"Dancing in the Streets"

An interview with Barbara Ehrenreich about her new book:

Barbara Ehrenreich on the Importance of Collective Joy

We have never lost the capacity for collective joy. It's part of our nature. But if you look at how little we get to exercise it ... if we compare ourselves to the French in the 14th century, with Saint's Days and this huge calendar of festivities, we just don't do it very much, if at all.

This [lack of festivities] represents a triumph of the powerful, and their idea that you have to work all the time. This is a recent [development]. Historically, peasants worked when they had to, when they had to plant or harvest. When they didn't have to work, they worked on having a good time -- planning festivities, costumes, dance steps; great expressions of human creativity.