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diff --git a/timeforms.otx b/timeforms.otx index b63b046..9da942e 100644 --- a/timeforms.otx +++ b/timeforms.otx @@ -1429,499 +1429,85 @@ If anxiety demands too much time between the impulse and the gratification; if b \sec Synthesis: -We may begin to account now for Freud's admitted lack of -"progress" when confronted with the issue of time. His was a linear -perspective. And yet, in his paper, "On Negation,'*® he made -unknowing headway into the field he thought had baffled him. - +We may begin to account now for Freud's admitted lack of "progress" when confronted with the issue of time. His was a linear perspective. And yet, in his paper, \et{On Negation,}\bknote{46} he made unknowing headway into the field he thought had baffled him. -Similarly, despite his courage in attempting to forge a dialectical -Freud on the anvil of Marxian insight, Marcuse has not yet explicitly -focused his dialectical genius on a theory of time. +Similarly, despite his courage in attempting to forge a dialectical Freud on the anvil of Marxian insight, Marcuse has not yet explicitly focused his dialectical genius on a theory of time. +The existentialists rightly wish to rescue human freedom from the linear determinations of a mechanical causality, but in viewing all time as linear and mechanical they were able to preserve a kind of freedom only at the expense of dialectical thought. The genetic epistemologists achieve a richness of descriptive power no less vivid than the phenomenologists, but since both define their spheres in large measure apolitically, they build a certain irrelevance into their work. -The existentialists rightly wish to rescue human freedom from -the linear determinations of a mechanical causality, but in viewing all -time as linear and mechanical they were able to preserve a kind of -freedom only at the expense of dialectical thought. The genetic -epistemologists achieve a richness of descriptive power no less vivid -than the phenomenologists, but since both define their spheres in -large measure apolitically, they build a certain irrelevance into their -work. - - -These are not the faults of Sartre's work. Sartre insists that the -projects in which men engage be defined in terms of present -memories and present goals which are determined by personal and -social pastness as well as personal and social futurity --- not by a -transtemp oral (ecstatic) mysticism, nor by a post-temporal (millenialist) illusion. For Sartre as for Marx, the automatic dialectic they -attribute to the Hegelian Absolute is false and untenable. Without -vital membership in a project-class, history cannot be enacted, nor -can the polis be transformed. These, he rightly insists, are the sine -qua non of liberation. Unlike those scholars who claim that we must -see what is to be done before we do what must be done, Sartre -rightly reveals that we cannot see what must be done until we begin -to do what must be done. - - -With the utmost respect for the dignity with which Sartre has -assumed the burden of creating the critique of dialectical reason, I -suggest that it will be necessary, if his critique is to enjoy theoretical -viability, for him to include a critique of non-dialectical time. That - - - - -is, a hard and courageous attempt must be made to liberate ourselves -from the outmoded Western conception that (political) life takes -place only in linear chronological time. We must insist that the -dimensions of time may be even more numerous and far more rich -than the customary depiction of three dimensions of space. We must -cease borrowing from bankrupt physicalist philosophies which -assume that time is exhausted by the naming of the past, present, -and future. We must allow ourselves to be stimulated and provoked -by the possibilities of intergalactic voyages which must, somehow, -transcend the speed of light (which I, for one, resent). It may be -impossible for an electron to be other than it is "at" any given -instant. It is not impossible for a man. Nor, for that matter, for a -positron." - - -Men transcend mere succession when they remember their -membership in political classes whose traditions they transform in -political projects. It does not suffice mechanically to dogmatize that -political events consist of a thesis, an antithesis, and a synthesis. It is -now more than ever apparent that the concept of time, which Hegel -first inserted into Aristotle's principle of contradiction in a gigantic -intellectual leap spanning two thousand years of historical time, must -be carried forward another step. For Aristotle, a thing could not -both be and not be at the same time. For Hegel, since things both are -and are not, they could not simply be "at" the same time. Marx, like -Plato, saw being as historical challenge. Sartre sees being as historical -projects. We must begin to fashion a perspective which reveals not -merely the necessity to negate mere succession, but to seize power -over the rates at which liberations must come about. - - -Sartre pronounced that existence must precede essence, lest -freedom be an absurdity. We must learn to assert that recurrence -precedes occurrence; that both remembering and imagination nourish -action; that membership is liberating; and that those who demand -that we participate too slowly, oppress us. - - -VERTICAL TIME* ® -But does "vertical time" exist? What do the phrases "the - - - - -vertical dimension of time" and "vertical time" mean? The suggestion is that Westerners who can snuggle comfortably in the view that -space "has" three dimensions (line, plane, and sphere) should try to -conceive the possibility that time, like space, may have more -dimensions than the two which define it as a line. (Past, present, and -future are points o7 the line.) - - -Let us focus.now on the experience of the vertical dimension, -and attempt to depict how it is inherently dialectical. It lies in the -very heart of that process we call "generalization" to array a large -number of common "instances" under one idea, to which we -commonly affix a name, which labels it as the class, or set, of all such -objects. We usually perform this magic on classes of objects we can -see, visually, and for similar reasons, have come to believe that only -visible objects lend themselves to the process of generalization. And, -since time is something we don't see, visually, we have come to -believe that it is not a member of the class of generalizeable objects. - - -But this is false, as the astronauts of more than one nation -continue to visibly demonstrate. Their trips are vivid proof that a -very substantial theory of temporal generalizations does in fact exist. +These are not the faults of Sartre's work. Sartre insists that the projects in which men engage be defined in terms of present memories and present goals which are determined by personal and social pastness as well as personal and social futurity --- \e{not} by a transtemp oral (ecstatic) mysticism, nor by a post-temporal (millenialist) illusion. For Sartre as for Marx, the automatic dialectic they attribute to the Hegelian Absolute is false and untenable. Without vital membership in a \e{project-class,} history cannot be enacted, nor can the polis be transformed. These, he rightly insists, are the \e{sine qua non} of liberation. Unlike those scholars who claim that we must see what is to be done \e{before} we do what must be done, Sartre rightly reveals that we \e{cannot see} what must be done until we begin to \e{do} what must be done. +With the utmost respect for the dignity with which Sartre has assumed the burden of creating the critique of dialectical reason, I suggest that it will be necessary, if his critique is to enjoy theoretical viability, for him to include a critique of non-dialectical time. That is, a hard and courageous attempt must be made to liberate ourselves from the outmoded Western conception that (political) life takes place only in linear chronological time. We must insist that the dimensions of time may be even more numerous and far more rich than the customary depiction of three dimensions of space. We must cease borrowing from bankrupt physicalist philosophies which assume that time is exhausted by the naming of the past, present, and future. We must allow ourselves to be stimulated and provoked by the possibilities of intergalactic voyages which must, somehow, transcend the speed of light (which I, for one, resent). It may be impossible for an electron to be other than it is \e{"at"} any given instant. It is not impossible for a man. Nor, for that matter, for a positron.\bknote{47} -And, as has been argued elsewhere,*® the LSD trips of those -astronauts of inner space we call "heads" also provide us with proof -that times too are experientially generalizeable, that tripping is an -experience of temporal generalization, in which the exponents of -time, or rates of temporal change, and not simply mechanical -succession, are deliberately enjoyed for their own sake. Heads who -manage to trip successfully and without discernible damage, are -perfectly comfortable with shifting rates of joy. Indeed the more rate -changes one enjoys, the better the trip. This is so because acid, for -'theads," seems to confer the mysterious ability to expand the -apperception of time, such that, when you have more time to enjoy -what you're into, you enjoy it for a longer time.