The article argues that the failure to use the word 'holiday' in electronic communication suggests not only a social but also an intellectual degradation and ultimately a breach of the civil society compact as underpinned by the United Nations

Ressel, James

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This work has been submitted to NECTAR, the Northampton ElectronicCollection of Theses and Research.ArticleTitle: 'I am on annual leave': why being on holiday is tabooCreator: Ressel, J.Example citation: Ressel, J. (2014) 'I am on annual leave': why being on holidayis taboo. Law, Culture & Ideas Blog. 20/10/2014Version: Published versionOfficial URL: https://lawcultureblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/i-am-on-annual-leave-why-being-on-holiday-is-taboo/Note:This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0Unported License.http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/7054/NECTAR‘I am on annual leave’: Why being on holiday is taboo.Posted on 20/10/2014The use of the  word ‘holiday’ in any work relatedelectronic communication appears to have become taboo.Why might this have occurred?From our reading of Freud we know that a taboo signifiessomething sacred and yet at the same time something dangerous’and ‘uncanny’ – reflecting the exhilaration, giddiness of speed offairground circularity – the childish joy in the visceral irrationalbut inevitable motion of the wheel.In Totem and Taboo Freud wrote that “For us the meaning oftaboo branches off into two opposite directions. On the one handit means to us sacred, consecrated: but on the other hand itmeans, uncanny, dangerous, forbidden, and unclean. The oppositefor taboo is designated in Polynesian by the word noa and signifies something ordinary and generallyaccessible. Thus something like the concept of reserve inheres in taboo; taboo expresses itself essentially inprohibitions and restrictions. Our combination of ‘holy dread’ would often express the meaning of taboo.”[1].The question arises as to why we harbour a ‘holy dread’ (as Freud would say) of the word ‘haligdæg’ – or inmodern English ‘holiday‘ – surely it cannot be for any half-remembered vestigial sense of the sacred – or, moreworryingly, in our logical, machine and technology determined societyhave we become so anxious about our sense of the ordinary, theaccessible sense of words that we have consigned ‘holiday’ to theoubliette?At some time or other, we have all received numerous automated e-mail responses from our variouscorrespondents informing us (or more accurately their machine informs,irrespective of the claimed truth of the alleged fact, has been configuredto ‘say’) that they are on ‘annual leave’ and accordingly our respondent isunable to reply to our enquiry instantly. Most automated machineresponses promise although often in vain, to reply as ‘soon as possible’following the respondent’s return from her period of ‘annual leave’.Furthermore, most of the machine messages, and assuming that the centrally programmed technology actuallyhas metaphorical, or even the real space, for the ordinary word ‘holiday’, will not quite simply and honestly saythat K is on holiday.Instead our technological systems appear externally (objectively) configured to deny the use of ordinary andplain senses of the words we use in human communication. Such colonising over-powering of our every-dayusage of language by the homogenising dictatorial tendencies of technology, is well illustrated by the case ofthe ordinary word ‘holiday’. The plain meaning of the word is made uncanny, dirty, dangerous and becomes aLaw, Culture & Ideastaboo.The technological coloniser denies the ordinary plain language and insists on elaborate obfuscatory statementsabout the human being on ‘annual leave’, promising unrealistic but flowery performance based and quasi-measurable promises about ‘access’ and response to electronic messages. This anti-noa promise of instantgratification by technology, and we all know that such technological promises are rarely fulfilled, suggest, as isargued here, that the word ‘holiday’ when used technologically has become a taboo word.But perhaps we can also see a political perspective underpinned by the dictatorship of technology. A briefreflection will tell us that ‘holiday’ designates a period of recreation, even a religious festival. Or as the story ofKaspar Hauser [2] suggests – the pure innocent soul driven by the spirit of self-sacrifice ends his life asdegraded criminal – so ‘holiday’ now ends its pure innocent life as a depraved ‘annual leave’ criminal.Yet thought the aperture of ‘holiday’ we may glimpse the possibility of becoming and not justescaping/transcending reality but actually confronting it at the moment of sacred madness.  