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According to Riesman, Freud's ascetic, rationalistic dichotomy between work and play belongs to the work morality of nineteenth century Europe, to the period antedating the industrial revolution with its shortening of labor and expanding of leisure horizons. However, a refreshing aspect of Freud's thought is that he never adopted the notion that work and play must alike be fun—a notion which forces upper middle-class American men to merge the spheres of work and play, often without advantage to either. In their long tradition of the driving and driven men who created Western industrial society, Americans have substituted fun morality for work morality which makes it difficult to admit that one is tired; one has not done enough to deserve it, so that under the guise of fun and play, we remain today almost as truly ascetic as Freud. Since many Americans are excluded from meaningful work—are not free to work—they are also not free to play.
Riesman feels that it is now time for analysts and other social scientists to pay more attention to play, to study the blockages in play as they have been studied in work and sexuality, at the same time being aware of the elusiveness and privacy that are its main defenses. We should search for a new integration of work and play which would allow more work in work, more play in play, and thus would be superior to the freudian dichotomies.