinsic gain. Because if we follow Rosa’s findings, then the intrinsic value of resonance can be seen as living the good life, i.e. a life where subjects are living the good life, by resonating with their surroundings, and living for that which they do, and not something which is beyond it. On the other hand, Rosa borrows certain findings from neuroscience arguments, which point at the possibility for what I call a societal value. Here Rosa points to self-efficacy (egen formåen), which are the expectations that one has to oneself. While it may seem trivial at first, these expectations are crucial for society. There are two reasons for this, which are seen in the following:

1. “Den, der råder over høje forventninger til egen formåen, har [...] færre symptomer på angst og stress.” (Rosa, 2014, Kapitel v: 2. Intrinsiske Interesser og Forventninger til Egen Formåen)

2. “Den, der har høje forventninger til egen formåen, vover mere, investerer mere energi i at tackle problemer, sætter sig mere ambitiøse mål og holder ud i længere tid [...]. [...] En oplevelse af nederlag undergraver ‘lysten’ [...] og forhøjer sandsynligheden for at den mislykkes.” .” (Rosa, 2014, Kapitel v: 2. Intrinsiske Interesser og Forventninger til Egen Formåen)

Firstly, subjects with high self-efficacy tend to be mentally resilient and therefore suffer less from burnout, stress, etc., and secondly, subjects with high self-efficacy are more likely to participate in difficult tasks, in turn ma- king them more capable (if they succeed). Thus, on one account, it is valuable for a society to have individuals who resonate with the world, since this leads them to become both mentally resilient and ambitious and capable. Finding certain activities and hobbies that encourage resonance could therefore strengthen and improve the subject’s life, while also providing value to the society in which they live.

3. The Aesthetic Subject: Kierkegaard

From a structural perspective, Jaeggi and Rosa both refrain from specifying what subjects ought to resonate with (in Rosa’s terms) and instead mostly offer descriptive accounts of world-relations, and while a structural account is neither the goal of Jaeggi nor Rosa, I believe that such an account would provide new possibilities for a potentially less alienated life. Because both Jaeggi’s and Rosa’s theories are based on the problems of the alienation of subjects, they lean towards the subject’s perception of the world, making them slightly phenomenological, each in their own way. However, a phenomenological approach to alienation could be supported by an account of what in the world we are alienated from (later, I will attempt to avoid Jaeggi’s essentialist worry). I will argue for this by using Søren Kierkegaard’s figure of an aesthete. In Kierkegaard’s The Seducer’s Diary, we meet the extreme example of an aesthete. Throughout the diary, we follow Johannes and his intense fascination with Cordelia. While following Cordelia, Johannes gives explicit explanations such as the following:

“How beautiful she is! Poor mirror, it must be tormenting-it is good that you do not know jealousy. Her head is perfectly oval; she tilts it a little, thereby accentuating her forehead, which rises pure and proud without any delineation of the powers of understanding. Her dark hair rings her forehead softly and gently.” (Kierkegaard, 1987, p. 316)

Johannes’ fascination with Cordelia is intense and seemingly genuine. However, as the editor remarks, this fascination must be understood in light of Johannes’ general attempt to aestheticize existence:

“His life has been an attempt to accomplish the task of living poetically. With a sharply developed organ for discovering the interesting in life, he has known how to find it and after having found it has continually reproduced his experiences half poetically.” (Kierkegaard, 1987, p. 304)

It seems, then, that he is not interested in Cordelia, but instead in using her as a means to live poetically. Following Jaeggi’s account, he is therefore alienated, as his relationship with Cordelia is relationless, and, following Rosa, it is not a mutual relationship. This is even clearer when considering the following:

“The poetic was the plus he himself brought along. This plus was the poetic he enjoyed in the poetic situation of actuality; this he recaptured in the form of poetic reflection. This was the second enjoyment, and his whole life was intended for enjoyment. In the first case, he personally enjoyed the esthetic; in the second case, he esthetically enjoyed his personality.” (Kierkegaard, 1987, p. 305).

He leaves his mark on and reflects the world in order to enjoy his own personality further. Regarding Cordelia, this is clear when he writes that “I will have the opportunity to insinuate myself into her thoughts.” (Kierkegaard,1987, p. 322). He does not enjoy the connection with the world; instead, he enjoys using the world as a means of self-affirmation. For the aesthete, the world is but a mirror of the self. At first glance, this may seem to miss the point of both Jaeggi and Rosa, since they explicitly emphasize the importance of relating to the world, whereas Kierkegaard’s aesthete is turned inward. However, this is exactly where Jaeggi and Rosa are lacking in practical and structural support. Because, despite their critique of modern society, they still harbor the belief that the world is something with which we can resonate, and while I agree with this, I believe that a material account is needed so that this will remain the case in the future. I argue that a strictly relational account of how we relate to the world is not enough; instead, we need to also secure the material conditions that allow for resonance, and for this, a structural account is needed.

