All We Have is

Time

Carol Delaney
Whorf: “Are our concepts of time and
space and matter given in substantially
the same form by experience to all
people? Or are they conditioned by the
particularities of language and culture?”
(1956, 138)
Chapter’s argument

– "We talk of measuring time, as if time were a concrete thing

waiting to be measured; but in fact, we *create time* by
creating intervals in social life" (Leach, quoted p. 90)
– We think like that because we are socialized to think of time
in this manner in the world as it is currently organized
Chapter’s argument

– So what the chapter shows => how this is true at several levels and
several senses;
– Various types of intervals:
+ intervals to measure time (second, minute, hour, day, week, month,
year...).
+ intervals such as: before Jesus, or hijra, and after; or "primitive" vs.
civilized
+ intervals such childhood vs. adulthood, work vs. leisure, etc.
 “Time is money”

– With the industrial revolution in the 19th century and the rise of capitalism, people had
to change their perception and relation to time
– Time became a commodity to be used rather than the medium in which life is lived.
– It had to be used for work, not pleasure; and any time spent not working meant less
money => workers were paid by the hour; thus each hour became equivalent to a
specific amount of money
 “Time is money”

– This equivalence is taken so much for granted that the language we use for time is the
same that we use for money: we save it, we spend it, we borrow it, we waste it and we
budget it.
– And like money that comes in different quantities (dimes, nickels, quarters), time
comes with seconds minutes and hours.
– Time is imagined as a ruler, in the two senses, not only does it reign over us, but it is
calibrated like centimeters, meters and kilometers: each segment of time is equal to all
other in the same category (each second is equal to another, etc.)
 Relativity of Time

– "Time is imagined as something outside of ourselves" (82)

– Einstein => time is actually relative to space
– Delaney: what concerns us here is that concepts and experiences of time are relative
– Our common view of time is that it marches on relentlessly and impersonally. And that
is because we live in a culture dominated by machines.
– But there are other notions of time => Agriculturalists live with a seasonal view of
time, people in fishing societies live with a tidal view of time.
The “Clock”

– It is something we take for granted and think that it shows the “exact” time and that all
watches have the “same” time.
– With the invention of the digital clock in 1970, time became “linear” in the extreme,
and became calibrated to the second.
– Many people live and have lived their entire lives without clocks. They live by the
rhythms of the sun and the alternation of the seasons.
The “Clock”

– (Laura Bohannan) => “I learned to forget months and to live by the moon”
– When does time start and when will it end?
– Why is it that Greenwich in Britain is the mean time for the alarm clocks of the human
race?
– Even when we speak of “universal standard time”, we are really predicating it on
Greenwich mean time.
The “Clock”

– In fact this decision was a political act => it had to do with Britain’s domination of the
world, when it was an empire over which the sun never set, that is, when it had a
colony in every time zone.
– Clocks were actually introduced for the first time in the 14th century in church towers
and were used to ring out the time for morning and evening prayers.
– But they were not very accurate and definitely were not unified (each town had its
own time) => the impetus for a standard for time was actually the railroad.
Calendars

– Keeping track of time

– Calendars mark not the minutes or hours but days, weeks,
months and years.
– But calendars construct time just like maps construct
space => embedding cultural schemes in the foundation of
reality and vice versa.
– How? The western calendar which is now the dominant
world calendar reflects a specific cultural history by dating
it from the year of Christ’s birth. Muslims too begin their
calendar with the Hijra..
Calendars

– "We think of the calendar as a neutral kind of

chronological record-keeping mechanism, but it is actually
a highly political institution" (89)
 French revolution=> instituted new calendar (10-day week,
three weeks to a month, each day had ten hours of 100
minutes of 100 seconds)
 Each day was named numerically rather after celestial bodies
and the gods that represented them, as is the case in English:
Sun day; moon day; Tiw’s day; Woden’s day; Thor’s day; Fria’s day;
Saturn day
The Week

– So many of us take the seven-day week for granted as if it was

something natural. (other people have 8 days, others between 3
to 10)
– It is intimately related to religion => the legacy of Genesis, when
God created the world in six days and then rested on the
seventh day.
– Our workweek is a reflection of the work of creation.
The Week

– “For those of you who think that religion is something private, a

personal individual decision, it is important to realize how a
religious tradition creates worldviews and influences attitudes,
values and even notions of time and space that affect everyone
regardless of their private personal beliefs… The use of a specific
calendar is deeply political, the result of battles, of power and
politics, and of the domination by one particular segment of the
world’s population.” P. 91
 Our Concept of Time

