No Time This Time
I'm reading John Zerzan and he really gripes about alienation, and its tie to
time so much, I thought I would babble a bit on it too.
So, what is "time"?
Oswald Spengler said no one should be allowed to ask, and he knew why. Immanuel
Kant believed it to be one of our many postulates we subconsciously develop
to relate to the world. A handful of philosophers - like F. H. Bradley and J.
J. C. Smart believed it to by nonexistent.
Physicist, and assistant in the original atomic bomb development, Richard Feynman
was quoted as answering, "Don't even ask me. It's just too hard to think
about." Most Quantum physicists would like to do away with the notion of
time, while keeping its mathematical dimensions. While psychoanalysts and psychologists
such as Freud, Morris, Loewald, and Eissler all claim to have found "great
difficulties" in their studies to define time.
Many say it's a measurable commodity, while others will state it's abstract,
but most of you will have few words for a definition and brush it off as a man-made
concept.
You're all such fucking simpletons, though in this case you are correct in your
assumptions and child-like grasp of this field of science.
It's true what Bertrand Russell wrote, "The importance of time is contained
rather in our relation to desire, than in relation to truth."
While there have been countless documentaries on the Earthly concepts of time
(seasons, planetary markers), the history of time-keeping gadgets (clocks, calendars),
or simple chronology, there are few public studies on the sociology of time,
nor many works on how humankind should use it to their best advantage. This
shows us that we have a hard time dealing with time, let alone defining it.
The fact of the matter is that time itself is an idea of our early civilizations
constructed to help us conquer nature. It is commonly believed when humans switched
from hunter-gather (forager-mode) tribes to agricultural societies and the domestication
of crops and animals, we needed to know when the best seasons to mate and sow
seeds would be, so we began to notice the passage of time.
The concept of time was then used to bind the worker to the machine. Time was
made into an enemy when it was first learned that its use helped man deal with
his environment, it was only made worse in the Renaissance when the another
hand was added to clocks so as to count the seconds, making us aware symbols
are slipping by faster. This was also the period that brought us artistic representations
of Greek titan Kronos and Roman god Saturn combined to make up Father Time,
complete with a sickle - just as Death carried.
It all worked so well sloth became a vice, and the Puritans proclaimed the "waste
of time" to be the worst of sins. It was from the Puritans Benjamin Franklin
drew his quote, "Time is money."
Clock in, clock out - I make this much an hour. Impressive. Your value can be
clocked down to the minute.
In the mid 1700s, Jean Jacques Rousseau threw out his time-piece to symbolize
his rejection of civilization and modern society. Later, Edgar Allen Poe did
the same thing. Johann von Goethe and William Blake attacked Isaac Newton for
abstracting everyday life, while stripping it of passion and sensuality.
When Nietzsche climbed six-thousand feet above Lake Silviplana he realized that
he needed to get beyond, not only good and evil, but time itself, and was then
inspired to write 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'.
Why the hatred of time?
I can answer that with another question: What is at the end of all of our time?
The Vedic Maha-Kali, the total peace which follows the complete dissolution
of the universe - absolute night. You know, the fear of that sickle.
Chicken shits!
What classified Savitri Devi's "men in time" most was their fear of
death and need to struggle to become the "man against time", or higher,
"man above time", similar to Nietzsche's Ubermensh. She further stated,
"The outstanding goals of 'progress' tend to reduce ["men above time"]
to a minority: attempting to suppress them altogether. Is this what mankind
wants? If so, then we have lost our raison deatre, and the sooner the end of
this so-called 'civilization' the better."
Well bring on Kalki, sister!
Wait, give me a minute to collect my thoughts.
Fuck it -I'm ready to punch out early. Let's get this kaliyuga finished up now.
2005