Time Wars: The Primary Conflict in Human History

by Jeremy Rifkin

Time Wars is for anyone who has ever wondered why, in a culture so obsessed with efficiency, we seem to have so little time we can call our own. As the author states in his introduction:

If centralization, concentration, and accumulation epitomized the bigger-is-better theme of spatial politics, then efficiency and speed characterize the time values of the modern age. For a long time, the notion of efficiency and speed enjoyed the same kind of unqualified enthusiasm as the notion of gigantism. If bigger was better, then faster and more efficient was more effective[...]

"Time is money" best expresses the temporal spirit of the age.

As society at large careens towards the high-speed culture of the twenty-first century, small pockets of protest have begun to appear[...] They would ask us to give up our preocupation with acelerating time and begin the process of reintegrating ourselves back into the periodicities that make up the many physiological time worlds of the earth organism.

Contents

Introduction

I. THE TEMPORAL CONTEXT
1. The new nanosecond culture
2. Chronobiology: The clocks that make us run
3. Anthropological time zones

II. DIVIDING THE PIE
4. Calendars and clout
5. Schedules and clocks
6. Time schedules and factory discipline
7. Programs and computers
8. The efficient society

III. THE POLITICS OF PARADISE
9. The timeless State
10. The image of progress
11. The vision of simulated worlds
12. Time pyramids and time ghettos

IV. Cosmic timepieces and political legitimacy
13. The clockwork universe
14. The information universe

V. THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF TIME
15. Temporal treks and future options
16. Beyond Left and Right

Notes
Selected bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, History, Economics, Academic, Psychology

302 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

American economic and social theorist, writer, public speaker, political advisor, and activist.

Reviews

[Craig]

I haven't provided a rating, because I only read the first chapter. Though this may be my longest review.

It is rare for me, but I simply couldn't finish this book.
It was written nearly twenty years ago, and talks about computers as terminals (yes, that is what WE used in those days). The book is clearly outdated; though there may be some relevant thoughts, I wasn't willing to dig for them.

The author repeatedly talks about the "speeding up of time". He generally implies that this is a bad thing and that going back to "the good old days" would be better. I agree with some of this being better, slowing down and being more engaged with people.

His generalizations of computer programmers, and the computer literate in general were...extreme. Sure, some "nerds" are like his description of "McCarthy", but many, even most, probably are not. I obviously read, as I started reading this book. Many of my fellow programmers read books. Maybe we want that time away from the faster pace, our purposeful choice to engage in a slower world.

I agree that people want their information faster. That can be good, especially in business, when the purpose is more about conveying information. Can it be taken to a negative extreme, sure. Just as people can take their slow life to the extreme (though this is much more rare in today's Western society).

He talked about computer youth getting lost in their game activity. He made it sound as if this were a new occurrence; as if no child in the past had lost track of an afternoon playing with friends, lost in their imagination of pirates or play forts or whatever. I can tell you this "time acceleration" happens in "real life" and in "computer life"...it is part of being deeply involved in your activity. Today, there are whole books written about being in the "flow" or "in the zone"...they see it as a good thing.

Again, I can't say this book has nothing good to say; only that it seemed to have a lot of generalizations and antiquated thoughts. I simply wasn't willing to expend my time to find the good bits. Maybe you will.

[Emily Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is hilarious. It's extremely dated and it was written in 1987! The thing that's a little sad about it is that Rifkin has a lot of really interesting things to contribute to the discussion of time and the politics of time. His chapter on Chronobiology got me considering the time within the body in a way I hadn't before. His thoughts on synchronization and the history of schedules and calendars are really illuminating. However. The chapters warning us of the nightmare to come, wherein computers will have taken over the world and we'll all be programmed into a techno-hell are just - wow. There's a lot to be said for the way computers HAVE made a difference in how we think of time but this guy is so afraid of the future we're in, that it's all a little silly. He doesn't know about the internet yet in 1987. I want him to rewrite this book for now. I want to know what he thinks now that he likely has a computer, rather than being afraid what one will do to him.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has not aged well. Though not uninteresting, most of its ideas now seem either derivative, overstated or rather commonplace:

