Li Mengyun, Li Mengqian: The Dimension of Leisure Time in Promoting Common Prosperity in Spiritual Life
The common prosperity of spiritual life is an indispensable and vital dimension of common prosperity. The report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC explicitly pointed out: "Chinese-path modernization is the modernization of material and cultural-ethical advancement in coordination. Material abundance and spiritual richness are fundamental requirements of socialist modernization." As we embark on the new journey and stage of comprehensively building a modern socialist power, we need spiritual support and ideological guidance more than ever. Promoting the common prosperity of spiritual life is not only a major systemic project in constructing a Chinese-path modernization of "common prosperity for all," but is also tied to the people's sense of gain and happiness. Theoretically researching how to better promote the common prosperity of spiritual life can gather stronger spiritual momentum to meet the people's ever-growing needs for a better life. Currently, the academic community has conducted extensive explorations into how dimensions such as "digital technology," "culture," and "ideological and political education" promote the common prosperity of spiritual life, providing a rich bibliographical reference for its theoretical interpretation and contributing to the scholarly construction of its further promotion. However, "for a nation to develop more freely in spiritual terms... they must first have time capable of being used for spiritual creation and spiritual enjoyment." In other words, the realization of common prosperity in spiritual life does not rely on exhausting vast amounts of time and energy in endless "involution" [1]; rather, it "requires every one of us to continue putting in industrious labor and arduous effort," while taking the rational possession, control, and utilization of free time as the prerequisite to stimulate the endogenous motivation of the people to become wealthy through hard work, providing a broader space of possibility for promoting the common prosperity of the people's spiritual life. Therefore, introducing the dimension of free time into the analysis of promoting the common prosperity of spiritual life—revealing the internal mechanism by which free time promotes such prosperity and analyzing the free-time dilemmas and social realities that constrain it—helps us explore the optimized path for free time to promote the common prosperity of spiritual life. This focuses our efforts on carrying forward the spirit of the times: "A happy life is achieved through struggle, and common prosperity must be created through industriousness and wisdom."
I. The Coupling Mechanism Between the Common Prosperity of Spiritual Life and Free Time
Grasping the contemporary connotation of the common prosperity of spiritual life is the basic prerequisite for researching the proposition of its promotion. The common prosperity of spiritual life refers to a state of spiritual abundance where, on the basis of possessing solid material wealth, people continuously pursue, create, and share spiritual resources to satisfy the multi-dimensional needs of the subject's spiritual world, ultimately realizing the unification of individual well-rounded development and the well-rounded development of all people. Within this, free time—defined as time not occupied by the direct production of the means of subsistence, available for free disposal, and required for the development of all members of society—is not only the standard measure for judging common prosperity but also fundamentally involves the issues of developing and liberating human beings. It constitutes the necessary prerequisite, realistic foundation, and source of momentum for the common prosperity of spiritual life, and possesses ultimate significance.
(1) The Contemporary Connotation of the Common Prosperity of Spiritual Life
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Common prosperity is the common prosperity of all people; it is the prosperity of both the material and spiritual lives of the masses." Since its proposal, "common prosperity of spiritual life" has triggered intense interest in the academic community. Scholars have defined its connotation from the perspectives of subjective positioning, constituent elements, and formation processes. They argue that the common prosperity of spiritual life is the unity of the enrichment of individual spiritual life and the high-spirited mental state of the entire nation; the unity of the richness of spiritual and cultural resources and the development of the subject's spiritual power; and the unity of persisting in the co-construction and sharing of high-quality spiritual resources with incremental development. Accordingly, drawing on the aforementioned scholarly views, one can consider that the scope of spiritual life includes multiple links such as "spiritual production, spiritual exchange, and spiritual enjoyment, covering various aspects such as politics, spirit, culture, science, and art, and involving different levels such as individual spiritual life, the overall spiritual life of society, and the spiritual life of the nation-state." The common prosperity of spiritual life is a theoretical interpretation of common prosperity from the perspective of spiritual life. It refers to the process by which all people, on the basis of their existing spiritual life, through the linked optimization of spiritual production, spiritual enjoyment, and spiritual exchange, create more high-quality spiritual and cultural products and provide more refined cultural venues, facilities, and services. It aims to coalesce a more powerful and self-confident spiritual force and achieve an increasingly positive spiritual state to ultimately satisfy the diverse spiritual needs of individuals, reach a spiritual atmosphere of social civilization and a spiritual level of national confidence and openness, and promote a beautiful social state that manifests human value and initially realizes the free and well-rounded development of human beings. A correct understanding of the contemporary connotation of the common prosperity of spiritual life can be grasped from the following aspects.