Leisure as Self-Affirmation

To further explain why a structural account is needed, let us go back to the analytics of screen time use. Much of our free time is spent looking at screens, something that big platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, but lately also Netflix and news media, have taken advantage of through the use of algorithms. These algorithms track what and how much users spend on their platforms and use this to provide a customized feed, which ultimately aims at keeping the user on the platform for as long as possible. Nowadays, most media use algorithms to create user-specific feeds, and if they do not, they lose users who migrate to those that do (Sprout Social, 2023).

This shares the same methodology as the aesthete, who uses the world to see themselves reflected back at them. Regarding the algorithm, it is a mirror of the one who owns it. My algorithm, for example, is, qua my interests and personality, often filled with videos of Greek heritage, leftist politics, and Pokémon playthroughs. Through my engagement, the algorithm feeds me similar content, ultimately reaffirming not only my interests but also my personality and sense of self. The otherness, which is necessary for me to be connected to the world and not just myself, is replaced by an algorithm that pacifies and transforms this otherness into something like me, something that is me, that is a part of me. It is therefore not a proper, mutual, resonant relationship in which I change the world and the world changes me, but instead nothing more than an reproduction of the world as I already perceive and experience it. Yet this no longer even requires the reflective capacities of the aesthete, since the algorithm has spared us that task. Furthermore, this reaffirmation of the self also neutralizes whatever content the videos may have. Even in cases where the videos are in strong disagreement with my political views, for example, far-right or fascist content, they only serve to reaffirm my sense of self even further, this time by showing what I am not, i.e., negatively reaffirming myself. Thus, the video, its content, and its message become secondary; what matters is the poetic reaffirmation of the self, where the media becomes nothing more than a canvas upon which one paints and admires oneself.

My diagnosis is thus that, by taking the world hostage, certain activities do not merely fail to produce resonance in Rosa’s sense; they actively reinforce the very form of alienation Jaeggi seeks to diagnose, reducing the relation to a medium for poetic self-affirmation.

Autonomy and Engagement: Nguyen

Getting to the aim of the paper, my contribution to the problem is to argue for a structural account of those leisure time activities and hobbies which encourage resonance.

For while Rosa does have certain ideas as to what we can resonate with, he is lacking an in-depth account. Therefore I will turn to Nguyen’s analysis in Autonomy and Aesthetic Engagement (2020) offers a possible solution, and although the text is not explicitly situated in the alienation debate, Nguyen ends up implicitly showing how intrinsic engagement with an activity has a greater potential if the activity is autonomous. He does so through his argument regarding aesthetic judgments, where, according to him, judging a work of art as beautiful is not just about correctness, say through testimony, but also about the path to correctness (Nguyen, 2020, p. 1127). He argues that:

“When one defers to aesthetic testimony, then, one makes the same mistake as when one looks up the answer to a puzzle, rather than solving it for oneself. The shortcut defeats the whole point.” (Nguyen, 2020, p. 1127). He argues that:

The value of engaging with the puzzle lies in working through it oneself. By looking up the answer, one bypasses this process and treats the puzzle merely as a means to an end. In this sense, one fails to properly engage with the puzzle as something that resists and demands engagement, bypassing this for the end of finishing it. The opposite, intrinsic engagement, is what Nguyen calls striving play:

“Striving play involves a motivational inversion. In normal practical life, one takes the means for the sake of the ends. In striving play, one selects the ends for the sake of the means it puts one through. (...) It is only the right goal to adopt in order to become engaged in a desirable form of activity.” (Nguyen, 2020, p. 1143)

Here, Nguyen develops an account of autonomy in which engagement depends on respecting the internal structure of the activity. Regarding the puzzle, one has to respect the autonomy of the puzzle, in order to engage, or perhaps even resonate with it. Nguyen further explicates this, when giving a structural account of his go-to leisure activity of climbing. Nguyen explains that for beginners in climbing, the restrictions of not using a rope seem arbitrary and annoying (Nguyen, 2020, p. 1145). Hower as he explains