The period ofsuspension of the relentlessness of the actuality of the ‘actual’ (technological) reality and its temporarysuspension by the consecrated in order to recuperate the human spirit.Perhaps to the chagrin of the free marketeers, (re)creation is not just an opportunity to enhance one’s financialindebtedness to a credit card, but is in fact an essential characteristic of human psyche and physiology – evena fundamental human right.As recently as June 2014 in its Human Rights Council Report to the United Nations of 26 June 2014 theSecretary General recognised that a space for civil society was, if perhaps not a condition, most certainly aglobal reflection of society’s respect for human rights.  In relation to the right to ‘civic space’ construed aspauses to reflect, object, moments of ‘recreation’ and time to go on holiday, the Secretary General said that: “…that space for civil society was a reflection of an entire society’s respect for human rights within its ownborders and around the globe.”[3]Accordingly, holiday time, or (re)creation, is a time for reflection and recuperation the setting aside of spaceand time for the human spirit to repair itself, is also a basic human right as the recognition of a space for thecivil society. Furthermore, ‘holiday’ is a personal sacred space for reflection.Finally, one could argue the reflexive process amounts to a ‘law of nature’ – in analogy with the way humanlaws are made. After all, for any legitimate ‘man-made’ law to be acceptable and considered sound demandsthat legal Bills are critiqued, debated and considered on at least four stages in their journey throughParliament. The important point is that the time between each stage in Parliament offers a period ofreflection, a ‘holiday’, a time for recuperation, before the Bill becomes the Law of the land binding all citizens.It is puzzling that the consecrated word ‘holiday’ has been excised from our lexicon and replaced by thetechnical words ‘annual leave’, and how is it that the word ‘holiday’ has become taboo.One possible explanation for the degradation of the word ‘holiday’, in the face of the strong recommendation ofUnited Nations that civil space, which I would suggest includes the idea and practice of ‘holiday’, is asignificant feature, if not a condition, of global human rights, (as well as Kasper Hauser’s story) may indicate acondition of persistent and continuing reduction of civil relations to binary contractual obligations ofexchange, trade and the market serviced by technology.Thus the word ‘annual’ being a measure of time, signifies the legal obligation to  manufacture quantifiablemeasurable and timely ‘outputs’ for the economic benefit of a third-party to the obvious detriment of civilsociety and the well-being of  individual producer. And, ironically the gazelle-like nature of modern technologyseen as a rather unique ideo-politico-economic strand appears to be co-joined inexplicably by a rather old-fashioned notion of feudal violence. If this is so, we are left with images of invisible, irrational and yetoverwhelmingly irrational, undemocratic and socially disruptive forces.The phrase ‘leave’ suggests laissez oblige granted graciously by an indulgent but feudal employer at theirrational but extra-legal discretion to a loyal and obedient retainer, in contrast to the presumption of equalityand fairness and principles of humanness contained in the word ‘holiday’. In short, I seek to argue for the rapidrehabilitation of the word ‘holiday’ and its swift return to our general lexicon free of its econo-ideological cuffs.Notes[1] Sigmund Freud Totem and Taboo Project Gutenberg, trans: A. A. Brill, 28 October 2012 athttp://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41214[2] Peter Tradowski Kaspar Hauser oder das Ringen um den Geist Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach,Switzerland, 1980 Translated  John M Wood Kaspar Hauser. The Struggle for the Spirit, Temple LodgePublishing 1997.[3] United Nations, General Assembly, Human Rights Council, Annual report of the United Nations HighCommissioner for Human Rights.  A/HRC/27/33, 26 June 2014.  Available at A_HRC_27_33_ENG-1Suggested citation: J Ressel ‘I am on annual leave’: Why being on holiday is taboo.’  Law, Cult. & Ideas Blog(20 October 2014) (available at  https://lawcultureblog.wordpress.com/ ) Share this:Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MoreThis entry was posted in Human Rights Council, Totem and Taboo, Uncategorized, United Nations and tagged Freud, Human Rights Council Report of 26 June 2014,Kaspar Hauser, Peter Tradowski, Totem and Taboo, United Nations, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Bookmark the permalink.Law, Culture & Ideas    Reblog  LikeBe the f irst to like this.RelatedHuman rights, the law, common sense andthe question of freedom.Aysha King - Medical Treatment and thenotion of 'neglect'.Democracy and rule of law: The Hungariangoulash.In "Democracy" In "Children Act 1989" In "Charter of Fundamental Rights"The Twenty Ten Theme. Blog at WordPress.com.

'I am on annual leave': why being on holiday is taboo

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