First, the common prosperity of spiritual life is the holistic spiritual state sought by essential human needs. Starting from the essential needs of human beings to grasp the rich connotation of spiritual life is an important prerequisite for understanding the core essence of the common prosperity of spiritual life. Marx once distinguished humans from animals through "labor," arguing that "man is distinguished from all other animals by the limitlessness and wide range of his needs," and pointed out that the essential difference between the two lies in the fact that humans possess spiritual thinking activities that constitute an important aspect of labor: "It is just because of this that man is a species-being. Or rather, he is a conscious being, i.e., his own life is an object for him, only because he is a species-being." People not only have natural and material needs but also need satisfaction in spiritual culture, entertainment, and psychology. Thus, human spiritual life, as a spiritual thinking activity unique to mankind, happens to corroborate the essence of human thinking and the general demand to satisfy the subject's essential needs. Based on this, the common prosperity of spiritual life can be understood as a holistic spiritual state where, on the basis of guaranteeing the common prosperity of material life and adhering to essential human needs, people continuously satisfy the diverse spiritual needs of the subject by creating and sharing spiritual and cultural products, ultimately realizing the improvement of the spiritual quality and aesthetic taste of all members of society.
Second, the common prosperity of spiritual life is the unity of the well-rounded development of social individuals and all people. Realizing the well-rounded development of the person is the value objective of the common prosperity of spiritual life. As General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Promoting common prosperity and promoting the well-rounded development of the person are highly unified." The well-rounded development of the person refers not only to the well-rounded development of every social individual but also to the well-rounded development of all people in society. Among these, the common prosperity of an individual's spiritual life includes the improvement and development of people in terms of personality, ability, and quality; it is an expression of the diversity and profundity of subjective needs and the transcendence of the meaning of subjective existence. However, since "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all," the ultimate goal of the common prosperity of spiritual life is to achieve the well-rounded development of all people in society. This is reflected not only in the continuous enhancement of the sense of happiness and gain among all social members, but also signifies a positive and upward social mental outlook, harmonious and abundant spiritual exchange, and a significant improvement in the quality of spiritual life.
Third, the common prosperity of spiritual life is the contemporary response to the people's realization of a better life. Currently, "the people's needs for a better life are increasingly broad. Not only have their requirements for material and cultural life grown, but their demands for democracy, rule of law, fairness, justice, security, and the environment are also increasing." Satisfying the subject's spiritual needs has gradually constituted a basic dimension of a better life in the New Era. The common prosperity of spiritual life emphasizes the unity of "quality" and "quantity" in spiritual life. It emphasizes nourishing the people by producing high-quality and abundant spiritual and cultural products to continuously meet their multi-dimensional spiritual and cultural needs; guaranteeing that members of society fully enjoy spiritual resources to elevate their moral, aesthetic, and intellectual spiritual realms; and stimulating people's enthusiasm by regulating spiritual exchange relationships across different cultural circles to enhance the subject's sense of gain and belonging. This gathers spiritual momentum for the people to realize a better life, prompting them to work continuously toward the co-construction and sharing of a better life with the posture of a community that does not fear hardships and works with one heart and mind.
(2) An Interpretation of the Essence of Free Time
Time is an important manifestation of human existence and development. Marx once divided human life activities into two temporal elements: labor time and free time. For a long time, labor time occupied the vast majority of human life and was the primary temporal element. However, with the rapid development of social productive forces and the great enrichment of material wealth, free time has gradually gained greater weight and has become the necessary foundation for human liberation. So-called free time is time not occupied by the direct production of the means of subsistence, available for free disposal, and required for the development of all members of society. It can promote the comprehensive return of the human essence, realize the well-rounded development of the person, and construct a better life for human beings.
First, free time is a key dimension for facilitating the return of the human essence. Marx once pointed out through the historical activities of human society: "Man is in the most literal sense a zoon politikon [political animal], not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society." As the "sum of all social relations," a human being can only manifest their essence in connection with human needs. In Marx's view, human needs are multi-layered and constantly changing; humans must eat, drink, and have shelter before they can engage in political life and artistic creation. When people's lower-level needs are met, they begin to pursue higher-level needs, and this pursuit of higher-level needs causes people to turn more time toward higher-level spiritual pursuits. As Marx said: "This realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases... The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite." The "shortening of the working-day" here refers to the increase in free time. The increase in free time, in its essence, can promote human development and a return to the human self. People thereby obtain more abundant disposable time to cultivate personal hobbies and display their talents. Every member of society finds their true self in sufficient free time and becomes their own master, so that the development of human abilities is no longer subordinated to other purposes but becomes an end in itself—that is, the return of the human essence.
Second, free time is an important condition for realizing the well-rounded development of the person. As a consistent value interest and fundamental point of Marxism, the well-rounded development of the person is the constant pursuit of socialism with Chinese characteristics rooted in "the person." Realizing the well-rounded development of the person depends on the possession of free time by social members. An increase in free time grants social members more autonomy and decision-making power, and their intellectual level and spiritual realm subsequently improve. However, as far as human society as a whole is concerned, "the process of social development by no means lies in the fact that because one person has satisfied his urgent needs, he therefore creates his surplus." If social progress relies on one part of the population investing more time and shouldering doubled labor to create more free time for another part of the population, then this development is contrary to human nature and detrimental to social progress. Thus, "whether society has time to achieve development in accordance with human nature depends on time." To a certain extent, an increase in free time improves the quality of social members. When they have enough time and space to give full play to their personal talents, these talents are transformed into the greatest productive forces which react upon society, promptly realizing the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. In the realm of freedom, established upon the shortening of the working day and the termination of labor with external goals, social development accords with human nature, everyone enjoys abundant material resources and free time, and "the development of human powers as an end in itself" is realized; people then gradually achieve well-rounded development.