* ° - - - - -To put it another way --- if you experience your experience -occurring at a slower rate than your wristwatch, you will feel like -you have more time to spend on each experience. However, you -aren't experiencing slower than your wristwatch. In fact, you're -processing more information than usual (for example, your eyes are -dilated, letting more light in). Thus, while it helps a little to say that -it feels like you're going slow and your watch is going fast, it is more -accurate to say, as heads do, that you're "high", as in a higher level -of generalization. Another metaphor describing the high is this: -imagine walking on your knees, underwater about four feet deep, -then standing up into the fresh air and blue sky. Now imagine that -the water is clock time, (or, as Heidigger called it, Das Element) and -that time is to us what water is to a fish. Now ask yourself --- what is -this fresh air and blue sky above? It must be another kind of -temporal experience. One which generalizes clock time, hence both -transcends and illumines it, as a generalization illumines a particular. -Clock time is seen as only one of the kinds of temporal experience -you can have when you become aware of other kinds. - - -But how is this possible? Isn't there only one kind of time, the -succession of one moment after another, that is, what Bergson called -duration? Perhaps the physicists are the right people to answer this -question. But be prepared even there for a surprising answer, since -some physicists are now accustoming themselves to the idea that -time is not an invariant, and that not all fundamental qualities (e.g., -the positron) are, as they say, anisotropic,** or one directional. And -it just may be that there are otber kinds of time if we but knew how -to look for them. - - -But, whatever the physicists find, theoretical and clinical -scientists do not have to pore over abstruse mathematical equations -to become aware of an experience in themselves and in their -constituency of a very common experience, namely, that sometimes(!) experience seems to drag, so that minutes seem like hours, -and, "at" other times, experience is so joyful that hours seem like -minutes. +Men transcend mere succession when they remember their membership in political classes whose traditions they transform in political projects. It does not suffice mechanically to dogmatize that political events consist of a thesis, an antithesis, and a synthesis. It is now more than ever apparent that the concept of time, which Hegel first inserted into Aristotle's principle of contradiction in a gigantic intellectual leap spanning two thousand years of historical time, must be carried forward another step. For Aristotle, a thing could not both be and not be at the same time. For Hegel, since things both are and are not, they could not simply be "at" the same time. Marx, like Plato, saw being as historical challenge. Sartre sees being as historical projects. We must begin to fashion a perspective which reveals not merely the necessity to negate mere succession, but to seize power over the \e{rates} at which liberations must come about. +Sartre pronounced that existence must precede essence, lest freedom be an absurdity. We must learn to assert that recurrence precedes occurrence; that both remembering and imagination nourish action; that membership is liberating; and that those who demand that we participate too slowly, oppress us. +\sec Vertical Time\bknote{48} +But does "vertical time" exist? What do the phrases "the vertical dimension of time" and "vertical time" mean? The suggestion is that Westerners who can snuggle comfortably in the view that space "has" three dimensions (line, plane, and sphere) should try to conceive the possibility that time, like space, may have more dimensions than the two which define it as a line. (Past, present, and future are points \e{on} the line.) -What I am asking you to imagine, if you have not had a -psychedelic experience, is a region of consciousness in which time -becomes so elastic that both expanding and contracting time become -only two of the qualities of another whole region of temporal -experience. In addition, I not only ask you to imagine it, but I -suggest that the experience of this region is absolutely commonplace, -a common characteristic of every day life. +Let us focus.now on the experience of the vertical dimension, and attempt to depict how it is inherently dialectical. It lies in the very heart of that process we call "generalization" to array a large number of common "instances" under one idea, to which we commonly affix a name, which labels it as the class, or set, of all such objects. We usually perform this magic on classes of objects we can see, visually, and for similar reasons, have come to believe that only visible objects lend themselves to the process of generalization. And, since time is something we don't see, visually, we have come to believe that it is not a member of the class of generalizeable objects. +But this is false, as the astronauts of more than one nation continue to visibly demonstrate. Their trips are vivid proof that a very substantial theory of temporal generalizations does in fact exist. -To understand this, you have but to reflect that a generalization, amy generalization, consists of arbitrarily drawing an imaginary -temporal parenthesis around a number of remembered experiences -you have had before, so that you say, in effect, these are all kind -"A" and all the rest are kind "not A." That is, as Hegel noted long -ago, negation is constitutive of assertion. You must say this is one of -these and not those in order to say this is this. You must, as Plato -noted long before Hegel, re-cognize in order to cognize at all. +And, as has been argued elsewhere,\bknote{49} the LSD trips of those astronauts of inner space we call "heads" also provide us with proof that times too are experientially generalizeable, that tripping is an experience of temporal generalization, in which the exponents of time, or rates of temporal change, and not simply mechanical succession, are deliberately enjoyed for their own sake. Heads who manage to trip successfully and without discernible damage, are perfectly comfortable with shifting rates of joy. Indeed the more rate changes one enjoys, the better the trip. This is so because acid, for 'theads," seems to confer the mysterious ability to expand the apperception of time, such that, when you have more time to enjoy what you're into, you enjoy it for a longer time.\bknote{50} +To put it another way --- if you experience your experience occurring at a slower rate than your wristwatch, you will feel like you have more time to spend on each experience. However, you aren't \e{experiencing} slower than your wristwatch. In fact, you're processing \e{more} information than usual (for example, your eyes are dilated, letting \e{more} light in). Thus, while it helps a little to say that it feels like you're going slow and your watch is going fast, it is more accurate to say, as heads do, that you're "high", as in a higher level of generalization. Another metaphor describing the high is this: imagine walking on your knees, underwater about four feet deep, then standing up into the fresh air and blue sky. Now imagine that the water is clock time, (or, as Heidigger called it, \e{Das Element}) and that time is to us what water is to a fish. Now ask yourself --- what is this fresh air and blue sky \e{above}? It must be another \e{kind} of temporal experience. One which generalizes clock time, hence both transcends and illumines it, as a generalization illumines a particular. Clock time is seen as \e{only one} of the kinds of temporal experience you can have when you become aware of other kinds. -Dialectical theorists are wholly familiar with this line of -reasoning, which was sufficient unto the task of describing how we -generalize as long as the world moved by at a relatively slow and -manageable pace. In such a world, the frequency with which a -number of A's came by was relatively comfortable, and one was -under no special press to construct categories to subsume all such -A's. Recall that Aristotle constructed a metaphysic in which 10 -categories subsumed the entire cosmos. - - -But now, when the pace at which new A's enter experience is so -fast and furious that we must become specialists in order to manage -ever smaller quadrants of daily life, the situation is almost totally -different. Marx described an industrial revolution that took a -hundred years to elapse. We now process experience via computerized machines that change the nature of the environment every ten -years. +But how is this possible? Isn't there only one kind of time, the succession of one moment after another, that is, what Bergson called duration? Perhaps the physicists are the right people to answer this question. But be prepared even there for a surprising answer, since some physicists are now accustoming themselves to the idea that time is not an invariant, and that not all fundamental qualities (e.g., the positron) are, as they say, anisotropic,\bknote{51} or one directional. And it just may be that there are \e{other} kinds of time if we but knew how to look for them. +But, whatever the physicists find, theoretical and clinical scientists do not have to pore over abstruse mathematical equations to become aware of an experience in themselves and in their constituency of a very common experience, namely, that sometimes(!) experience seems to drag, so that minutes seem like hours, and, "at" other times, experience is so joyful that hours seem like minutes. + +What I am asking you to imagine, if you have not had a psychedelic experience, is a region of consciousness in which time becomes so elastic that both expanding and contracting time become only two of the qualities of another whole region of temporal experience. In addition, I not only ask you to imagine it, but I suggest that the experience of this region is absolutely commonplace, a common characteristic of every day life. + +To understand this, you have but to reflect that a generalization, \e{any} generalization, consists of arbitrarily drawing an imaginary temporal parenthesis around a number of remembered experiences you have had before, so that you say, in effect, these are all kind "A" and all the rest are kind "not A." That is, as Hegel noted long ago, negation is constitutive of assertion. You must say this is \e{one of these and not those} in order to say this is this. You must, as Plato noted long before Hegel, \e{re}-cognize in order to cognize at all. + +Dialectical theorists are wholly familiar with this line of reasoning, which was sufficient unto the task of describing how we generalize as long as the world moved by at a relatively slow and manageable pace. In such a world, the frequency with which a number of A's came by was relatively comfortable, and one was under no special press to construct categories to subsume all such A's. Recall that Aristotle constructed a metaphysic in which 10 categories subsumed the entire cosmos. + +But now, when the pace at which new A's enter experience is so fast and furious that we must become specialists in order to manage ever smaller quadrants of daily life, the situation is almost totally different. Marx described an industrial revolution that took a hundred years to elapse. We now process experience via computerized machines that change the nature of the environment every ten years. + +And heads devise environments in which a dozen movies, a dozen symphonies and a dozen Kaleidoscopic strobe lights barrage their consciousness with sensations as awesome in number and kind as the birth of a galaxy billions of light years in "size." + +Confronted by a rate of experience of such stupendous (or mind blowing) complexity, the human kind must attempt to re-cognize faster than ever before. To do so requires wholly new \e{kinds} of generalizations. Therefore, we should not be surprised that many people in diverse regions of society have begun to move beyond generalizing only visible objects, by attempting to generalize (invisible) \e{times.