Category: Society

Time Is On Our Side

sand of time

There’s a guy in Norway who wants to do away with time.  We all know, strictly speaking, that’s impossible, so my guess is he actually wants to get rid of clocks.  (The article was poorly written.)  While this is an admirable sunshine-and-lollipops endeavour, it has its roots in a far stupider idea.

Ever since Lucy (Australopithecus) and her sisters decided to go for a walk in Ethiopia, 3 million years ago, there have always been people who want to abandon the march of civilization.  Their contention is that humans are inherently pastoral, and we’re not meant to be regulated by the time-counting machines we’ve created.  In other words, we’d be a lot happier if we just ate when we’re hungry, slept when we’re tired, had sex when we’re horny and enjoyed a few more sunsets.  This idea gets a lot pf play on college campuses and during after-dinner conversations (with the second bottle of wine) but it ignores one essential fact – 3 million years of history.  Oops!

There is actually no evidence to suggest humans were ever a come-day/go-day, God’ll bring Sunday type of species.  The only reason some sophomores jump to this conclusion is our closest biological cousins, chimpanzees, behave that way– and the assumption is, back in the evolutionary day, we did too.  Wrong!  The truth is, all – ALL – the archaeological evidence points to the undeniable fact that humans have always been workaholics.  We didn’t become the dominant species on this planet by hunting, eating and then lying around digesting for the rest of the afternoon.  (I’m looking at you, bonobos!)  No, we used the bonus time between full and famished to work our asses off.  Why?  Because, unlike all the other animals Noah put on the boat, from aardvarks to zebras, we realized that the sun was going to come up again tomorrow.  And our long evolutionary crawl from the savannahs of Africa to the Mars Rover is a litany of labouring for that future.

Everything human beings do, from building the Pyramids to buying more than one potato, is based on our unflappable faith in time.  It’s one of the amazing imaginary concepts (like religion, ownership and fair play) that’s hardwired into our DNA.  But more than that, time is also one of our essential tools, like language and mathematics.  That’s why we’ve always tried to measure it so accurately.  We use time to regulate, manipulate and evaluate our existence; without it, nothing we see around us would exist.

Personally, I believe the quaint notion that humans could live quite happily without clocks comes from the benevolent society we’ve created that allows us massive amounts of leisure time.  We have time to think, and sometimes the things we think are wrong-headed.  Seriously, suggesting that we should turn our backs on hours and minutes because our primeval ancestors didn’t have alarm clocks is as preposterous as saying we shouldn’t have elevators because humans are not supposed to live and work in the skies above Mother Earth.

Anyway, that’s just my opinion — but stay tuned cuz I’m already planning another one in 4 days, 96 hours or 3,960 minutes, depending on how you want to measure it.

Elephants Don’t Stand On Their Heads!

elephants

When I was a kid, I went to the circus and saw one of the most astounding things I’ve ever seen – an elephant standing on its head.  No big deal, right?  Back in the day, that kind of thing was bread and butter to guys like Barnum and Bailey, and elephants all over the world were doing it– three shows a week with a Saturday matinee.  However, when you’re six years old and you’ve never seen an elephant, that kind of thing sticks with you.

At this point, you have to get beyond the whole animals rights thing.  Yeah, it’s not very nice to treat living creatures like toys (and we were all barbarians before 1980) but that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about a much more complicated concept.  The idea that someone could think so far outside the box that they could actually conceive of teaching an elephant to stand on its head.  Elephants don’t do that — ever.  It’s a completely original human idea.  Not only that, but, whoever thought of it, had to figure out a way to convince the elephant that it was a good idea, as well.  When you look at it objectively, it’s one hell of an accomplishment.

The fact is human history is built on our ability to metaphorically teach elephants to stand on their heads.  We are the dominant species on this planet because we not only envision things that don’t exist but also find a way to create them.  For example, nobody invented the wheel – round things roll naturally.  The genius was the person who thought of connecting two round things on a shaft so they would roll together, then figured out a way to attach a platform on top of that shaft in such a way that the platform itself didn’t roll.  It’s complicated just trying to describe it!  But our world is full of stuff like that.  Just take a minute and try to explain the mechanics of a button — out loud.  It’s the simplest machine in the world, but it’s built on a set of complex principles that all need to be connected to work properly.  Yet someone, somewhere (13th century Germany, actually) figured it out – the first time.  Levers, pulleys, screws, wrenches and all the other mechanical devices we take for granted were once just figments of somebody’s imagination.  But history isn’t just engineering.  Think about coffee.  Coffee beans on the bush are hard as whalebone and squint-your-eyes bitter, but somebody woke up one morning and thought, “I’ll bet if I pick these beans, roast them, ground them up and pour hot water on them, I’ll get an excellent morning beverage.”  Maybe it happened that way; regardless, it did happen!  Cuz that’s what humans do.  We make something out of nothing.

When I was a child, the circus fascinated me for months.  But for years, of all the amazing Greatest Show On Earth things I saw that day, the only one I really remembered was that lady and her elephants.  And even though I didn’t truly understand it I knew they were something special.

1984 or Brave New World?

1984

It’s been 70 years since George Orwell published his dystopian novel 1984.  It’s considered one of the pivotal books of the 20th century, and if you haven’t actually read it (in the 21st century, most people haven’t) you certainly know what it’s about.  It’s a complicated tale, but the Twitter version is we better watch out or Big Government is going to go power mad and control (read “enslave”) us all.  Orwell lined up the usual suspects – censorship, disinformation, propaganda, surveillance, informants and fear – to create a pretty scary Stalinist view of the future (read “the present.”)  In fact, it’s so convincing that many of the terms Orwell invented — like Newspeak, Doublethink, Room 101 and Big Brother — are now part of our language.  The problem is George may have got it wrong.  Yeah, yeah, yeah!  Some computer in California is probably reading your text messages and can pinpoint your location, anywhere on planet, but – uh — so what?  Quite frankly, if the CIA, MI5, FSB or the Chinese MSS want to know anything about you, all they have to do is log into Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc., and they’ve got all the information they need.  And that’s the crux of the situation.  Who do we have to fear – our government or ourselves?

For my money, if you want a scarier version of the future (read “the present”) take a look at Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, published in 1932.  Huxley’s view is deeper and darker and a lot more prophetic.  Huxley’s says the future won’t be bleak and hungry but actually rather happy – too happy.  Huxley’s society is just as closed and lock-step conformist as Orwell’s, but the difference is nobody cares.

In 1985, Neil Postman published a book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, and part of it is a comparison of 1984 and Brave New World.  Here are a few of his observations.

Orwell said that, in the future, many books would be banned.
Huxley said there would be no need to ban books because nobody would read them.

Orwell said that information would be strictly controlled and distributed by the government.
Huxley said that there would be so much information no one would pay attention to it.

Orwell said the truth would be concealed from the people.
Huxley said the truth would be irrelevant.

Orwell warned us about the dangers of the Cult of Personality.
Huxley warned us about the Cult of Celebrity.

Orwell saw a joyless, sexually repressed, poverty-stricken society that had lost its soul.
Huxley saw a drug-soaked, sexually promiscuous, consumer society that didn’t have one.

Orwell feared a manipulated culture.
Huxley feared a trivial culture.

Here, in the 21st century, the future is now, and Big Brother might very well be watching you — but personally, I think the bigger problem is … he doesn’t need to.