Third, free time is the internal driving force for constructing a better life for humans. In the Marxist vision, the human being is a spiritual, natural, and social being—a complete existence. A better life for humans requires both a certain amount of labor time to produce material wealth and the possession of available...
"Self-disposable free time" acts as an organic unity of material and spiritual life. Through the utilization of free time, individuals gradually transcend the realm of pure material production, break free from various fixed and forced forms of labor, and attempt to experience diverse lifestyles through different roles and identities, exploring entirely new horizons of existence. At this point, people are no longer trapped within "a narrow sphere and an isolated location"; [2] rather, under unrestricted conditions, they explore and realize all latent possibilities within life. As Marx pointed out, free time makes it "possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind," [3] enabling various states of life to shift from monotonous to vivid, from one-sided to all-round, and from impoverished to abundant, ultimately becoming a three-dimensional existence with multiple facets. It is evident that free time not only stimulates the infinite creative passion and striving vitality of social members—allowing them to enrich the self and obtain immense spiritual satisfaction in the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty—but also expands "the world of wealth they have created," providing a continuous internal driving force for the realization of a better life.
(3) The Intrinsic Link Between Common Prosperity in Spiritual Life and Free Time
Marx once noted: "The development of all human powers, insofar as it transcends the development required by the direct needs of man's natural existence, is nothing but the use of this free time, and the prerequisite for the entire development of mankind is to take this free time as the necessary basis." On the new journey of solidly advancing common prosperity in spiritual life, the value of free time is particularly prominent in enriching the people's spiritual life, especially in meeting their spiritual needs, implementing the full enjoyment of spiritual resources, and achieving deep-level interaction in spiritual social intercourse. It is precisely under the guidance of Marx's thoughts on free time that the various elements for promoting common prosperity in spiritual life are continuously activated, revealing the intrinsic link between the two.
First, free time is a necessary prerequisite for satisfying the "multidimensional needs" of the spiritual world. Promoting common prosperity in spiritual life is a process of "enriching the people's spiritual world, enhancing their spiritual strength, and meeting their spiritual needs." As the necessary prerequisite for realizing common prosperity in spiritual life, free time is the optimal dynamic for boosting spiritual production to meet people's "multidimensional needs." Marx once shifted the question of freedom in spiritual production to the temporal dimension, arguing that "the less time the society requires to produce wheat, cattle, and so forth, the more time it wins for other production, material or spiritual." Only by continuously improving the level of productive forces and increasing the proportion of free time by saving labor time can the transition from the "realm of necessity" to the flourishing "realm of freedom" [4] be facilitated. Focusing on reality, with the popularization and application of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the degree of intelligence in human society continues to improve. New quality productive forces, based on disruptive frontier technologies that spawn new industries, new momentum, and new models, have achieved rapid development, creating favorable objective conditions for free time. Projects that previously required hundreds or thousands of people on a production line can now be completed more accurately and efficiently by just a few intelligent machines. This means that new quality productive forces, by integrating frontier technologies such as AI, greatly enhance social labor productivity, compress people’s necessary labor time, liberate them from heavy labor, and increase the space for people to possess free time. When people possess more free time, they can participate in more social activities, train in various skills, and receive high-quality education. This helps individuals find self-worth and clarify self-awareness in the practice of developing themselves, fundamentally satisfying higher and deeper-level needs for meaning, ultimately achieving the ultimate goal of spiritual production: the all-round development of the individual.
Second, free time is the realistic basis for implementing the "full enjoyment" of spiritual resources. In the process of moving toward common prosperity in spiritual life, the masses are always the creators and enjoyers of spiritual resources. The implementation of co-building and sharing spiritual life involves the rational distribution of high-quality spiritual and cultural products, striving to realize the popularization and democratization of spiritual wealth, thereby promoting the improvement of social members' spiritual and cultural literacy. Within this, one question must be considered: do people possess a basic guarantee of time and the right to dispose of free time during the process of creating and enjoying spiritual resources? In real life, although the law stipulates working hours and grants the right to leave, various "overtime modes" remain prevalent due to differences in industrial structures and labor sectors. It is difficult for people to enjoy free time equally and fully, and consequently, their spiritual life loses its foundational guarantee of time. Therefore, only when every member of society disposes of their time correctly and rationally, and truly enjoys free time for full development, can they "obtain means of subsistence, means of enjoyment, and means for the development and exercise of all physical and intellectual powers in an equal and increasingly abundant manner." Only then can spiritual resources be implemented more extensively and fairly for all social members, continuously consolidating the spiritual conditions of the people’s happy life and ultimately promoting common prosperity in spiritual life.