“Experienced climbers, however, understand the purpose of these restrictions. When you are allowed to ascend by pulling on the rope and the gear, then you end up repeating the same sorts of movements on any sort of rock. The requirement to ascend using only features of the rock itself forces the climber to attend to the distinctive details of each different rock face. It force the climber to invent new and creative solutions in response to the widely varying details of the rock.” (Nguyen, 2020, p. 1145)

It can be said that there needs to be a respect for the autonomy of that which one engages with. Here, respecting that autonomy also further develops and allows for autonomous engagement with that which one is engaging with. Since refusing to use the rope opens the possibility of climbing the wall in a plethora of ways, this is only possible by respecting the autonomy of the climbing wall and restricting oneself to the bare minimum, i.e., hands and feet. Setting restrictions that are based on and follow from that which one engages with opens up a more creative engagement with the activity. In other words, following or respecting the autonomy of that which one engages with gives one the possibility of engaging with it autonomously.

This relation between an autonomous engager and an autonomous activity avoids the self-referential stance of the aesthete by respecting the object’s otherness. Rather than using the rope in the same way each time to overcome the wall, climbing on the wall’s own terms demands a continuous responsiveness to its features. The activity cannot be reduced to a fixed method or a predictable outcome but instead requires an ongoing engagement with something that resists and shapes one’s actions.

In the example of rock climbing, I believe that the climbing wall is structured in such a way that it allows for autonomous engagement. Even considering the rope, it is only there in order to alloy for further engagement with the activity of climbing, however as fully explicated structural account would require a much longer in-depth analysis, I will instead show how the reverse is also possible, i.e. media algorithms which resist autonomous engagement.

Algorithmic Structures and the Loss of Autonomy

Using TikTok as an example of media that is structured un-autonomously. TikTok themselves give a somewhat concrete account of how their algorithms work. Here the “For You Feed”, is prompted to show you videos in such a way that correspond with 3 points, which are

For as TikTok mentions, the algorithm is created for the following goal:

“Ultimately, your For You feed is powered by your feedback: the system is designed to continuously improve, correct, and learn from your own engagement with the platform to produce personalized recommendations that we hope inspire creativity and bring joy with every refresh of your For You feed.” (TikTok, 2020).

Notice how the autonomous structure from Nguyens account is inverted. Where Nguyen had taken on certain goals in his striving play, goals that follow certain laws that spring forth from the climbing wall, the TikTok algorithm is opposite. Here there is no possibility of setting up an a priori synthetic goal in order to further engage with an activity. This is because, the feedback loop, coerces every video to become a tool to stimulate self-affirmation, while also further reinforcing the feedback loop. Even though the TikTok developers allegedly hope for creativity, I doubt this is possible for the engagers. For with creativity, as previously mentioned, certain restrictions need to be respected, i.e. you need to be able to not only engage autonomously, but also respect the autonomy of the activity which you are engaging in. However, for the users of TikTok, the algorithms rid the users of such hardships, such as setting goals, and instead gives them a constant flow of satisfying videos, which like the aesthete, are parts of the world which are treated not respectfully or justly, bus as means to an end. And even if users were to set inherent goals, such as limiting their screen time or seeking out specific types of content, these goals would still be subsumed under the logic of the algorithm, which continuous- ly adapts and reorients their engagement towards self-affirmation. Thus, the possibility of autonomous engagement is undermined at a structural level, as the activity itself no longer resists the subject, but instead conforms to it. In this way, the algorithmic structure not only prevents resonance in Rosa’s sense but actively reproduces the kind of alienated, self-referential relation that Jaeggi seeks to diagnose.

7. Conclusion

Despite several underdeveloped aspects of this paper; such as the precise definition of autonomy, including whether it involves the historicity of the material, the exact relationship between autonomy and resonance, and, lastly, a fully worked-out account of autonomy in activities. I believe that this paper has identified a central limitation in focusing on how we relate to the world. Instead, I have argued for a perspective that incorporates the structure of that which we engage with, where what distinguishes different activities is not their content in an essentialist sense, but their structure, i.e., whether they, by virtue of their autonomy, allow for a relation in which the world can appear as something other than a reflection of the self.

I believe that, if we are to further combat alienation in the future, it is not enough to change our way of relating; what appears to us in the world must also be structured justly, in accordance with its own inherent laws, so that it may appear as something genuinely other. A climbing wall should not be structured to encourage reliance on the rope, and a puzzle should not be structured in such a way that one is rewarded for looking up the answer, for that would undermine the autonomy of both the puzzle and the climbing wall and reduce the possibility of a resonant experience or autonomous engagement.

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