} Many are beginning to learn how to have such experiences comfortably and joyfully because they know that just as duration generalizes rest, as velocity generalizes duration, as acceleration generalizes velocity, so there are other kinds of temporal experience which have as their particulars, changes in the rate of change. They confirm William James' view that there are regions of mind as unusually different from our waking consciousness as our waking consciousness differs from our dreams.\bknote{52} + +One of these regions, I hold, is filled with that kind of time heads call "high," a region which consists of the \e{generalizations} of our more banal experiences of duration, velocity, and acceleration. I think we have become aware of it recently, because the number and \e{kind} of change-experiences thrust on us by our hurtling cybernetic environment, has made obsolete our usual methods of making generalizations, that is, of \e{re}cognizing our world in traditional spatial categories. + +This view gives us the basis of an answer to our central inquiry, which may now be rephrased as follows. Could it be that a higher more general kind of time may be in conflict with a lower more special time as a meta-message may be in conflict with a message, as in the double bind theory of schizophrenia? That a bum trip consists of the annihilating terror of being in what feels like two different times at once? Could it be that time, which we thought at its very interior core to be of the rate of things, might consist of levels of itself characterized by differing rates of occurrence, such that clock time is only one specific form of experience? + +The hypothesis is attractive, since it helps to explain why some schizophrenics are described as stuck in "concrete (linear) thinking" while others seem lost in a strange world of racing images. It helps to explain why "talking somebody down from a bum trip" consists essentially in telling him to "go with it" --- "get into it" --- "ride it" "follow it" "it's allright --- it's all valid experience." It even helps to explain why it's called a trip, as if it were a voyage in time. + +In this connection, it is instructive to recall the theoretical paradigm of the double-blind theory of schizophrenia. Bateson and his co-workers wrote: + +\Q{Our approach is based on that part of communication theory which Russell has called the theory of logical types. The central thesis of this theory is that there is a discontinuity between a class and its members.\bknote{53}} + +If we recall that the \e{genesis} of a logical class is a generalization made to re-member all experiences of a given kind, it begins to be clear that double-bound (schizophrenic) persons are those told simultaneously to experience a particular and yet deny validity to the experience of its class. In other words, the bind prohibits the experience of generalization (uniting past and present experiences in a synthesis) yet commands the present experience to be familiar. This annihilation of memory negates the very process of present experience. + +Bum trips, like schizophrenia, are therefore well described as failed dialectics, since their pathology results from the negation (of "normalcy") not itself being negated. Some therapists encourage the schizophrenic to "go on through" the process of madness, since they believe, and, I think correctly, that madness is only the second moment in a dialectical process, that madness itself must be negated after it negates "sanity."\bknote{54} The above is only a very fancy way of defining the word "freaky" in the context of a "freak out" philosophy, which regards episodes of madness as prerequisite to the achievement of a "higher" synthesis. + +In the instance of schizophrenia, our hypothesis suggests that there is indeed a double bind at work in its genesis, but that double. binds are a very special sort of \e{temporal} contradiction in which the person is not only asked to remember what he is commanded to forget: he is also asked to experience two different times simultaneously. Yet this is a patent impossibility unless the person can be made aware that he will not lose his mind but gain another dimension of it by entering a region of experience in which such time conflicts are only special cases of another kind of time, which, if he chooses, he can inhabit comfortably. Unfortunately, few therapists are aware that there is such a region, and therefore find it impossible to offer support and encouragement to a patient who is trying to find it. Therapists addicted to the view that there is only one kind of time, clock time, will obviously not be able to avail themselves of this clinical prerogative. + +Vertical time, then, although depicted spatially in our paradigm as a perpendicular to the linear arrow of time, bears the same relation to linear time as the plane bears to the line it generalizes. It is the dimension of all linear times, as well as a kind of time of another sort. Are there even other sorts? The question leads to an examination of the sociology of emotion. + +\sec Sociogenesis of Affective Process + +Sociology, at present, seems to be without a theory of emotion.\bknote{55} We find occasional descriptions of socioeconomic pre dicaments and correlated "states" of feeling in what are customarily described as cross-sectional studies, i.e., sociological slices of life. But we are still very far from the day when we shall be able to say, with a comfortable degree of certainty, that people in situation "A", will probably feel emotion "a", in "B", "b". etc. When, for example, we speak of an "angry mob," we do not necessarily mean that each numerical individual feels anger. As Freud aptly demonstrated in \bt{Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego},\bknote{56} an angry mob may consist of a few angry men and a majority of decompensated followers. Reductionism of type I looms as a danger here, because, in our day, a feeling is said to be the property of an individual, not a quality of social entities. And yet we say that feelings motivate groups. Thus we may speak of a "restless" people, a "ferocious" people, a "quiet peace-loving" people, and of "warlike" peoples, only by pretending not to reduce the sociological phenomenon to an arithmetic of individuals.\bknote{57} + +Emotions and feelings, in our view, are the feedback of anticipated actions, the registry of the future, as it were, of altered conditions of social readiness (or unreadiness) in the face of new stimuli, be they fantasies or cultures.\bknote{58} Groups, in our view, consist of the patterns of the behaviors of people whose relations to each other are patterned by the groups they form. Thus, what a given individual feels when he behaves in a group is relevent to the question of the social genesis of affect exactly insofar as his feeling is defined as a feeling by those behaviorally concerned with his behavior, including himself. To be sure, the feelings which the person and his "others" each feel also shape the patterned interactions in which they engage, but the extent to which there is something like an emotion feedback which characterizes the \e{pattern} in which they are engaged (let us imagine it as a "tough company to work for"), and the extent to which this pattern priorly shapes what they feel is, it seems to us, much in need of exploration as well as terminology. It was toward the cognitive aspect of this issue, we believe, that Durkheim was moving when he employed the term "collective representation." Although reductionism is always bothersome it was not the reductionism of his formulation, we believe, but the difficulty of the problem of social affect which seems to have perplexed him, his contemporaries, and his disciples. Thus it received minimal attention. No argument is offered here that we are any more able to tackle the question. We do make a brief, however, for the possibility of investigating the phenomenon of social affect in the context of a temporalist orientation, since, if people have feelings about the quality of their life-processes, and if, as we have suggested, the social conditions which determine the extent to which their lives proceed at satisfactory or unsatisfactory rates simultaneously determine what we are calling social affect, then perhaps the time has come to begin a proper investigation of social affects.