Third, free time is the source of momentum for achieving "deep-level interaction" in spiritual social intercourse. As a direct product of people’s material actions, spiritual social intercourse is a two-way practical activity of human consciousness and a vital link in achieving common prosperity in spiritual life. Through deep-level spiritual social intercourse, people satisfy each other's spiritual needs and gain a comprehensive understanding of themselves and others, thereby achieving an enriched spiritual life. However, this deep-level interaction is not spontaneous; it requires a harmonious social atmosphere and sufficient time and energy. In contemporary society, as material living conditions improve, people often have more time and energy to participate in various ideological exchanges and social activities to pursue a diverse spiritual life. Especially in the era of digital intelligence, the content and form of spiritual social intercourse present a state of "human-machine" harmony. The effective integration of intelligent algorithms directly shortens the time gap in data acquisition and information production, creating more immersive time for social members' spiritual activities and opening up space for people's free activities and development. It is evident that free time, to a certain extent, helps people engage in more meaningful spiritual social activities, escape the "invisible anxiety" brought by work, and truly "immerse themselves in the real world to hear, see, and meditate," thereby interacting harmoniously with themselves, social groups, and the entire world, extending the depth of the human spiritual world.
II. The Dilemmas of Free Time Restricting Common Prosperity in Spiritual Life
As an important condition for the all-round development of the individual and an internal driving force for realizing a better life, the significance of free time has become increasingly prominent in the current construction of common prosperity in spiritual life. However, the alienation of time under the logic of capital causes the spiritual needs of subjects to shrink; the squeeze on time during technological innovation leads to an insufficient enjoyment of spiritual resources; and the wasting of time through "entertainment-above-all-else" causes spiritual social intercourse to remain superficial. These issues pose numerous obstacles and challenges to the advancement of common prosperity in spiritual life.
(1) Time alienation under the logic of capital leads to the continuous shrinking of the subject’s spiritual needs
Objectively speaking, with the continuous improvement of human material productive forces, the necessary labor time required to maintain daily life has been effectively shortened, while the free time used for spiritual production and satisfying individual spiritual needs is gradually increasing. However, regarding the deductive process of the logic of capital, free time is not a foundation for achieving human spiritual abundance, but a prerequisite for the appreciation of capital. Under the discipline of the logic of capital, traditional labor time is continuously deconstructed; instead, the laborer's time is incorporated into the system of value appreciation through a more hidden and flexible mode of operation, achieving comprehensive control and erosion of the laborer's free time. This power of capital, while concealed, is exceptionally strict. Especially in the process of spiritual production, if the logic of capital occupies people's free time, the rich meaning of the subject's spiritual needs will also be continuously dissipated. To seek survival, spiritual producers are forced to "convert their entire lifetime into labor-time for the purpose of appreciating the value of capital." All spiritual production activities carried out do not correspond to the essence of human inner needs; essentially, they merely manifest as a means of resisting oppression and pursuing survival.
In the current era of increasingly developed digital technology, the social subject's demand for "necessities of life" has expanded from basic material resources (food, water) to electronic products (computers, mobile phones). These devices are not only the primary media for entertainment and communication but also important tools for labor. "Everyone is like a labor camp, carrying their workstation with them at all times and places"; they can "take orders" and be "on standby" anytime and anywhere, actively creating content that can be commodified. Even the traces and habits of people browsing the web in their leisure time can be captured by ubiquitous monitoring programs, which are used to precisely outline a "dynamic profile" of the audience, placing all the activity space of the subject under the hidden control of capital. The power of capital is adept at continuously attracting users' attention with more open and diversified digital services, using emotional, personalized, and visualized digital landscapes such as videos and live broadcasts to capture users, incessantly encroaching upon people's living time. Then, through various means such as symbolic coding and procedural manipulation, it excessively stimulates people's sensory desires, causing the subject's spiritual life to gradually slide into the abyss of being "led by the nose." This content, "selected" through capital and instilled in users, is often mixed with consumerism, value nihilism, and other low-quality, vulgar concepts, while high-quality spiritual and cultural content—that which can truly enlighten the soul and possesses a critical spirit—is gradually ignored. Over time, people's spiritual life becomes instrumentalized and carnal; it seems that spiritual pleasure can only be obtained by wandering through an endless stream of consumption activities. The spiritual needs of the subject begin to shrink, constantly hovering between illusory material desires and superficial psychological satisfaction. Spiritual pursuit is one-sidedly limited to the scope of material possession, leading to the entire sensory experience being bound by the satisfaction of material needs, as if the individual has degraded into a desire-driven existence devoid of personality.
