¹ I am grateful to Joel P. Okamoto for his suggestions and reflections on organizing this paper.

² Taylor, Charles, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Castoriadis, Cornelius, “Radical Imagination and the Social Instituting Imaginary” in The Castoriadis Reader, ed. Curtis, David Ames (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), pp. 319–337Google Scholar.

⁴ Ward, Graham, Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 163–164Google Scholar.

⁵ Pieper, Josef, Happiness and Contemplation, trans. Richard, and Winston, Clara (South Bend: St. Augustine's Press, Inc., 1998), p. 13Google Scholar.

⁶ The reader may be immediately struck by the narrow idea of contemplation alone as that for which man is created. However, this is not Pieper's view. Contemplation for Pieper, as for Thomas and Aristotle, in whose traditions he is following, is definitely aimed at something–the beatific vision. The contemplation of the divine is that end of our human pursuit of knowing of which Pieper speaks. From such contemplation, Pieper is able to conclude that contemplation of the divine “contains a whole philosophy of life, a basic conception of the nature of man and the meaning of human existence” (13). In such contemplation, man's desire to know is fulfilled in an ultimate sense, thus bringing ultimate happiness.

⁷ Pieper, Josef, Leisure, The Basis of Culture, trans. Malsbury, Gerald (South Bend: St. Augustine's Press, 1998), p. 42Google Scholar.

⁸ Happiness and Contemplation, p. 56.

⁹ See Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Parsons, Talcott (New York: Routledge, 2001)Google Scholar. For all the criticism of Weber's work, especially that it is too narrow an account or not necessarily accurate for contemporary usage, the idea of internalization of the religious ethic is reflective of the idea of the cultural imaginary as it will be discussed herein.

¹⁰ Much more could be said here on the idea of a “deathwork.” See for example, Reiff, Philip, My Life Among the Deathworks (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

¹¹ Stringfellow, William, Dissenter in a Great Society (New York: Holt, Reinhardt and Winston, 1966), p. 40Google Scholar.

¹² Ben Myers, comment on “William Stringfellow: A Special Offer,” Faith and Theology blog, comment posted March 7, 2009, http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2009/03/william-stringfellow-special-offer.html (accessed 21 May 2009).

¹³ Leisure, The Basis of Culture, p. 42, emphasis his.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 43.

¹⁵ Leisure, The Basis of Culture, pp. 31, 34.

¹⁶ Leisure, The Basis of Culture, p. 28.

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 29.

¹⁸ Leisure, The Basis of Culture, p. 28.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 29.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 64.

²¹ See Happiness and Contemplation, chapter 7; Josef Pieper, In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity, trans. Richard, and Clara Winston, (South Bend: St. Augustine's Press, 1999), p. 16Google Scholar.

²² It is important to note here, that Pieper points out that work, or productiveness, is presented in the Scriptures as a punishment. See In Tune with the World, p. 6.

²³ In Tune with the World, pp. 31–32.

²⁴ In Tune with the World, p. 7. Here Pieper is quick to point out that there is not merely a dichotomy between work and festival/worship/leisure, as if they were opposites. Certainly in festival/worship/leisure there is activity in the sense of free work, work that is done not for usefulness or practical end, but is meaningful in itself.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 9.

²⁶ To reiterate, vacations, time off, breaks—all of these only tend to play complicitly into the current system because they are defined by and over against the culture of total work, which Pieper is trying to overcome. For example, one of the newest buzzword concepts in the total work world is “weisure,” which is a blending of work and play to the extent that they cannot be totally separated. Play is simply being incorporated into work for the sake of more work. See Dalton Conley, Elsewhere, U.S.A. (New York: Pantheon Books, 2009).

²⁷ Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries, pp. 28–29.

²⁸ Ward, Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice, pp. 163–164. Emphasis mine.

²⁹ In Tune with the World, p. 19.

³⁰ Castoriadis notes, “[I]n any closed society, any ‘question’ which can be formulated at all in the language of this society must find its answer within the magma of the social imaginary significations of the society. This entails, in particular, that questions concerning the validity of the social institutions and significations cannot be posed. The exclusion of such questions is ensured by the position of a transcendent, extrasocial, source of institutions and significations, that is religion.” If this is so, how can we consider Pieper to be authentically challenging the cultural imaginary at all? The key is to note with Castoriadis that our society (Western society) is not closed. We have the ability to self-reflect. “And this,” he says, “is what allows us to take some distance from our own society, to talk about society and history in general, and to accept rational criticism of what we say in this or any other respect.” Hence the idea of “losing our religion”—religion as that which prevents us from self-reflection and challenging of the cultural imaginary from within–is legitimate. See Castoriadis, “Radical Imagination.”

³¹ Ward, Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice, p. 112.

³² Certeau, Michel de, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. xvii–xxii, 24–28, 34–39Google Scholar.

³³ Pieper, In Tune with the World, p. 3.

³⁴ Ward, Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice, p. 170.

³⁵ Ward, Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice, p. 171.

³⁶ MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue, 2^nd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 222Google Scholar. MacIntyre argues that a tradition is a living, socially embodied argument, and therefore conflict is unavoidable for a tradition is one standpoint in a world of standpoints. Ward argues similarly, citing Althusser: “The suffering of the contradictory…pertains to all standpoint-projects. Althusser observes that ‘contradiction is the motor of all development’ (For Marx, pg. 217).” Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice, p. 171, footnote 137.