The Theory of the Leisure Class · Chapter
The Belief in Luck explained
This chapter examines the belief in luck as an archaic trait inherited from the predatory culture, analyzing its role in the gambling propensity and its hindrance to modern industrial efficiency.
What happens
This chapter examines the belief in luck as an archaic trait inherited from the predatory culture, analyzing its role in the gambling propensity and its hindrance to modern industrial efficiency. It traces the evolution of this belief from an incipient animism to a more articulate faith in preternatural agency, linking it to the leisure class's sporting temperament and invidious comparison.
Themes in this chapter
Predatory vs. Peaceable Temperament
The gambling propensity and belief in luck are analyzed as traits of the predatory temperament, contrasting with the peaceable requirements of modern industrial efficiency.
Invidious Comparison
The desire to heighten one's ascendency through wagers and the emulative impulse behind betting are linked to invidious comparison.
Leisure Class and Exploit
The leisure class's sporting life and gambling habits are presented as expressions of the predatory exploit, hindering industrial productivity.
Characters to notice
- the master
The master's sporting temperament and gambling propensity are discussed as traits of the leisure class, reflecting the predatory culture's influence.
- servants
Servants are indirectly referenced as part of the system of status and vicarious leisure that supports the leisure class's habits.
Key passages
“The gambling propensity is another subsidiary trait of the barbarian temperament. It is a concomitant variation of character of almost universal prevalence among sporting men and among men given to warlike and emulative activities generally.”
The tendency to gamble is a common characteristic of the barbarian mindset, frequently found in sportsmen and those engaged in competitive or warlike pursuits.
This establishes the gambling propensity as a key trait of the predatory temperament.
“The belief in luck is a sense of fortuitous necessity in the sequence of phenomena.”
Belief in luck is the perception that events unfold with a kind of accidental inevitability.
This defines the core concept of luck as a form of animistic thinking.
“The two categories—the emulative habit of life and the habit of devout observances—are therefore to be taken as complementary elements of the barbarian type of human nature and of its modern barbarian variants.”
Both the competitive way of life and religious practices are complementary aspects of the barbarian character, persisting in modern forms.
This links the belief in luck to broader cultural patterns of invidious comparison and animism.