(2) The squeeze on time during technological innovation leads to insufficient enjoyment of spiritual resources by the subject
The acquisition of spiritual resources is a vital path to ensuring that people fully enjoy the spiritual and cultural wealth of the New Era, and it is an essential component of achieving common prosperity in spiritual life. It requires not only the support of material conditions but also the guarantee of free time. With the evolution and innovation of digital technology, the structure of human time has undergone new changes. In terms of the "quantity" of time, although technological innovation theoretically facilitates an increase in labor productivity—greatly shortening the time for producing labor products, vastly increasing free time, and providing laborers with more job choices—in reality, the development of digital technology has instead triggered a state of gapless work for people. The emergence of new employment models such as the "digital gig economy" and the unfolding of digital production methods are changing traditional boundaries of time, forcing all spheres of people's lives to be integrated into productive labor. For instance, the popularization of mobile office software like WeCom and DingTalk has completely broken the natural barrier between working and non-working time. The blurring of the boundary between work and life has directly led to a reduction in the quantity of free time. According to relevant statistics, the proportion of urban youth whose average weekly working hours exceed 41 hours has grown to 53.8%. Overtime modes such as "996" and "007" [5] in internet companies have even become the norm. In such a state of long-duration and high-intensity work, people easily fall into a state of physical and mental exhaustion, lacking the strength to heal themselves; consequently, their quality of life and physical health suffer. Various mental illnesses, such as depression, borderline personality disorder, and fatigue syndrome, dominate the disease patterns of the 21st century. Some workers, due to being in a state of severe fatigue for long periods, have even appeared in recurring social news reports concerning "death from overwork" (karoshi). People subjected to long-term excessive labor overtime not only feel mentally and physically exhausted by their work but also have no time to acquire and enjoy the spiritual and cultural resources that lead people toward spiritual elevation and the purification of the soul.
From the perspective of time...
From a "qualitative" perspective, the accelerating development of digital technology has made it difficult for people to better plan their use of time. It is extremely easy to fall into mental states of emptiness, anxiety, and frantic busyness. People are keen to regard a "filled life" as a beautiful life worth pursuing, taking the utilization of time to acquire all possible resources as their goal of action. This irrational pursuit has deeply mired people in the vortex of involution [6] formed by competition. The "involutionary competition" in certain industries does not aim at the pursuit of human happiness; rather, it forcibly drags people into a systemic operation of temporal acceleration. As people’s free time is squeezed more and more, and disposable time resources become increasingly scarce, their sense of temporal urgency grows more intense. This imperceptibly instills the erroneous concepts of "involution" and "self-attrition," causing people to be "plagued by 'time famine,' 'time poverty,' and 'time encroachment,'" thereby becoming willing "spinning tops" that never stop. Under the heavy pressures of work, life, and competition, labor is prioritized over the pursuit of spiritual resources that are conducive to well-rounded human development and personal aesthetic tastes. It is evident that when people exist within an involutionary environment and face endless pressure, leisure becomes a luxury. The constant reduction of disposable and exploitable free time leads people to neglect the spiritual need for free development inherent in being human. They have no heart to seek out the poetic, no heart to participate in high-quality spiritual and cultural production and life, and even less heart to enjoy personalized and diverse spiritual resources. The insufficient enjoyment of spiritual resources by the subject has become a pervasive social phenomenon, further obstructing the smooth advancement of common prosperity in spiritual life.
(3) The waste of time through "entertainment-ism" results in scholarly and spiritual interaction remaining at a superficial level.
When analyzing spiritual interaction, Marx emphasized: "The worker must have time to satisfy his intellectual and social needs, the range and number of which are determined by the general state of culture." It is precisely because of "having time" that workers can enrich their spiritual lives through deep spiritual interaction. However, under the shroud of pan-entertainment-ism, people have debased the meaning of free time into the pursuit and worship of symbols and objects. In an atmosphere where entertainment is paramount, the use of free time turns into meaningless idling and waste. In the chase for "traffic" [7] and stimulation, people directly ignore the passage of time, gradually falling into the indulgence and revelry of pan-entertainment-ism. Particularly under the influence of concepts such as "lying flat" [8] culture and hedonism, people in their leisure hours either immerse themselves in "low-brow" entertainment activities or lose themselves in "impulse" shopping on internet e-commerce platforms. This causes the free time they ought to have to appear in a fragmented state; the process of spiritual interaction is also split into increasingly short, one-off plans by complex and diverse information, remaining mostly in a state of social interaction that lacks depth and durability. Furthermore, free time seems to have been transformed into "consumption time," and the activities people perform during their free time appear to be framed within false consumption activities. On the surface, people can carry out various entertainment and consumption activities according to their free will, but to a certain extent, this "need" is generated along with the expansion of false desires. For example, digital entertainment platforms or online games in modern society are constructed from virtual symbols or virtual spectacles. Fundamentally, these symbols and spectacles represent the filling of free time by consumer culture and consumer psychology, causing people to neglect genuine spiritual pursuits and remain forever within superficial spiritual interaction.
