The Theory of the Leisure Class · Chapter
X: Modern Survivals of Prowess explained
This chapter examines how the leisure class preserves and promotes predatory traits such as the martial spirit, sportsmanship, and the duel, contrasting these with the more peaceable temperament of the industrial classes.
What happens
This chapter examines how the leisure class preserves and promotes predatory traits such as the martial spirit, sportsmanship, and the duel, contrasting these with the more peaceable temperament of the industrial classes. It argues that the leisure class's selective sifting for pecuniary aptitudes and its archaic scheme of life conserve barbarian habits, while the common people show relative apathy toward war and aggression. The chapter also traces the development of predaceous temperament in children, noting gender differences.
Themes in this chapter
Predatory vs. Peaceable Temperament
The chapter contrasts the predatory, warlike temperament of the leisure class with the peaceable, industrial disposition of the common people, and discusses the survival of archaic predatory traits.
Leisure Class and Exploit
The leisure class is portrayed as conserving the ethos of exploit through war, sports, and the duel, which are honorific activities rooted in barbarian prowess.
Institutional Conservatism
The leisure class acts as a conservative force, preserving archaic habits and ideals from the predatory age, including the martial spirit and the institution of the duel.
Characters to notice
- the master
The leisure class, as the master class, is characterized by a hereditary endowment of martial spirit and predatory temperament, and its scheme of life conserves archaic barbarian traits.
- servants
The industrial classes, including servants, are described as relatively apathetic toward war and sports, with only occasional diversion rather than a serious sporting habit.
- the Lord
The hereditary leisure class, including lords, is noted for its higher degree of martial spirit and its role in preserving the institution of the duel.
- the priest
Not explicitly mentioned in this chapter; included as a placeholder for potential indirect reference to archaic institutions.
- the servant
The lower-class delinquents are mentioned as sharing the predatory temperament with the leisure class, but the servant class broadly is part of the industrial classes with less bellicose disposition.
Key passages
“The ulterior norm to which appeal is taken is the instinct of workmanship, which is an instinct more fundamental, of more ancient prescription, than the propensity to predatory emulation.”
The deeper standard invoked is the instinct of workmanship, a more basic and older drive than the tendency toward competitive aggression.
Veblen grounds his critique of predatory emulation in a primordial instinct of workmanship.
“War is honorable, and warlike prowess is eminently honorific in the eyes of the generality of men; and this admiration of warlike prowess is itself the best voucher of a predatory temperament in the admirer of war.”
Society generally regards war as honorable and martial skill as prestigious, and this admiration itself proves the predatory nature of those who glorify war.
Veblen links the honorific status of war to the survival of predatory temperament.
“The institution of the duel is also an expression of the same superior readiness for combat; and the duel is a leisure-class institution.”
The duel, as a practice, reflects the same heightened willingness to fight, and it is an institution specific to the leisure class.
The duel is presented as a modern survival of barbarian chivalry.