With each new time-reckoning and time-ordering system [calendars, clocks, factories, computers], humanity has distanced itself farther and farther from the rhythms of nature. At each new temporal crossroads of our existence, we have made a conscious choice to use our increased perspective to secure increased power. We have sacrificed wisdom for violence and used awareness as a weapon to secure our temporal domination[...] We have chosen to sever our participatory union with the rest of creation, and to redefine the world as a binary field where only objects and subjects exist. We have chosen autonomy over participation, isolation over communion and have used power to turn the world´s phenomena into objects for manipulation and expropiation[...]

It is ironic [that c]ontemporary Western culture has become obsessed by the idea of saving time and extending duration. Yet, we appear to have left our children with less and less of a future to enjoy.[...]The high-tech world of clocks and schedules, computers and programs, was supposed to free us from a life of toil and deprivation, yet with each passing day the human race becomes more enslaved, exploited and victimized.[...] We have sped ourselves out of the time world of nature and into a fabricated time world where experience can only be simulated but no longer savored[...], we grow further apart from each other, more isolated and alone, more in control and less self-assured.

Every so often, a stressed-out author wonders why time seems to fly by at an overwhelming pace, feels an urge to throw away his watch and live in accordance to nature´s cycles and decides that society has thoughtlessly adopted some technology or is living in a way that has thrown time, life and the universe out of joint. At a pinch, one remembers amonst others, Thoreau, Rousseau or Tolstoy´s clarion calls, the zeal of the early Christians, the Amish, the sixties counter-culture, some of the the new age movements or, on a lighter note, Charlie Chaplin´s Modern Times. Some authors, such as Rifkin, simply write about their angst and spin cathartic and moderately plausible theories about what causes the acceleration and what can be done to regain a more leisurely and enjoyable pace of life. Since Rifkin wrote his book in 1984, other authors such as journalist Carl Honoré (In Praise of Slowness, 2005) continue to touch on this evidently sore but resonant subject.

Alvin Toffler´s Future Shock (1970), written 17 years before Rifkin´s book, covers much of the same ground as Time Wars, albeit from a slightly different perspective. Understandably, considering the time it was written, Future Shock is less concerned with computers than Time Wars. Both books report on the accelerative pace of life, denounce science, technology, industry and business´s contributions to our current sorry state of affairs, blame the search for efficiency for dehumanizing life, purport to show how politics has responded by jettisoning principles in favor of hasty expediency, reference some of the dangers of switching from living by natural rhythms to living by the clock and ever more artificial schedules, both talk about the overload experienced by excessive choices or options. Toffler diagnosed contemporary society with a bad case of information overload due to accelerating technological change, while Rifkin is torn between blaming IT, town clocks or Western civilization´s power-hungry obsession with efficiency. Not to be outdone by Toffler´s catchy title, I can imagine Rifkin´s editor, with an eye on sales, cooking up the flagrantly overblown Time Wars title and Rifkin responding to this marketing ploy by half-heartedly throwing in an occasional line to justify it. In my opinion, it is a pity Rifkin does not comment or even mention Toffler´s book.

I believe each new generation eagerly and impatiently embraces speed of change; in fact at some point, speed and change are almost equally exhilarating. At some psychological time, a reaction sets in and that same generation will start to appreciate having time to let the world sink in rather than rush by and thus be a little more skeptical about changes. Rifkin argues for a change, he wants society to slow down and become more responsible, more respectful, less selfish and therefore less solitary:

By transferring our private experience of empathy into public policiy, we begin a new time journey[...in which] we use our consciousness to gain perspective of how nature and life unfold over time. We become more sensitive to the workings of ecological and cultural succession. We come to perceive life not in terms of frozen future segments to be manipulated but as an unending continuum that requires stewardship and demands respect.[...] In an empathic time world, planning the future is a communal venture and memorializing the past a shared undertaking.