\bknote{59} -And heads devise environments in which a dozen movies, 2 -dozen symphonies and a dozen Kaleidoscopic strobe lights barrage - - - - -their consciousness with sensations as awesome in number and kind -as the birth of a galaxy billions of light years in "size." - - -Confronted by a rate of experience of such stupendous (or -mind blowing) complexity, the human kind must attempt to -re-cognize faster than ever before. To do so requires wholly new -kinds of generalizations. Therefore, we should not be surprised that -many people in diverse regions of society have begun to move -beyond generalizing only visible objects, by attempting to generalize -(invisible) times. Many are beginning to learn how to have such -experiences comfortably and joyfully because they know that just as -duration generalizes rest, as velocity generalizes duration, as acceleration generalizes velocity, so there are other kinds of temporal -experience which have as their particulars, changes in the rate of -. change. They confirm William James' view that there are regions of -mind as unusually different from our waking consciousness as our -waking consciousness differs from our dreams.*? - - -One of these regions, I hold, is filled with that kind of time -heads call "high," a region which consists of the generalizations of -our more banal experiences of duration, velocity, and acceleration. I -think we have become aware of it recently, because the number and -kind of change-experiences thrust on us by our hurtling cybernetic -environment, has made obsolete our usual methods of making -generalizations, that is, of recognizing our world in traditional spatial -categories. - +Again, our everyday vocabulary provides us with a beginning. We say, for example, that the "mood" of a meeting was "sullen," "anxious;" that a party was exciting, a play, depressing, etc. These macroscopic determinations of the "emotional" qualities of social groups do not permit of reductionist descriptions. Thus, a cocktail party may be experienced as exciting even if one or two individuals were down and out. If we insist on asking how many people have to be counted as dull before a whole party is said to be dull (type II reductionism) we barely begin to recognize that groups have properties analogous to individual feelings. Yet, \e{somehow,} we intuit these holistic estimates. Were we more systematically to investigate the social circumstances of these intuitions, we might find that there are patterns of "group affect." That these are difficult conditions to "operationalize" no one will deny, but difficulty is not impossibility; let us begin to move beyond static dissections and "snap-shot" studies. Since a lengthy exegesis would be inappropriate here, a few introductory remarks about the emotional relation between dialectical conceptualizations and the achrony-synchrony paradigm will have to suffice.\bknote{60} Some clarity is achieved if we ask 'does acceleration ameliorate the anachronic situation?" or Conversely, "does deceleration ameliorate the metachronic condition?" Do they make it "feel" better? -This view gives us the basis of an answer to our central inquiry, -which may now be rephrased as follows. Could it be that a higher -more general kind of time may be in conflict with a lower more -special time as a meta-message may be in conflict with a message, as -in the double bind theory of schizophrenia? That a bum trip consists -of the annihilating terror of being in what feels like two different -times at once? Could it be that time, which we thought at its very -interior core to be of the rate of things, might consist of levels of -itself characterized by differing rates of occurrence, such that clock -time is only one specific form of experience? +We are tempted to respond with a categorical "no" but that would be aprioristic. The reasoning behind our temptation is as follows: Hegel and Marx, the best protagonists of dialectical thinking, were nonetheless (actually, all the more) creatures of their age, which, it will be remembered, were the halcyon days of Newtonian physics. Newtonian time is linear, regarding past, present, and future as a sufficiently elaborate formulation of "actual time." Yet, even for Hegel and Marx, the extent to which the dialectic of Being --- non-Being was resolved in Becoming implicitly involved more than linear continuity. After "A" receives its mediation by "B", the new reality, "C", is not merely more of "A" or more of "B" or even some sort of "A plus B." To the extent that synthesis of the antinomy between "A" and "B" has taken place, to that same extent, they alleged, did a transcendence, (i.e., a new reality of a "higher order") emerge.\bknote{61} +More concretely, Marx did \e{not} write that the condition of the alienated was improved merely because it continued to endure into the future. Actually, the converse is true: the "longer" alienation lasts, the worse does it become.\bknote{62} Nor, in his view, was it possible merely to accelerate the pace at which "profits" were distributed more equitably, since the conditions which motivated the "capitalist" to retain at the rates at which they retained were as constitutive of their class structure as injustice was constitutive of the class structure of the proletariat. The dialectical negation (revolution) of the oppressive thesis (profit motive) must bring about a \e{new} order (synthesis), a pattern of social reality whose seeds were sown in the former, but whose fruits are to be reaped only in a wholly \e{new} set of social realities. +Similarly, retraining today's unemployed by allocating monies from today's profits would, it is argued, present an insuperable (i.e., more cost than profit) barrier to "progress" (more profit than cost). Or, in the instance of the adolescent, it is argued that a social structure in which puberty actually brought with it the privileges of adulthood would topple the present social structure of age-status stratification. +Thus, an anachronistic situation is not transformed into a synchronous one merely by hurrying. When the rates of behavior are too slow, acceleration makes them go -faster, not feel better. Someone who goes too slowly doesn't feel slow, he feels "bad." Someone who goes too fast doesn't feel rapidly, he feels distressed. In short, the feelings which characterize the various achronistic orientations are those which characterize an incompleted dialectic. Hegel described "the unhappy consciousness;" Marx described prolonged estrangement. -The hypothesis is attractive, since it helps to explain why some -schizophrenics are described as stuck in "concrete (linear) thinking" -while others seem lost in a strange world of racing images. It helps to -explain why "talking somebody down from a bum trip" consists -essentially in telling him to "go with it" --- "get into it" --- "ride it" -"follow it" "it's allright --- it's all valid experience." It even helps to -explain why it's called a trip, as if it were a voyage in time. - - -In this connection, it is instructive to recall the theoretical -paradigm of the double-blind theory of schizophrenia. Bateson and -his co-workers wrote: - - -Our. approach is based on that part of communication -theory which Russell has called the theory of logical types. -The central thesis of this theory is that there is a -discontinuity between a class and its members.*? - - -If we recall that the genesis of a logical class is a generalization made -to re-member all experiences of a given kind, it begins to be clear -that double-bound (schizophrenic) persons are those told simultaneously to experience a particular and yet deny validity to the -experience of its class. In other words, the bind prohibits the -experience of generalization (uniting past and present experiences in -a synthesis) yet commands the present experience to be familiar. -This annihilation of memory negates the very process of present -experience. - - -Bum trips, like schizophrenia, are therefore well described as -failed dialectics, since their pathology results from the negation (of -"normalcy") not itself being negated. Some therapists encourage the -schizophrenic to "go on through" the process of madness, since they -believe, and, I think correctly, that madness is only the second -moment in a dialectical process, that madness itself must be negated -after it negates "sanity."°4 The above is only a very fancy way of -defining the word "freaky" in the context of a "freak out" -philosophy, which regards episodes of madness as prerequisite to the -achievement of a "higher" synthesis. - - - - -In the instance of schizophrenia, our hypothesis suggests that -there is indeed a double bind at work in its genesis, but that double. -binds are a very special sort of temporal contradiction in which the -person is not only asked to remember what he is commanded to -forget: he is also asked to experience two different times simultaneously. Yet this is a patent impossibility unless the person can be -made aware that he will not lose his mind but gain another -dimension of it by entering a region of experience in which such time -conflicts are only special cases of another kind of time, which, if he -chooses, he can inhabit comfortably. Unfortunately, few therapists -are aware that there is such a region, and therefore find it impossible -to offer support and encouragement to a patient who is trying to -find it. Therapists addicted to the view that there is only one kind of -time, clock time, will obviously not be able to avail themselves of -this clinical prerogative. - - -Vertical time, then, although depicted spatially in our paradigm -as a perpendicular to the linear arrow of time, bears the same relation -to linear time as the plane bears to the line it generalizes. It is the -dimension of all linear times, as well as a kind of time of another -sort. Are there even other sorts? The question leads to an -examination of the sociology of emotion. - - -SOCIOGENESIS OF AFFECTIVE PROCESS - -Sociology, at present, seems to be without a theory of -emotion.55 We find occasional descriptions of socioeconomic pre -dicaments and correlated "states" of feeling in what are customarily -described as cross-sectional studies, i.e., sociological slices of life. But -we are still very far from the day when we shall be able to say, with a -comfortable degree of certainty, that people in situation "A", will -probably feel emotion "a", in "B", "b". etc. When, for example, we -speak of an "angry mob," we do not necessarily mean that each -numerical individual feels anger. As Freud aptly demonstrated in -Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,°® an angry mob may -consist of a few angry men and a majority of decompensated -followers. Reductionism of type I looms as a danger here, because, in -our day, a feeling is said to be the property of an individual, not a - - - - -quality of social entities. And yet we say that feelings motivate -groups. Thus we may speak of a "restless" people, a "ferocious" -people, a "quiet peace-loving" people, and of "warlike" peoples, -only by pretending not to reduce the sociological phenomenon to an -arithmetic of individuals.