The Tyranny Of Time | NOEMA

Time, an unyielding dictator, governs our lives with an iron fist. The Tyranny of Time delves into this omnipresent force, exploring its influence and the ways we can reclaim control. Prepare to challenge your perception of time's relentless rule.

Contemporary People Are “Time-Binding” Animals

Everything in our daily lives revolves around time – work, wages, even our free time tends to be strictly managed.

• Not only that, time governs our bodily functions, including eating, sleeping, and waking up.
• Our self-perception and worldview are mediated through the way we use and imagine time.

A Brief History of Telling Time

For thousands of years, societies have lived with the irregular harmony of nature, using sundials to understand the passage of time.

• In the 14th century, however, pious monks in European monasteries started constructing iron objects that struck intervals to help keep track of canonical hours of prayers.
• Curiously, disciplining one’s life around the clock has led Lewis Mumford, an American historian, to describe the Benedictine monks as the founders of modern capitalism.

A Conquest of Time

In 1884, the clock took over the world – that is when the International Meridian Conference sliced the globe into 24 time zones, all synchronized with the British Empire and their Greenwich Mean Time Zone.

• But the process began much earlier in the 1800s as colonialism was rampant and imperialists were destroying alternate methods of measuring time.
• This was primarily due to the complexity of the Indigenous timekeeping modes based on the moon, stars, and the blossoming of certain trees. For Europeans, who valued precision and human dominion over nature, it was “savagery.”

Time is Change

Some scientists argue that we should urgently reassess our relationship with the clock because it does not measure time; it produces it.

• Time is a mathematical construct shaped by power, religion, capitalism, and colonialism.
• It is politically charged – time benefits some and marginalizes others.
• Clocks make us fall out of sync with our bodies and the world around us.
• This is especially evident in our perception of climate change, species extinctions, and the spread of viruses – their real impact escapes us because we are obsessed with measuring time that only affects humans.

What is the Alternative?

Indigenous communities worldwide still use ecological calendars, while in Islam and Judaism, religious practices such as salat and zmanim are defined by dawn and dusk.

• In addition, some propose the use of clocks that are more responsive to the climate crisis.
• One thing is clear, though – there is more than one way to synchronize ourselves with the world around us.

“There is no clock on Earth that gives the correct time.”

Time is a social construct. It is frequently altered to fit political and social purposes.

• Daylight savings and a seven-day week, for instance, are both arbitrary things we made up.
• We have always been taught that the rotation of the Earth regulates the time in our clocks and calendars. But the Earth is not a perfect sphere, and nature is irregular, making numbers like 365 days and 24 hours wildly inaccurate.

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