Thorstein Veblen：The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 156

The professed grounds on which it has been sought, as far as might be, to maintain the received standards and methods of culture intact are likewise characteristic of the archaic temperament and of the leisure-class theory of life. The enjoyment and the bent derived from habitual contemplation of the life, ideals, speculations, and methods of consuming time and goods, in vogue among the leisure class of classical antiquity, for instance, is felt to be "higher", "nobler", "worthier", than what results in these respects from a like familiarity with the everyday life and the knowledge and aspirations of commonplace humanity in a modern community, that learning the content of which is an unmitigated knowledge of latter-day men and things is by comparison "lower", "base", "ignoble"--one even hears the epithet "sub-human" applied to this matter-of-fact knowledge of mankind and of everyday life.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/833
Locator：Excerpt 156 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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