* 7 - - -Emotions and feelings, in our view, are the feedback of -anticipated actions, the registry of the future, as it were, of altered -conditions of social readiness (or unreadiness) in the face of new -stimuli, be they fantasies or cultures.6*® Groups, in our view, consist -of the patterns of the behaviors of people whose relations to each -other are patterned by the groups they form. Thus, what a given -individual feels when he behaves in a group is relevent to the -question of the social genesis of affect exactly insofar as his feeling is -defined as a feeling by those behaviorally concerned with his -behavior, including himself. To be sure, the feelings which the person -and his "others" each feel also shape the patterned interactions in -which they engage, but the extent to which there is something like -. an emotion feedback which characterizes the pattern in which they -are engaged (let us imagine it as a "tough company to work for"), -and the extent to which this pattern priorly shapes what they feel is, -it seems to us, much in need of exploration as well as terminology. It -was toward the cognitive aspect of this issue, we believe, that -Durkheim was moving when he employed the term "collective -representation." Although reductionism is always bothersome it was -not the reductionism of his formulation, we believe, but the -difficulty of the problem of social affect which seems to have -perplexed him, his contemporaries, and his disciples. Thus it received -minimal attention. No argument is offered here that we are any more -able to tackle the question. We do make a brief, however, for the -possibility of investigating the phenomenon of social affect in the -context of a temporalist orientation, since, if people have feelings -about the quality of their life-processes, and if, as we have suggested, -the social conditions which determine the extent to which their lives -proceed at satisfactory or unsatisfactory rates simultaneously determine what we are calling social affect, then perhaps the time has -come to begin a proper investigation of social affects.° ° - - - - -Again, our everyday vocabulary provides us with a beginning. -We say, for example, that the "mood" of a meeting was "sullen," -"anxious;" that a party was exciting, a play, depressing, etc. These -macroscopic determinations of the "emotional" qualities of social -groups do not permit of reductionist descriptions. Thus, a cocktail -party may be experienced as exciting even if one or two individuals -were down and out. If we insist on asking how many people have to -be counted as dull before a whole party is said to be dull (type II - - -reductionism) we barely begin to recognize that groups have -_ properties analogous to individual feelings. Yet, somebow, we intuit -these holistic estimates. Were we more systematically to investigate -the social circumstances of these intuitions, we might find that there -are patterns of "group affect." That these are difficult conditions to -"operationalize" no one will deny, but difficulty is not impossibility; -let us begin to move beyond static dissections and "snap-shot" -studies. Since a lengthy exegesis would be inappropriate here, a few -introductory remarks about the emotional relation between dialectical conceptualizations and the achrony-synchrony paradigm will -have to suffice.°° Some clarity is achieved if we ask 'does -acceleration ameliorate the anachronic situation?" or Conversely, "does -deceleration ameliorate the metachronic condition?" Do they make it -"feel" better? - - -We are tempted to respond with a categorical "no" but that -would be aprioristic. The reasoning behind our temptation is as -follows: Hegel and Marx, the best protagonists of dialectical -thinking, were nonetheless (actually, all the more) creatures of their -age, which, it will be remembered, were the halcyon days of -Newtonian physics. Newtonian time is linear, regarding past, present, -and future as a sufficiently elaborate formulation of "actual time." -Yet, even for Hegel and Marx, the extent to which the dialectic of -Being --- non-Being was resolved in Becoming implicitly involved -more than linear continuity. After "A" receives its mediation by -"B", the new reality, "C", is not merely more of "A" or more of -"B" or even some sort of "A plus B." To the extent that synthesis of -the antinomy between "A" and "B" has taken place, to that same - - - - -extent, they alleged, did a transcendence, (i.e., a new reality of a -"higher order") emerge.° ! - - -More concretely, Marx did not write that the condition of the -alienated was improved merely because it continued to endure into -the future. Actually, the converse is true: the "longer" alienation -lasts, the worse does it become.®? Nor, in his view, was it possible -merely to accelerate the pace at which "profits" were distributed -more equitably, since the conditions which motivated the "capitalist" to retain at the rates at which they retained were as constitutive -of their class structure as injustice was constitutive of the class -structure of the proletariat. The dialectical negation (revolution) of -the oppressive thesis (profit motive) must bring about a mew order -- (synthesis), a pattern of social reality whose seeds were sown in the -former, but whose fruits are to be reaped only in a wholly new set of -social realities. - - -Similarly, retraining today's unemployed by allocating monies -from today's profits would, it is argued, present an insuperable (Le., -more cost than profit) barrier to "progress" (more profit than cost). -Or, in the instance of the adolescent, it is argued that a social -structure in which puberty actually brought with it the privileges of -adulthood would topple the present social structure of age-status -stratification. - - -Thus, an anachronistic situation is not transformed into a -synchronous one merely by hurrying. When the rates of behavior are -too slow, acceleration makes them go -faster, not feel better. -Someone who goes too slowly doesn't feel slow, he feels "bad." -Someone who goes too fast doesn't feel rapidly, he feels distressed. -In short, the feelings which characterize the various achronistic -orientations are those which characterize an incompleted dialectic. -Hegel described "the unhappy consciousness; Marx described -prolonged estrangement. - - -Synchrony, then, is not the middle road between turgidity and -rapidity --- it is the apperception of harmony which accompanies - - - - -generalization. The painter who says "It is going well' describes a -process in which synthesis is occurring at a pace comfortable for his -talents, be they mean or inspired. When no generalization, creativity, -synthesis, transcendence, growth, development (call it what you will) -is experienced, 'life disintegrates into the dimensions of achrony, 1.€., -too fast, too slow, too high, too low, too good, too dull. -Synchronization, then, is the dialectical resolution of achrony; -achrony is the disintegration of synchrony. When it "goes well," -paradox of paradoxes, we do not notice the time passing. The -"interval" between creative urge and creative act lies unmarked: we -do not need to "pass the time" nor "long for the day" when our -hopes will be fulfilled. In short, when we dwell upon the rate of -satisfaction, we do not enjoy the process --- we criticize it. - - -Religions have made much of "timelessness." So have Freud -and Eliade.°? The perfect simultaneity of desire and fulfillment has -been universally extolled as the ultimate happiness of man. This is so, -not, in our view, because there is a "place" where this kind of -process is actual (whether it be heaven or the id), but because, for -each of us, though far too rarely in our lives, we have experienced -"times"? in which we needed to note no duration, no passage, no -motion. The extreme rarity of these experiences, and conversely, the -all too frequent occurrence of forms of achrony, is coterminous with -the extent of human pathology. +Synchrony, then, is not the middle road between turgidity and rapidity --- it is the apperception of harmony which accompanies generalization. The painter who says "It is going well" describes a process in which synthesis is occurring at a pace comfortable for his talents, be they mean or inspired. When no generalization, creativity, synthesis, transcendence, growth, development (call it what you will) is experienced, 'life disintegrates into the dimensions of achrony, 1.€., too fast, too slow, too high, too low, too good, too dull. Synchronization, then, is the dialectical resolution of achrony; achrony is the disintegration of synchrony. When it "goes well," paradox of paradoxes, \e{we do not notice the time passing.} The "interval" between creative urge and creative act lies unmarked: we do not need to "pass the time" nor "long for the day" when our hopes will be fulfilled. In short, when we dwell upon the rate of satisfaction, we do not enjoy the process --- we criticize it. +Religions have made much of "timelessness." So have Freud and Eliade.