The most intriguing ideas about how we treat time delve deeply into culture.

[mia]

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/dec/11/travel/tr-insider11

In his classic 1983 study, "The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time," anthropologist Edward T. Hall used the words "monochronic" and "polychronic" to describe how different societies view time.

People in monochronic cultures, such as America and northern Europe, are task-oriented, Hall wrote. They do things in order, one at a time, starting with the most important and ending with the least.

Polychronic cultures, found in Mediterranean and many Latin American nations, he said, are "oriented toward people, human relationships and the family, which is the core of their existence." In this world, following a schedule is far less important than catching up with friends and family....

A colleague assigned to Mexico City once told me this: Many Mexicans start the day with good intentions, trying to keep appointments. But as they meet up with friends and acquaintances, a short "hello" won't do, and the minutes slip away.The most intriguing ideas about how we treat time delve deeply into culture.

[hunter]

1. Our monochronic work ethic has destroyed our natural environment.

Most of us have jobs that do not make the world a better place.

I think the ideal human culture would be polychronic and everyone would use birth control.

Trouble has always been that the monochronic high technology war monger societies had the upper hand and simply took what they wanted from everyone else.

Now that everything on the planet has been taken and all the big players have nuclear weapons, as the earth's natural environment begins to turn against humanity the survivors will tend to be polychronic because the competing monochronic peoples will have pulverized one another, World War II style.

In bad times the polychronic poor survive because there are so many of them. But in terms of overall per capita suffering they still get the worst of it.

I always rebel against claims we "need more jobs." No, we don't. Most jobs today suck. More automobiles, more aircraft carriers, more oil wells, more coal mines, more fast food places serving unhealthful products do not make the world a better place. We need instead to sit down, take a breath, and figure out how to climb out of this grave situation we've dug ourselves into.

I believe if we figure out how to put everyone in comfortable homes, provide everyone with healthy food and water and appropriate medical care, teach everyone how to read and do the math, then quite a few more people will be around to reasonably, peacefully, and democratically decide where we humans ought to go, rather than lashing out violently at others in squalor and ignorance.

Otherwise we all go to hell.

[1939]

3. Except that

Most of what we have today is a product of monochronic cultures (you can add Korea and Japan). The struggle for existence while following the retreating glaciers north meant that everything must be done when it needed to be done. The advance of Northern Europe was not a function simply of technology, but organization and purpose. I just finished an interesting book about the Portuguese exploration, conquest, and exploitation of the Indian ocean with a very small number of men and ships. They didn't have better weapons than the Arabs that controlled the area and India, just better organization, tenacity, and goals.

[bemildred]

2. It all depends on what you think is important. nt

[bemildred]

4. In pre-technical societies, polychronic behavior is much more useful.

Lot's of people you have to get along with, and damn few machines.

It is only with the rise of highly technical cultures that monochronic behavior becomes very desirable. Now we are all supposed to be monochronic in order to adapt to the machines, because the machines are not really able to adapt to us.