Under the section “The Little King’s Paradise: A Promise Unfulfilled” from chapter “The Grail Quest or the Bourgeois nest?” in the book “Zen and the art of living” by Laurence G.Boldt:
“About the time the Industrial Revolution was really getting into gear, political revolutions were everywhere replacing kings with parliaments, presidents and promises. The key promise was that the common man would one day soon be king. He would possess for his own the kingly prerogatives of power, leisure, and security…
No doubt kingly life (at least that of the better kings) was more than power, leisure, and security, but these were what we coveted. Duty, responsibility, wisdom, honor, courage, magnanimity– these kingly virtues might be admired in passing, but they were not envied like others…We would be kings and take for ourselves as much power, leisure, and security as we thought we deserved and could get away with..
(today) We cling to the hope that, if not by the miracles of science, then perhaps by the miracle of the credit card, we can live the life of kings. Increasingly, leisure has become associated, not with rest, refinement, or a contemplative life – but with consumption. Leisure, which we get from the Latin licere, “to be permitted” has come to mean permission to consume as much as we want, without consideration for others or the environment..
By now many realize that the promise was empty indeed. We were promised that we would be little kings, and yet it seems we have so little control over the direction of our lives. The little king is a prisoner of his own “freedom” – from responsibility and conscience. He is free to fit in – not free to live his own life….
To be obsessed with control, yet unable to direct his own life, to consume without satisfaction, to seek security in isolating conformity – such is the lot of the little king – such, his ‘freedom’…”