\bknote{63} The perfect simultaneity of desire and fulfillment has been universally extolled as the ultimate happiness of man. This is so, not, in our view, because there is a "place" where this kind of process is actual (whether it be heaven or the id), but because, for each of us, though far too rarely in our lives, we have experienced "times" in which we needed to note no duration, no passage, no motion. The extreme rarity of these experiences, and conversely, the all too frequent occurrence of forms of achrony, is coterminous with the extent of human pathology. This helps us to understand how each of the achronistic orientations contains an illusion of synchrony in its portrait. The @@ -1929,17 +1515,13 @@ epichronic timeless heaven seems synchronic, as does the anachronic blissful nirvana. The metachronic utopia resembles the catachronic relief in suicide. In each orientation, there is an attempt to compensate for the lost time, whether it be the "injustice of -birth"®* or the attempt to recapture "innocence" or "paradise lost." +birth"\bknote{64} or the attempt to recapture "innocence" or "paradise lost." Sensitivities are sometimes modified in such ways to lessen the pain -of loss®*® inflicted by death. +of loss\bknote{65} inflicted by death. It has commonly been observed that cultures very in their definitions of the ultimate good. But the proliferation of the cultures - - - - of man need not blind us to the fact that no man, be he "primitive" or contemporary, enjoys mere endurance. All men, it seems, though they variously describe it, have experienced what we here call @@ -1947,7 +1529,6 @@ synchrony, that is, moments in their lives when a harmony of paces was felt so pleasantly that they did not need to "mark" the passage of time. - Thus, synchrony is a dialectical experience, and the various forms of achrony, tentatively described here, represent moments of pain when the pace of experience is without genuine mediation. It is @@ -1955,21 +1536,18 @@ as if there were a beautiful pace of feeling natively within us, the result of the concatenation of our biological, social, and cultural development, which we alter only at our peril. - -VARYING VARIATIONS +\sec Varying Variations We have clocks to measure linear time, "biological clocks" which regulate and synchronize physiological times; are there -psychological and sociological clocks as well,®® which measure +psychological and sociological clocks as well,\bknote{66} which measure variant sensibilities to the tempo of experience? How many "dimensions" of temporal experience are there? - These inquiries, however basic they seem, are themselves based on the assumption of a uniform, i.e., invariant rate of experience. There are still others. - Let us turn then to the question of non-uniform increases and decreases in the timing of experience. We may begin by inquiring whether we sometimes feel accelerations in the pace of experience @@ -1982,14 +1560,15 @@ tuned car. We first experience an increasing rate of acceleration, in what statisticians refer to as a "J" curve. But as we approach the limit of acceleration within that gear, although we are still accelerating, we are picking up speed at a slower rate. Were we to - - - - remain in this gear, the statistical description of our speed and rate of acceleration would begin to reverse its slope and taper off, and -gradually resemble a plateau. Thus: +gradually resemble a plateau. Thus fig \ref[slopeup]. +\midinsert +\picw=1in\inspic{img/slopeup.png} +\cskip +\caption/f[slopeup] +\endinsert To continue the metaphor: If we were engaged in an exploration of the performance characteristics of this gear range and of no other, we would begin to apply the brakes in order to bring the car @@ -1999,113 +1578,33 @@ brake pedal, which means that while it is true to say that the vehicle is decelerating, we know that it is not decelerating at a uniform rate. When our foot is on the brake, we are increasing the rate of deceleration, and when our foot is off the brake, although we are still -decelerating, we are decelerating less rapidly. Thus: - - -In this situation anachronizing and metachronizing occur at -non-uniform rates. In other words, we may perceive increasing or -decreasing acceleration or deceleration. The perceptive reader will -note that we have so far restricted our attention to the customary -linear dimension of time captured in differential equations. It -remains to demonstrate that homological phenomena occur along the -other two axes of our paradigm. We present schematically all -such possibilities on page 152. - - -The situation in which the racing car initially accelerates -acceleratedly corresponds to our cell "2b," that is, it metachronizes -metachrony. When it begins to slow down its rate of acceleration, it -corresponds to our cell "2a," that is, it anachronizes metachrony. -Similarly, when it slows down initially, more rapidly than it slows -down later on, we observe a metachronizing anachrony and -eventually, an anachronizing anachrony: ("1b" to "1a" respectively). - +decelerating, we are decelerating less rapidly. Thus fig \ref[slopedown]. +\midinsert +\picw=1in\inspic{img/slopedown.png} +\cskip +\caption/f[slopedown] +\endinsert +In this situation anachronizing and metachronizing occur at non-uniform rates. In other words, we may perceive increasing or decreasing acceleration or deceleration. The perceptive reader will note that we have so far restricted our attention to the customary linear dimension of time captured in differential equations. It remains to demonstrate that homological phenomena occur along the other two axes of our paradigm. We present schematically all such possibilities on page \pfref[timeaxes]. -ie) -ev) Y -1o) Z, Z, z S -Zz | io) = N & -Nn IS Z Z N -5 z N z 9 Zz -ie) = eo} wa fe) -22 |g |2 |z |g -om 6) a S) xz rs -Gj¢ |£ !2 |8 5 -s |e |e |e | |é -<(@lF b/s @Ol/GM@/=z els fH - - -» --h - - -ANACHRONY (1) - - -oy - - -ala ia i le -wm aN i) an -in o Co ion - - -LS) -Qa. -N -i) -rh - - -METACHRONY (2) | 2a - - -EPICHRONY (3) - - -aN -aN -a. -p -aN -Hh - - -mn = -a a re) a -w NS - -a a. -w mt -o o o o - -w - --h - - -CATACHRONY (4) |4a - - -wm -eh - - -HYPERCHRONY (5) - - -6f - - -an -Qa - - -HYPOCHRONY (6) +The situation in which the racing car initially accelerates acceleratedly corresponds to our cell "2b," that is, it metachronizes metachrony. When it begins to slow down its rate of acceleration, it corresponds to our cell "2a," that is, it anachronizes metachrony. Similarly, when it slows down initially, more rapidly than it slows down later on, we observe a metachronizing anachrony and eventually, an anachronizing anachrony: ("1b" to "1a" respectively). +\midinsert +\table{r|c|c|c|c|c|c}{ + & Anachronizing (a) & Metachronizing (b) & Epichronizing (c) & Catachroniing (d) & Hyperchronizing (e) & Hypochronizing (f) \crl + Anachrony (1) & 1a & 1b & 1c & 1d & 1e & 1f \crl + Metachrony (2) & 2a & 2b & 2c & 2d & 2e & 2f \crl + Epichrony (3) & 3a & 3b & 3c & 3d & 3e & 3f \crl + Catachrony (4) & 4a & 4b & 4c & 4d & 4e & 4f \crl + Hyperchrony (5) & 5a & 5b & 5c & 5d & 5e & 5f \crl + Hypochrony (6) & 6a & 6b & 6c & 6d & 6e & 6f \crl +} +\cskip +\caption/t[timeaxes] +\endinsert -Let us attempt tu describe sociologically related phenomena +Let us attempt to describe sociologically related phenomena along the other axes. Imagine a culture in which there is a gradual (i.e. uniform) accumulation of oligarchical political power. One thinks of the coalition of wealthy families who arrogated to @@ -2117,7 +1616,7 @@ power-concentration, or seize power themselves before it was too late: that is, either catachronize the epichrony, or epichronize themselves. (3d, or 3c respectively). More prosaically, we might describe this situation as one in which the pace of political evolution -is felt to require either devolution or revolution. +is felt to require either \e{de}volution or \e{re}volution. A full description ot each of tnese achronistic interactions lies beyond the scope of this paradigmatic analysis, and must await the @@ -2125,9 +1624,6 @@ concatenation of data from studies now in progress. However, one further illustration seems in order, since the two examples we have given each illustrate only one dimension of our paradigm. - - - Imagine a situation in which a young man is "looking forward anxiously" to a date with a pretty young woman who has recently entered his ambience. As the appointed hour approaches he becomes @@ -2139,7 +1635,6 @@ which "chills" him momentarily. But he "puts this thought from his mind," and returns to the pleasure of his original fantasy with "heightened" anticipation. - We see here an initial increase in his "anticipatory anxiety" which he hypochronizes by envisaging a more pleasurable erotic effect. This fantasy, however, unleashes an even greater torrent of @@ -2147,6 +1642,7 @@ hyperchronic "anxiety" which he handles by increasing the degree of his hypochronization, i.e., denial of "anxiety." He attempts to achieve, as it were, a "euchronistic" equilibrium. +\brk It will be noted that without the actual experience which he so fondly awaits, a genuinely "synchronous experience" will not be @@ -2161,19 +1657,13 @@ simple pairs of adjectives; we expect that social processes will trace a crooked line through our neat and hence naive categorizations. That this is the predictable fate of "ideal types" is well known. - For example, accelerating decelerations and decelerating accelerations are far simpler phenomena than those we find incarnated in the cross-cultural universal we call music. Were we to devote some attention here to repeating rates and varying durations between - - - - them, and to some of the archetypes of rhythm, tempo, cycles, and other forms of periodicity, we would risk opening the temporal typologist's pandora's box. - It is sometimes speculated that the first form of time which the unborn organism experiences is the maternal heartbeat, of which the organism becomes "aware" through the periodic surgings and @@ -2186,17 +1676,16 @@ the uterine paradise from which it may feel "untimely ripped" it has been found that the placement of clocks, metronomes, or other rhythmic devices correlates very highly with apparent decreases in infant discomfort and increases in metabolic well-being. Similar -experiments with animals have resulted in similar findings.® 7 +experiments with animals have resulted in similar findings.\bknote{67} - -Graphically, we depict such recurrences as "periodic functions" +Graphically, we depict such \e{re}currences as "periodic functions" and we are accustomed to measuring the intervals between peaks and troughs of such mathematical entities as sine curves, and of other less uniform functions, such as brain waves. We draw attention here to the fact that little attention has been paid to related phenomena in a -sociological way. Moore's work is instructive.