Mechanical Representations Of Time
A couple days ago I mentioned Neil Postman's book "Amusing Ourselves To Death", and I thought I'd follow that up with a couple quotes from that book, maybe inspire someone to read it.
The first one I won't comment on, except to say that it is an exceptionally insightful statement.
Quote:
| Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether. |
Okay, here's the second quote. It's a bit longer...and it's about TIME.
Quote:
| In Mumford's great book Technics and Civilization, he shows how, beginning in the fourteenth century, the clock made us into time-keepers, and then time-savers, and now time-servers. In the process, we have learned irreverence toward the sun and the seasons, for in a world made up of seconds and minutes, the authority of nature is superseded. Indeed, as Mumford points out, with the invention of the clock, Eternity ceased to serve as the measure and focus of human events. And thus, though few would have imagined the connection, the inexorable ticking of the clock may have had more to do with the weakening of God's supremacy than all the treatises produced by the philosophers of the Enlightenment; that is to say, the clock introduced a new form of conversation between man and God, in which God appears to have been the loser. Perhaps Moses should have included another Commandment: Thou shalt not make mechanical representations of time. |
When I read this, it made me think immediately of the time I've spent in South America, and also the time I've spent in Africa.
Why? Because in neither of these places has society "progressed" (and I use that phrase tongue-in-cheek) to the point of being "time-servers". They are barely to the point of being "time-keepers".
Unlike our society, the places I visited were not controlled by the clock. I remember one instance when I was scheduled to do some ventriloquism and puppetry at a public school in Argentina at 2:00 in the afternoon. By the time all the students arrived, and we were ready to begin, it was actually 4:00. No one thought anything of it, except those of us from the States.
To us, that seems rude and inconsiderate. To them, it's just the way things are. And they don't care. Because they aren't time-servers. They don't serve time, time serves them. And while they are waiting, they are quite content to sit or mill around, visiting with friends. While we, accustomed as we are to schedules, stop milling and visiting the moment we get behind schedule. We tense up, we wonder what's wrong, we get impatient, and we become unbearable.
Our society revolves around the clock, while most other societies revolve around relationships. Our society revolves around tasks, while other societies revolve around people.
Yet we consider ourselves advanced, even though we are the ones who have abandoned the things of eternal worth in favor of the menial, trivial ticking of a clock.
Is Postman saying we should do away with clocks? No. His book isn't about clocks. It's about the age of show business, and how it has affected our society.
So why is he talking about clocks? His point is this: if the clock has had such a profound impact on the way we think and act, without us even being conscious of that impact, shouldn't we suppose that a technology so remarkable as the television would have an even greater impact on the way we think and act?
Yet we accept the television with as little consideration as we give to the clock.
Posted On May 23, 2005 at 3:42 AM
On May 23, 2005 Laura wrote: Wow, that sounds like a very insightful book. I've always hated it when people refer to the USA as "advanced." I'm sure the teachings of darwinism have something to do with it as well, because they make people think we're only getting better, when it's actually quite the opposite in most cases.
Doug Replied: well, you'll just have to put that next on your reading list!
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