Deconstruction of time
Posted by Sneha Srinivasan on December 16, 2014In the book ‘Natural Capitalism’ , Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, introduce the need for a new model of economy. A new model of thinking about economy ; from a product based economy to a service based economy. The business is not to manufacture products but manufacture services for people. So if you are in the business of selling beds, you are selling for comfortable and relaxed sleep. If you are selling cell phones, you are selling durable, resistant devices that improve communication among people.Natural Capitalism also brings about a model of looking at natural systems and taking into account that everything exists within it. The environment is “the envelope containing and sustaining the economy”(Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins, “Natural Capitalism”).
So, how do we bring about this change in the thinking model? How do we introduce this model in the current model of capitalism? I propose an additional step that needs to be undertaken which helps to trigger this shift in thinking. The following is a speculative writing on one such change and how this change would /could aid in the shifting of the current ‘locked-in’ thinking models.
The change that I am proposing is abolition of the current concept of time.
Time is a social construct. We do not understand time as just a measurement of minutes and seconds but in terms of concepts such as ‘early/late’, ‘productive/unproductive’. What is the value of time? And how is this value measured? Why do we feel we live in a fast-paced life today? Why is time different in cities and other urban areas? Why is time experienced differently in different countries? Smithsonian magazine states, “What is the length of a “work day? – In the United States, Europe and Japan you’ll get three different answers.Historically, countries have not eagerly embraced the global clock—they’ve felt compelled to do so because of the demands of commerce”(Joshua Keating, Smithsonian Magazine).
Capitalism and global trade flows has made it necessary to standardize the measurement of time, to be able to maintain economic flows. Globalization and widespread networks of technology has led this grid of the construct of time become more firm and rigid.This enslavement to time is especially critical to understand the values of capitalism today. The value of time to productivity in terms of profits and money is so tightly knit that it is assumed and accepted that every minute lost is a minute wasted. It ignores concepts of quality of products and services, human capital, health and sanity and all the non-monetary values of human life.We seem to be moving up at such crazy speeds causing mass destruction at such a large scale and we are not able to feel these effects or feel the intensity of these effects because we don’t have the time to stop. We are so busy keeping up with time that we are lost in this delirium of valueless achievements and goals that have no value if we do not have an earth to live in. We forget that there is a larger system that sustains the work we do today. If we do not have a planet to live in, it’s all meaningless.
All the digital clocks are monitored by the U.S naval observatory. Their atomic time clocks monitor and measure time and relays this to the digital systems all around the world. So what if this clock stops. And there is no time on your cell phone or your laptop or your tablet? You may think this is a bold idea of how everything would come crashing down. But what actually happens is, nothing. ‘Time’ in the truest sense cannot stop, the planets will still continue to revolve around the sun, the earth will still rotate causing night and day, the moon will still wax and wane.
The advantage of this is two fold:
1. It allows us to slow down. When we are not trying to keep up with a standardized pace, we fall into this space of responsiveness to everything as it is. People have time to process what is happening around them. To make calls/ asses the situation that we are facing today. The focus shifts from the quantity to quality; when you don’t have to spend a given number of hours at work, the work that you produce will be because you want to produce that, the quality of the result is better and the work produced is more meaningful. Productivity is therefore not a generation of the individual but a collective generation of quality-based work.
2. The second advantage is the shifting away from the artificial significantly. We have become so reliant on the technological devices that we have built that we look at our ‘cell phones’ to see if it is night or day. We live in artificial atmospheres inside our homes and cars and offices. The inner systems are controlled and so fixed that we have no idea if it is night or day or raining or snowing or humid or hot and dry unless we are moving from one artificial environment to another. I am not propagating going back to living in the forests; but the more we distance ourselves from the natural environment, the more we are forgetting their importance in our survival. The more value we add to needing it as a part of daily lives consciously, the more we will be pushed to sustain and maintain it. When we abolish ‘time systems’, it forces you to connect physically in some form back to the natural cycles of sunlight and sunset and tides and shadows.
We are part of the larger eco-system and the focus would shift from ‘I’ to a ‘we’ in everything we do. The community models followed by the indigenous tribes worked because they saw that we are just a small particle in the whole system of the universe. They understood the cycles and mechanisms that the natural systems followed for survival and aligned to a path that ensured survival and sustainability, not only of the individual self but the ecosystem as a whole.
This level of ‘mindfulness’ is necessary for us to move into more sustainable methods of living. A system that sees oneself as unified and cohesive with the earth would naturally lead to adapting economies that is more self sustaining in nature. Which then leads us to natural capitalism.
Bibliography:
- Paul Hawken, Amory B Lovins and L Hunter Lovins, “Natural Capitalism” (UK: Earthscan Publications Ltd, 1999).
- Joshua Keating, January 2013 “ Why time is a Social Construct”, Smithsonian Magazine, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-time-is-a-social-construct-164139110/?no-ist=&page=1
- Nathan Palmar, March 17, 2014, “How time is a Social Construct”, The Sociology in Focus Blog, http://www.sociologyinfocus.com/2014/03/17/how-time-is-a-social-construct/