°® Pareto's cyclical +sociological way. Moore's work is instructive.\bknote{68} Pareto's cyclical theory of history is also a case in point, as is Sorokin's typology of -civilization processes. So is Gurvitch's work.°? Some have alleged +civilization processes. So is Gurvitch's work.\bknote{69} Some have alleged that the cyclical theory of "eternal return" was opened out in the "Judeo-Christian" conception of history wherein man, from his transcendental beginning in the Godhead, proceeds through a linear @@ -2204,23 +1693,18 @@ history toward his ultimate transcendental transfiguration; others see in this only a larger circle. Even Engels seemed unable to defeat this image, falling into an interpretation that the Universe endlessly repeats itself, the corollary of which seems to be that man has been -before and will be again, yet strive we must for THIS dialectic must +before and will be again, yet strive we must for {\caps\it This} dialectic must be fulfilled. From such a frame of reference, even Spengler's dreadful anatomy of human times seems a relief. In short, although the - - - - phenomenon of periodicity has been paid attention in fields of endeavor as far removed as embryology and the so-called "philosophy of history," yet little attention has been devoted to non-linear -patterns of occurrence on small group levels of analysis,?° or, for +patterns of occurrence on small group levels of analysis,\bknote{70} or, for example, in large organization analysis. - And yet, the units in which we measure time for ourselves are -ALL recurrent, since recurrence lies at the very heart of what we call +{\caps\rm all} recurrent, since recurrence lies at the very heart of what we call time. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, -each, in our language, recur. It was this need to recognize the unit of +each, in our language, \e{re}cur. It was this need to recognize the unit of measure which drove Plato to paint his theory of knowledge as an allegory in which the soul was enabled to know a reality because it remembered the true reality (of which the present was only a copy) @@ -2245,31 +1729,25 @@ to pre-exist the realities themselves, would foredoom man to a sterile repetition of already blueprinted situations, thus making human freedom a mockery and an illusion. - In short, if we do not accede to a prior criterion of measurement, we cannot measure; yet, if we accede, we seem to preclude novel measures. Of course, this theoretical trap does not - - - - ensnare our actual experience, since there is a huge difference between understanding what we do and actually doing it. We make "serendipitous" discoveries all the time, without having a theory of serendipity. Our purpose in outlining these theoretic pitfalls is precisely to point out that the familiar and the linearly recurrent are -not the sole criterion but a criterion, so that we may the more +\e{not} the sole criterion but \e{a} criterion, so that we may the more readily distinguish between the two. It is well known that Einstein had to define anew in order to transcend the limits of Newtonian -physics. Equally familiar is the description of the conservative wis a -vis the progressive: the one "holds onto" the familiar, the other +physics. Equally familiar is the description of the conservative \e{vis a +vis} the progressive: the one "holds onto" the familiar, the other "embraces" novelty. In Mertonian terms, these are the ritualist versus the innovator. In our view, special attention needs to be devoted to the time-sense of these personnel, since it may well be that the specific content clung to or sought for is irrelevant to the social -dynamics of those who prefer the recurrent to, shall we say, the -occurrent. - +dynamics of those who prefer the \e{re}current to, shall we say, the +\e{oc}current. Let us pass from these cerebral devices to an illustration more appealing to the viscera. In matters of music, we confront a richness @@ -2278,22 +1756,17 @@ field of human effort. Until very recently, music was written with an indication to the performer that a certain measured tempo was to be followed throughout, and that the insertions of artistry permissible to the performer and the conductor were to be made within such -composerly limitations as were contained in such phrases as "allegro -con vivo' or "crescendo molto vivace" etc. More generally, we know +composerly limitations as were contained in such phrases as \e{"allegro +con vivo"} or \e{"crescendo molto vivace"} etc. More generally, we know that some cultures seem to have a preference for slow and moody symphonies, others seem taken with Jazz; some prefer marches, other, festival dances. It would seem that there are favorite rhythms, not only in individuals but in whole social entities, such as cultures, sub-cultures, and even smaller groups which we occasionally designate as afficionados. - These poor illustrations serve to focus our attention on the fact, well known but little studied, that people seem to have variant experiences of periodicity, and that we might do well to investigate - - - - the relations between the durations and recurrences which characterize what we might call social rhythms. From Freud's "repetition compulsion" to Pareto's cycle of elites, there is a very large area of virtually unexplored territory. Nietzsche's eternal return may not, in @@ -2303,6 +1776,7 @@ it be unlikely that the Utopian linearist differs significantly in temporal form from his younger brother, the adolescent impatient for adult sexual privilege. +\brk To phrase these matters in our own language, we might write that human life seems to embody not only variant speeds, variant @@ -2312,7 +1786,7 @@ consist of recurrences of events of varying intervals and periodicities. Were this not so, we might derive views of the real world as utterly repetitious and therefore uninteresting, boring, even fatally irrelevant to experience, or, on the other hand, so filled with novel unfamiliarity that the very attempt to find pattern and order is doomed to -failure.?* In language which some will deem more properly +failure.\bknote{71} In language which some will deem more properly sociological we might point out that, so to speak, the "function" of a norm is to render predictable in some degree a behavior which would otherwise be unpatterned, chaotic, and hence, a-social. To the extent @@ -2323,27 +1797,23 @@ whatever outcome we desire. However, the converses are also true: the stranger with whom we cannot communicate stirs up a restlessness; the scene in which we may not in any sense predict the outcome of our behavior will demolish our behavioral repertory. In -sum, recurrence precedes occurrence; it isn't "logical," but it's true. +sum, \e{recurrence precedes occurrence;} it isn't "logical," but it's true. When it doesn't, in the ways we have outlined above, we have achrony, in varying degrees and types. And yet, as we have outlined above, synchrony includes novelty; creativity, paradoxically, is never -ex nihilo but always de novo. - - +\e{ex nihilo} but always \e{de novo.} - -THE VIDECHRON +\sec The Videchron Two sets of experiments we have been conducting constitute pilot studies designed to investigate these phenomena. One is frankly modelled after Sherif's now classic studies in the "auto-kinetic -phenomena."7? In his design, subjects in a dark room were asked to +phenomena."\bknote{72} In his design, subjects in a dark room were asked to report how far a light was moving. It was found that isolated subjects could be induced to cluster their responses around a group mean, that the mean was variable and subject to experimental alteration by the introduction of "liars." - We proceed as follows. Subjects are seated (alone, in groups; we vary it) in a room, for a standard interval (say 10 minutes). They are then asked how long they think they were in there. Some subjects @@ -2354,29 +1824,23 @@ interesting, and will be reported as soon as we can write them up systematically. We were looking for differences in hypothecated rate thresholds, and we found them. So much for Box III. - We were bothered, however, by the artificiality of the experimental situation. What we needed was a situation in which small groups were engaged in actual (not experimentally induced) interactions, whose pace we could modify without creating an unlifelike situation. - As luck would have it, we were invited to investigate the patterned interactions that took place in what was called "Multiple -Family Therapy,"7? a situation in which several families together +Family Therapy,"\bknote{73} a situation in which several families together with their identified adolescent schizophrenic patients, a therapist -and an observer (ourself) experienced 90- minute therapy sessions. - +and an observer (ourself) experienced 90 minute therapy sessions. Hypothesizing that varying rates of interaction would fit our -paradigm, we naively tried to make intelligent observations during +paradigm, we naively tried to make intelligent observations \e{during} the sessions. We were quickly overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of the data. Tucking our catachronic tails between our legs, we slunk -away for simpler pastures." 4 - - +away for simpler pastures.\bknote{74} - -We were aware that Cornellison'® and his co-workers had done +We were aware that Cornellison\bknote{75} and his co-workers had done some interesting things in psychiatric research, such as showing the film "Snake Pit" to a back ward of schizophrenic patients, i.e., a snake pit. They liked it. Cornellison also showed snapshots of @@ -2384,15 +1848,13 @@ patients, taken during therapeutic interviews, to the patients. Catatonics who had long been severly withdrawn responded dramatically, reentered the arena of social communication, and began the long road to recovery. - Henry Murray has reported on some aspects of a series of -experiments in which he and his associates engaged.7® As usual, the +experiments in which he and his associates engaged.