Although Marx included leisure time within the scope of free time, true free development is not a state of aimless looseness or an entertainment-centric carnival. The kingdom of entertainment, filled with utilitarianism and egoism, hides the true spiritual world of the people. Characterized by the supremacy of entertainment, people enjoy a momentary pleasure detached from social discipline within rituals of fresh and noisy sensations. However, this entertainment carnival is not a deep spiritual interaction or inner growth, but a sensory pleasure floating on the surface. The value of a beautiful life for humans diminishes rapidly as spiritual pursuits are self-debased; the personalized logic of subject development is replaced by the traffic logic of entertainment and utilitarianism. Genuine differences among social members are weakened, which in turn dilutes sincerity and emotional depth in spiritual interaction. Consequently, the use of free time in an atmosphere of "entertainment-ism" becomes a meaningless passing of time, dissolving the labor and social attributes of spiritual producers. After a brief period of playfulness, people will once again fall into a spiritual void of superficial thought, and it becomes difficult for individuals to enjoy true spiritual joy in the process of spiritual interaction.
III. The Practical Logic of Promoting Common Prosperity in Spiritual Life Through Free Time
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that we must "promote common prosperity in the spiritual life of the people... and constantly satisfy the diverse, multi-level, and multi-faceted spiritual and cultural needs of the masses." On the new journey of the New Era, promoting the improvement of quality and efficiency in spiritual production, the comprehensive enjoyment of spiritual resources, and the widespread and profound nature of spiritual interaction requires more than just a full recognition of the value of free time and the redirection of artificial intelligence's positive effects to grant the masses more free time. It also requires a balanced grasp of free time, achieving a unity between mastering time and utilizing time. Ultimately, this will guide people to internalize free time within themselves in the process of promoting common prosperity in spiritual life, stimulating the subject's infinite creative passion to create a new beautiful life through labor and struggle.
(1) Utilizing the positive effects of artificial intelligence to promote human labor liberation and drive improvements in spiritual production quality and efficiency.
When discussing the contemporary value of artificial intelligence, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Artificial intelligence is a strategic technology leading this round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, exerting a strong 'bellwether' effect." From its inception, artificial intelligence was intended to replace human labor and help humans complete many tasks beyond their reach, liberating people from the constraints of social production, management, and domestic labor. It has provided the technical preparation for people to obtain more free time to achieve free and well-rounded development, revealing the glorious possibility of achieving labor liberation for humanity. However, while machine production is inherently conducive to human liberation, once it is incorporated into the orbit of capital, it creates many paradoxical problems. In essence, artificial intelligence can only be a necessary technical foundation for acquiring free time. Only by exerting its positive effects can the liberation of human labor truly be realized, thereby driving the improvement of quality and efficiency in spiritual production.
On the one hand, human society must actively use emerging technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and generative AI to build high ground for spiritual civilization. In the process of realizing common prosperity in spiritual life, spiritual production is the primary link in satisfying the needs for a beautiful life. To "meet the people’s new expectations for a beautiful life, we must provide rich spiritual food." Therefore, we must correctly utilize artificial intelligence to "integrate scientific and technological innovation resources, lead the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, and accelerate the formation of new quality productive forces." New quality productive forces are advanced productive forces covering all fields; the new modes of production they contain will help form new relations of production oriented toward common prosperity. Through technological innovation and its application, new quality productive forces can further promote the transformation and upgrading of industrial structures, encouraging intelligent production to save humans a great deal of physical and mental labor. This allows for the acquisition of more free time to engage in spiritual production activities such as scientific research and artistic creation. Meanwhile, relevant departments should, under the development and application of AI, always adhere to the basic orientation of providing high-capacity, high-quality cultural services and supply, creating spiritual and cultural products with rich ideological connotations. They should achieve spiritual empowerment by improving cultural undertakings that reflect the voice of the times, the soul of the people, and the beauty of life. They should promote the flourishing of the cultural market by building a modern cultural industry system based mainly on digital publishing and network audio-visual media. Finally, they should foster a social atmosphere of "emulating the virtuous and honoring the worthy" [9], constantly improving people's ability and willingness to consciously resist unhealthy social trends, ultimately enriching the daily spiritual life of the people through high-efficiency, high-quality spiritual production.
On the other hand, we must insist on a human-centered logic to dominate the development of artificial intelligence, stimulating as much active labor time as possible to achieve true "free labor." Currently, although China possesses a relatively rich material foundation and sound institutional guarantees, creating high-quality spiritual products to satisfy the needs of a beautiful human life still fundamentally depends on labor and the collective creation of social members. "Labor is the manifestation of free life, and therefore the joy of life." On the basis of artificial intelligence creating a large amount of free time for social members, we must always "promote the spirit of achieving prosperity through hard work, encouraging people to create a beautiful life through labor," rejecting the "lying flat" mentality, advocating for the happiness of labor, and encouraging "achieving prosperity through industriousness and innovation." In this process, it is necessary to prevent the capitalization of artificial intelligence and focus on guiding AI and other technological tools toward directions that guarantee and improve people's livelihoods and create a beautiful life. While exerting instrumental rationality, we must place greater emphasis on the guidance of value rationality. By establishing and improving the social security system, all eligible laborers with the ability to work should be included, enabling them to engage in various forms of personalized and creative labor within their capacity, overcoming the one-sided pursuit of material conditions such as labor efficiency and profit. In true free time, labor is not merely a means for people to create material wealth, but a process of realizing the essence of human life and searching for spiritual value. Labor becomes the "first necessity of life," where people can achieve self-improvement and self-confirmation, elevating their spiritual realm through labor identity and transforming all imagination, aesthetics, and insights into spiritual products. Furthermore, wealth is no longer measured by labor time, but by free time. Free time is no longer merely preparation for new labor, but lies in inspiring people to fully stimulate their potential as masters of their own destiny in the process of Chinese-path modernization.
