Stuart Whatley in The Hedgehog Review:
To most people today, the notion of a leisure ethic will sound foreign, paradoxical, and indeed subversive, even though leisure is still commonly associated with the good life. More than any other society in the past, ours certainly has the technology and the wealth to furnish more people with greater freedom over more of their time. Yet because we lack a shared leisure ethic, we have not availed ourselves of that option. Nor does it occur to us even to demand or strive for such a dispensation.
One reason for this is that the values and culture that created our current abundance may be incompatible with actually enjoying it. Sparta had the same problem.
More here.