The Denigration of Play:

"the denigration of play as a waste of time, as idleness, as triviality, and as frivolity."

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"Work is obligatory, sober, serious, and not fun, and play is the opposite of these. This distinction, while influenced by Protestant religion, derives its major impetus from the urban industrial view of time and work. In the Middle Ages in Europe, the temporal organization of the calendar was still largely agricultural. Festival time fit the interstices of agricultural time. There were as many festivals then (sacred, profane, or both) as there are weekends now (Endrei and Zolnay, 1986). With the growth of urban life, these miscellaneous intrusions on the work week became intolerable. Historically the festival play cycle was the enemy of the organized factory work week. So when play is opposed to work and is said to be optional, fun, nonserious, and nonproductive, this can be from the point of view of factory work and other forms of economic discipline. Play is obviously very serious to its participants; they strive very earnestly and with great effort at their play and sports, and their efforts produce important personal and social outcomes that cannot be gotten easily in any other way. In addition, there are many societies in which play is an integral part of religious and work ceremonies; where the duality of work versus play, so often taken for granted in Western eyes, is simply not valid (Lancy and Tindall, 1976)."