(2) Expanding the space for human development through the moderate disposition of free time to promote the comprehensive enjoyment of spiritual resources.
Free time is a necessary prerequisite for leisure; without free time, there is no leisure. Historical materialism holds that leisure, as a moderate application of free time, is a human and purposeful activity. It is the active appropriation of human free time and free labor, and more importantly, the pursuit of the needs for a beautiful life. In China, with the continuous progress and development of society, the degree of freedom in people's activities has increased, and the demand for leisure time has grown. Leisure activities and leisure consumption have become important components of the daily lives of the masses. However, the phenomenon of "overwork" that still exists in contemporary society directly threatens people’s physiological and psychological health. Under these circumstances, how to guide the masses toward moderate labor, scientific disposition of free time, and a correct approach to leisure activities—thereby promoting the comprehensive enjoyment of spiritual resources and the harmonious coexistence of spiritual life among social members—has also become a major social issue.
First, multi-party coordination should guide social members to combine moderate labor with reasonable leisure, further expanding the space for human development. In today's society, whether...
Both "insufficient labor" and "excessive labor" are irrational. In the process of guiding social members toward a return to rationality, we should promote coordinated efforts among individuals, enterprises, and the government. From the perspective of the individual laborer, one must uphold the developmental philosophy that labor creates a beautiful life while avoiding "excessive labor." Laborers should not only feel the joy of labor and recognize its beauty—realizing their own value through hard work—but they must also advocate for scientific and moderate labor. They should consciously cultivate the ability to enjoy free time and leisure activities outside of work, using appropriate leisure to expand their subjective developmental space, thereby acquiring more comprehensive spiritual resources through meaningful engagement. However, the realization of free time must still seek possibilities within the actual existential predicaments of the working people at the current stage. For groups facing economic hardship, while the state further guarantees that "everyone has the opportunity to achieve self-development through hard work," public awareness must also be raised regarding "excessive labor" and its potential hazards to physical and mental health. This ensures that the broad masses of laborers realize that while hard work must not be abandoned, "life-sacrificing" work must be rejected.
From the perspective of enterprise managers, corporate management should discard mechanized standards based on "assessment-only" logic. They should rationally arrange employee workloads, minimize "high-pressure" modes such as "frequent overtime" or "excessive overtime," and monitor the health of employees at all times to ensure they work with a cheerful disposition and have more free time for self-development. Simultaneously, advanced intelligent technologies and big data analysis can be used to establish dynamic management models for labor positions and hours. Through various quantitative indicators, employee labor time can be arranged rationally and orderly, ensuring they have sufficient time to display their talents in areas of personal interest, thereby achieving the unification of self-value and social value. From the governmental level, greater importance must be placed on the development of leisure undertakings. Leisure is not a meaningless pastime or mere rest, but rather the realization of the subject's free and conscious labor. Government departments must strive to create leisure environments and conditions conducive to enhancing the essential powers of man and exercising one's wisdom and talents, providing a solid foundation and inexhaustible momentum for promoting the comprehensive enjoyment of spiritual resources by all social members. For instance, the proportion of investment in public undertakings could be appropriately increased; the number of open museums, cultural activity centers, and libraries expanded; and preferential policies granted to theaters, intangible cultural heritage workshops, and cultural publishing venues. This would attract public participation from all strata, continuously narrow the "wealth gap" in the enjoyment of spiritual resources, and further transform leisure undertakings into an important pathway for enhancing people's sense of happiness.
Secondly, relevant departments must be urged to implement and improve the leave system to fully protect the rights of laborers to rest and leisure. Engels once proposed that the socialist system "will provide healthy and beneficial work for all, provide an abundant material life and leisure time for all, and provide true and full freedom for all." The physical and mental quality of social members determines the spiritual outlook of society to a certain extent; we must consistently "advance the construction of a Healthy China" and "place the protection of people's health in a strategic position of priority development." In this process, the rights to rest and vacation that everyone deserves must be fully protected, and a "civilized and healthy lifestyle" must be advocated. First, state organs must actively improve the working hour system. By revising the Labor Law of the People's Republic of China and related laws and regulations, they should further clarify standard working hours and overtime limits, constrain mandatory overtime systems, and standardize the paid leave system. Flexible working systems and remote work models should be continuously improved to ensure that laborers have the right to enjoy free time on the basis of improved efficiency. By increasing public services for convenient travel, the quality of leisure during weekends and statutory holidays can be enhanced, allowing people more time and energy to enjoy rich spiritual resources. Next, legal regulatory departments need to strengthen supervision over forced overtime and excessive hours. By establishing "user-friendly" reporting channels, the cost of breaking the law should be increased, the exposure of non-compliant enterprises intensified, and labor inspections bolstered to create a synergy of social supervision. Finally, government units must increase efforts to develop a diversified labor market and reduce occupational discrimination based on age or gender. The social security system should be continuously perfected to prevent social members from falling into a vicious cycle of overwork due to economic uncertainty. Only in this way can social members better command their free time and, on this basis, consciously apply that time to "higher activities" that satisfy spiritual needs.