\bknote{76} As usual, the design of Murray's study is fascinating, and as usual, he attempts to study those aspects of personality which everyone agrees are most intriguing but which seem to most investigators to be least amenable to experimental observation. - Briefly, Murray and his co-workers have devised a dialogue to be filmed and then shown to the participants. Each of the two members of this proceeding have exchanged written autobiographical statements which pretend to reveal deep values and other philosophical @@ -2404,29 +1866,24 @@ discussion of life's values to an anxiety-laden defense of one's metaphysics provokes behavior which will correlate with rises and falls in "measurable" anxiety levels. Because the subject (he upon whom the barrage of insult falls) is asked to write what he -remembers of the session at various time intervals after it has +remembers of the session at various time intervals \e{after} it has happened, and because he is confronted with tape recorded and -filmed documents of this actual occasion,'?' the experimenters are -able to estimate the relation between re-exposures and retention, -redintegration, retroactive inhibition, etc. Although this seems to be +filmed documents of this actual occasion,\bknote{77} the experimenters are +able to estimate the relation between re-exposures and \e{re}tention, +\e{re}integration, \e{re}troactive inhibition, etc. Although this seems to be the best of all possible worlds in which to measure anxiety and its consequences, an experimental design on which we have been working during the course of a series of pilot studies conducted during the last few years, embodies a principle very similar to - - - - Murray's, yet offers some peculiarly Murrayian advantages lacking in Murray's own original design. - Instead of filming a proceeding which involves only two persons, we have been recording proceedings at various levels of -numerical and sociological complexity on television tape.'*® This has +numerical\starnote{See Paul Ryan's work on Threeing, eg. \bt{The Three-Person Solution}} and sociological complexity on television tape.\bknote{78} This has several advantages of which the following is perhaps the most -noteworthy. Since television machines record instantly on electromagnetic tape, there is no film developing tme required for the -playback. In effect, this means that a group may re-experience the +noteworthy. Since television machines record instantly on electromagnetic tape, there is no film developing \e{time} required for the +playback. In effect, this means that a group may \e{re}-experience the proceeding immediately after (indeed, during) a session or at variable time intervals thereafter. By telerecording their re-experience as many times as we wish or by editing the playback for sound or @@ -2443,42 +1900,30 @@ during the playback has led to some interesting tests of the extent to which an individual's anxiety is a function of the group apperception of time. - It is usually claimed that the record of a therapeutic session presents the patients with the reality of the situation, and that repeated re-exposure acquaints him with it in a healthy way. If it should emerge that repeated exposure to a proceeding in which one -is involved (what Cornellison has called "self-image experience') is of +is involved (what Cornellison has called "self-image experience") is of potential clinical application, we would not be unhappy. - Perhaps a slightly more technical paragraph will be permitted. We are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the use of "projective tests." We know that people will "distort" photographs, drawings, stories, sentences, in proportion as they need to do so. This helps us - - - - to understand their needs and "press", since we assume we understand the projective devices. If we represent an audio-visual record of an actual proceeding, we may find that some significantly - - new temporal dimensions of the personality become visible to the researcher. - More specifically, our pilot studies indicate that the assemblage of television equipment, including a fixed camera which transmits to a tape recorder, which transmits to a monitor (an assemblage we call the Videchron), permits us to vary one aspect of experienced time for - - the experimenial study of actual occasions. The theory is relatively simple. - Note that while you speak, you listen to your speech, editing, as it were, as you go along. You can't see your facial gestures, even if you try, unless you see a murror. But the mirror is simultaneous @@ -2486,7 +1931,6 @@ editing. Unless you are uncommonly "reflective," you may not notice that you sometimes talk and gesticulate very rapidly, at other times very slowly. With the Videchron you have the opportunity. - Now imagine that you are witnessing a group discussion in which you were a participant, but that the playback is taking place at a very slow rate. You will now have more time to feel what you felt @@ -2495,11 +1939,8 @@ which we originally recorded, you now have less time to feel what you then felt. By varying the rates of playback, we can find when you're comfortable, when you're not. And if we ask you how you felt, you don't have to re-behave, which would re-introduce your - - editing. - Next we put you in a fast-moving group, a slow-moving group, an alternating group, etc., until we find a pace, or a pattern in which you feel comfortable. We expect, by clever interviewing, to find the @@ -2507,14 +1948,9 @@ circumstances in which you adopt varriouus achronistic orientations. Although it is too soon to report significant statistics, the trend seems to be that individuals have mean pace-thresholds which groups can vary somewhat, that groups have mean pace-thresholds that - - - - individuals can vary, somewhat, and that pace sometimes acts as an independent variable, sometimes dependent. - The Videchron enables us to experimentally investigate alienation, anomie, and anxiety on the small group level. By devising production-distribution-consumption schedules as tasks for small groups, we may induce alienation by the application of injustice. @@ -2527,8 +1963,7 @@ ethical by our society, if and when it takes place in professionally conducted therapy sessions. Here social legitimation has been granted, presumably because the therapist permits no more anxiety than the patients can tolerate. But even here, "the human kind -cannot bear very much reality," as T.S. Eliot said." ° - +cannot bear very much reality," as T.S. Eliot said."\bknote{79} Space does not permit a more exact description of the experimental ramifications of the achrony-synchrony paradigm. @@ -2540,32 +1975,23 @@ against them. We intend also to explore the notions of immortality, timelessness, and their relation to the experience of mortality and death. Freud himself wrote: - -Again and again I have had the impression that we have +\Q{Again and again I have had the impression that we have made too little theoretical use of the fact, established beyond doubt, of the unalterability by time of the repressed. This seems to offer an approach to the most profound discoveries. Nor unfortunately have I myself -made any progress here.® ° - +made any progress here.\bknote{80}} Thus Freud invites inquiry into the relation of time and anxiety - - - - explicitly, while Marx and Durkheim do not. The relevance of the achrony-synchrony paradigm to the notions of alienation, anguish, and anomie, hinted at above, require further exploration. We are presently engaged in this undertaking, under the hypothesis that discrepant rates of behavior in different sectors of the social system - - -may serve as indices for predicting when human pathology will +may serve as indices for predicting \e{when} human pathology will occur. - -SUMMARY: +\sec Summary By focusing on experienced time and on rates of behavior, a paradigm of variants of time-experience was presented. An experimental technique for the investigation of varieties of felt time was @@ -2573,45 +1999,38 @@ discussed, as were correlations with the concepts of alienation, anomie, and anxiety. Pilot studies in this area were described, as were possible implications for further research. - -EPILOGUE +\sec Epilogue If the reader who found himself made uncomfortable by the anacoluthic style of my work, which hops from one discipline to another frequently without benefit of logical nexus, will bear with me for a few more paragraphs, I would like him to know whereof it comes. That my principal mentor is Galileo was made apparent in my -point of departure. But my hubris is larger, since I take my task to be +point of departure. But my \e{hubris} is larger, since I take my task to be the founding of a new cross-disciplinary science, which I would like to call "chronetics." Groping toward that purpose, I have drawn -considerable consolation from Einstein's forward to the "Dialogue -concerning the two Chief World Systems," where he wrote: - +considerable consolation from Einstein's forward to the \et{Dialogue +concerning the two Chief World Systems,} where he wrote: -It has often been maintained that Galileo became the +\Q{It has often been maintained that Galileo became the father of modern science by replacing the speculative deductive method with the empirical experimental method. I believe, however, that this interpretation would not stand close scrutiny. There is no empirical method without speculative concepts and systems: and there is no speculative thinking whose concepts do not reveal, on closer investigation, the empirical material from which they stem. -To put into sharp contrast the empirical and the deductive - - - +To put into sharp contrast the empirical and the deductive\ednote{...?} Galileo's disposal were so imperfect that only the boldest speculation could possible bridge the gaps between the empirical data. (For example, there existed no means to -measure time shorter than a second)... His endeavors are -not so much directed at 'factual knowledge" as at -"comprehension."®! - +measure time shorter than a second)\ld\ His endeavors are +not so much directed at "factual knowledge" as at +"comprehension."\bknote{81}} Chronetics should consist of both. And more. Much more. - NOTES |