In Rifkin´s overly dramatic view, society is marshalling for "war", war between those who align themselves with an ecological time dynamic and those aligning themselves with the artificial time dynamic which seeks to implement efficiency into ever more refined, ever more controlled and ever more artificial environments:

The ecological temporal orientation gives rise to a stewardship vision of the future[...] At the heart of this new covenant vision is a commitment to develop an economic and technological infrastructure that is compatible with the sequences, durtions, rhythms, and synergistic relationships that punctuate the natural production and recycling activities of the earth´s ecosystem.[...] The artificial temporal orientation gives rise to a high technology simulated vision of the future, [...] an environment regulated by the sequences, durations, rhythms, and synergistic interactions of computers, robotics, genetic engineering; an environment where order, foresight, predictibility, and efficiency have replaced the uncertainties and anxieties that have plagued the human family since the dawn of civilization [...] Advocates of artificial time believe that security is achieved through control over the temporality of nature. Advocates of ecological time believe that security is achieved by participating in communion with the pulse of the larger communities that make up the ecosystem of the planet.

I prefer Toffler´s book to Rifkin´s, but this is probably because I have forgotten many of Toffler´s arguments but remember the impact Future Shock had on me at the time I first read it. If you feel stressed by lack of time, are past books on time management and have started wondering whether technology might not be contributing to that stress rather than liberating you from it, I would recommend you first turn to more recent and more penetrating analysis of technology such as Neil Postman´s Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology(1992), Daniel Sarewitz´s Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology and the Politics of Progress(1996) or Sherry Turkle´s Simulation and its Discontents(2009).

[Benjamin Burge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wowwie what a cool read! Rifkin traverses the development of time-keeping technology, very clearly he explaining the effects and implications. Engaging and interesting, I find myself returning to the ideas explored in this book often.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

mah.......alcuni spunti interessanti li da questa chiave di lettura del tempo.
Forse devo aspettare che si sedimentano per appropriarmene....

[Juan Manuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aborda el papel jugado por las temporalidades en el desenvolvimieto economico y cultural de las sociedades. Un contundente llamado a repensar nuestra forma de desarrollarnos como cultura global.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since this title has been out of print for a while, it's tough to come by a blurb, so I'll quote one such blurb I was able to find:

"Time Wars: Not since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring has one book tackled a subject of such importance.

A battle is now brewing over our present conception of time. Its outcome will help determine the future of our society in the coming century. On one side are the power-time advocates, who would have us enter a hyperefficient computerized world where time is taken beyond human conception and recorded in nanoseconds (billionths of a second)-an artificial time world where past, present, and future blur together to create a simulated paradise divorced from the organic and seasonal time orientation of the planet. On the other side stand the time rebels, who question society's capitulation to the nanosecond time frame. They argue instead for an ecological time orientation that would resynchronize our social and economic activities to the biological and physical rhythms of the natural world.

Just as the "small is beautiful" idea challenged the myth that "bigger is better," the new ecological time vision, "slow is humane," challenges the prevailing view that increased speed and efficiency automatically mean progress.

The distinguishing feature of any society is its use of time, posits the author. Even before the Middle Ages when bells of the Benedictines first ordered the lives of monks, to the clocks and schedules, computers and programs of today, individuals have been organized into time-regulated groups as a requirement for social and economic security.

Jeremy Rifkin provides a context for the emerging "time wars" by arguing that the great political battles in history have been waged over competing temporal visions. The author surveys Western culture and concludes that changes in civilization take place only with corresponding changes in our conception of time. In the process Rifkin offers persuasive evidence to demonstrate what happens to our species when time is snatched from its biological and environmental moorings.

Time Wars is for everyone who wonders why, in a culture that is so intent on saving time, we find so little time left for ourselves and for each other."

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hmmmm... Yup, horrifying. "Thus, politics began with the first piece of pottery."