(3) Using the Rational Utilization of Free Time to Stimulate Human Active Existence and Promote Extensive and Deep Spiritual Intercourse
Spiritual intercourse is the concentrated expression of human needs for social interaction. It can break through the boundaries of time and space as well as social status, encouraging people to stimulate multi-dimensional emotional experiences and an enriched spiritual state through deep exchange and interaction. The extensive and deep development of spiritual intercourse requires not only abundant free time but, more importantly, the rational utilization of that time. In other words, the realization of common prosperity in spiritual life cannot focus solely on the universal increase in the quantity of free time; it must also concern its quality. As Marx said: "Truly wealthy is the developed productive power of all individuals. Then, the measure of wealth is no longer labor time, but disposable time." Free time is like precious wealth; abusing it is equivalent to abusing wealth, and the foundation of a beautiful human existence is destroyed accordingly. Only when free time is utilized rationally and its "free" meaning is fully stimulated and released can the deep-level value and connotation of spiritual wealth be deepened.
First, the role of education must be fully leveraged to improve the overall quality of social members through the rational use of free time. When discussing the negative use of free time by workers under the capitalist system, Marx noted that the main reason workers acted recklessly in their spare time was a "lack of education," such that "they might waste this time or use it for improper things." In contemporary China, if people are to utilize free time rationally, they need to be guided by advanced socialist culture to establish a correct view of time and continuously explore and grasp the true meaning of life. As social competition becomes increasingly fierce, people are increasingly "involutionary" [10]; however, much of this "involution" consists of meaningless "ineffective involution"—a blind "busyness" without reflection—which instead traps interpersonal relations in a vicious cycle. Therefore, it is necessary to reconstruct a correct social perception of time and create a healthy spiritual ecosystem that respects the rhythm of life and stimulates creative abilities. This will help people escape the spiritual cage of the "accelerated cycle," fully enjoy the beautiful value of free time, and regain the subjective capacity to perceive a beautiful life. For example, the power of media, schools, communities, and families should be mobilized through positive publicity and education to guide society in reflecting on "ineffective involution." This promotes awareness among social members regarding "blind abuse of time," "excessive competition," and their potential harm to human health, breaking the rigid and singular value systems found in "involutionary competition." This allows people to regain the ability to "listen to the world" and thus better balance labor and rest. "With the goal of cultivating citizens who have ideals, morality, culture, and discipline," education on ideals and convictions should be strengthened among the public. Negative concepts such as "entertainment-to-the-death" [11] or excessive liberty should be dispelled in a timely manner, and correct guidance should be provided specifically regarding the phenomenon of wasting time. Additionally, researchers should be encouraged to make good use of free time to better engage in innovation and creation. As Deng Xiaoping said: "We cannot require scientific and technical workers—at least the vast majority of them—to read many books on political theory, participate in many social activities, or attend many meetings unrelated to their professional work." Researchers should rationally plan their scientific work time so they can engage in innovation and creation with more undivided attention.
Second, artificial intelligence technology should be used to create a free and open field for online spiritual intercourse for the masses, fostering a favorable communication environment and social atmosphere. In the current era of ubiquitous self-media [12], algorithmic technology should be used to promptly capture content that aligns with the public welfare. This ensures that technical rules and content delivery always serve the real spiritual needs of the people rather than profit maximization. It should continuously consolidate and enrich the discourse and agenda-setting of the mainstream ideology, creating or simulating more interaction scenarios conducive to the spread of high-quality spiritual and cultural content, thus fostering a healthy and upward trend in spiritual intercourse. Simultaneously, the dissemination of Core Socialist Values through various government media or digital Party-building platforms should be further promoted, guiding the public to consciously distance themselves from unhealthy lifestyles such as "money worship" and "hedonism." During free leisure time, it is necessary to ensure that people can find a "resting place" for their spirit in cyberspace, where they can rationally vent and express emotions. Through the process of spiritual intercourse, they can resolve anxieties and release pressure, clearly recognizing that the essence of spiritual life is not the infinite indulgence of physical pleasure, but the stimulation of human active existence through the more effective use of free time. This internalizes free time into the intensity and thickness of one's own life, allowing for a deeper pursuit of the spiritual core rather than the simple satisfaction of superficial desires, thereby obtaining a strong sense of happiness and fulfillment. Only in this way will human spiritual needs be better met, human spiritual quality and personality be comprehensively enhanced, social relations become more harmonious and civilized, and humans become the conscious masters of nature, society, and themselves. Human history will then escape its "pre-historic" state [13] and initiate a "truly" human historical stage.