– Political in a deeper sense:

"Our notion of time incorporates a specific teleology — the idea that there is a purpose, goal, or
reason inherent in it." (92)
– Teleology: the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the
cause by which they arise.
Islamic or Christian conception of time display a teleology in this sense?
– Delaney tells us that this idea has been “secularized” (we are influenced by scientific narratives
more than religious ones?)
 Our Concept of Time

– Yet: even in secular times in this way, she tells us that our notion of time continues to
incorporate a specific teleology.
 In the form of evolutionary thinking: the idea that the human form of life develops over
time and that recent developments are of a higher value than earlier developments.
 This is what we mean when we speak of progress, civilization, development.
When we say: this way of doing is "backward": we're saying that it belongs to the past, as
opposed to ways of doing which are "developed", or "civilized", which means: they belong to
the present and to the future.
 Our Concept of Time

– Now: be careful:
- Human evolution (the human form of life having a history): a scientific fact.
- It cannot but be discussed that in some respect: development might be a good thing (e.g.,
medical developments).
- But in other respects: the idea that our form of life is more "advanced" and overall better than
earlier ones is a strange one:
1) social inequality has never been greater than today,
2) what "development" has brought in terms of technologies of violence, of destruction of
the environment.
3) Are we even happier?
 Our Concept of Time

– In other terms: we must recognize that the human form of life has a history without
using this to hierarchize ways of being human.
– We do it all the time => law against hijab in France (or any other law concerning non-
western ways of life).
– "We have imagined ourselves at the (advanced) center, they are at the edge, that is,
earlier in time and peripheral in space." (95)
“Lived Time”

– How we experience time in relevance to cultural categories such as age,

gender, class and race, occupation, etc.
– Lifetimes: while we all imagine a life span, we tend to think of it not as a
straight path from birth to death but as a curve ascending until perhaps
40 and then it’s “downhill all the way”. We also break it into phases:
infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood, middle
age, elderly (or any other variation.
– Rites de passage that also create intervals or phases (graduation,
marriage, having children)
“Lived Time”

– School time as well => how much time do we spend in school and how
does it organize our lives and what is expected from us as members of
communities.
– Holidays => examples of holidays that organize your lifetimes?
Holidays draw social solidarity
– One other way of organizing time is the idea of work vs. leisure, on all
levels: daily, weekly, and yearly
Work vs. Leisure

– Anthropologists have always been puzzled over why hunters and

gatherers switched to agricultural societies, since the former work, at
most 20 hours per week to supply all their needs
– Marshal Sahlins explains that hunters and gatherers worked 2-3 hours a
day only because their needs were in proportion to their ability to satisfy
them, thus they even felt they were affluent and were very generous.
– In contrast, we live in a time where our needs/wants are out of
proportion to our ability to satisfy them, they are actually unlimited and
in fact new ones are created everyday!
Work vs. Leisure

– People in our modern industrialized and post industrialized capitalist societies

are working longer hours than ever before in human history.
– Once clocks became available to individuals, employers were able to use them
to discipline workers => In order to get paid you must check in on time, do your
work for a specified amount of time and are released when that time is over =>
Workers’ time was no longer their own, it belonged to the employer.
– Also, as a modern cultural system, work time encompasses both labor and
leisure: we alternate between work and relaxation daily, weekly and yearly.
– For many of us: daily life is ordered by work hours vs. off-work hours, weekly
by workdays vs. weekends, and yearly by work weeks and holidays or
vacations.
Work vs. Leisure

– Also, with the industrial revolution, the way we work changed, work was
separated from home.
– One goes out to work and returns home for leisure.
– Work was also gendered because it was associated with men and the
home with women => Women’s work at home as a consequence became
invisible (because it did not directly provide any income)
– Another impact of the industrial work-time is in relevance to family time.
All over the world more and more children are actually spending less time
with their parents (whether rich or poor) (40% decrease since 1975).
Children are suffering because of this lack of time with their parents.
..no control

– Our original question about how we came to see time as

something over which we have no control?
**A possible answer here: it is because in the world as it is currently
organized we have so little control over our time, that we project our
experience of time and think of it as something on which we have no
control...**
– The effect of this perception on how we deal with time “Time is
for Savoring”