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diff --git a/timeforms.otx b/timeforms.otx index 5cb64a8..3525c31 100644 --- a/timeforms.otx +++ b/timeforms.otx @@ -1298,440 +1298,84 @@ We are now ready to describe more fully what each of these terms are designed to Perhaps the most convenient beginning will be made if we note that there are two perfectly respectable English words corresponding to two of our categories, i.e., synchronize, and anachronism. By anachronism we usually understand someone or something which "time has left behind." -If we inquire now, as Murray and Erikson do,'? whether there -resides in each of us a sense of our rate of experience, it follows that -we may also sense variations in this rate. If for example, we say that -someone is falling behind in his work, we are referring to an -anachronistic rate of attainment. Such a statement is possible only -on the assumption that there is a rate of attainment which would -"keep up with" the rate of expectation. Although this is customarily -referred to as "normalcy," we prefer, for reasons which we hope will -soon become apparent, to designate that situation in which the rate -of attainment is in harmony with the rate of expectation by the -word "synchrony." In the language of the hipster, he who is -synchronic is "with it." When "the time is out of joint,'?° we -observe achrony.?! Referring to the diagram above, synchrony is the -sphere whose diameters are equal. Achrony may be depicted as a -misshapen or asymmetric sphere. - - -How many forms of achrony are there? Although it seems at -first sight to be unusual, it is equally possible for someone to be -"ahead" of his expectations --- to go faster than a "normal" rate of -process. The precocious child, the avant-garde painter, the bohemian -who feels the entire planet to be populated by reactionaries and -squares, are instances of what we call the metachronic orientation. -So is the person who must race headlong, all the time; he constantly -feels he must go faster than he can, as.if "time were running out." He -may do this because he wants to decelerate his 'falling behind" (to -prevent becoming an anachronism) by adopting a faster rate, which, -unfortunately, he then feels is too fast for comfort (a metachron- - - - - -ism). "Sometimes it takes all the running one can do just to stay in -one place," as Alice remarked in Wonderland. The rabbit who was -always rushing because he was late, late, late, also describes a -typically metachronic orientation. - - -Sociologically we may observe a metachronic process when, for -example, a goal is achieved before the participants are ready for it. -Sudden attainment of a position of increased responsibility qualifies -as a model frequently encountered im vivo by revolutionaries who -rise to find that the ship of state steers heavily now that they have -suddenly assumed the helm. Similarly, our interpretation of the -"delinquency" literature leads us to view as anachronistic the period -between biological and sociological pubescence. Were it not for the -fact that "legitimate" property and sex "rights" are conferred on -young people long after they are biologically ready to have them, we -would have no time known as "adolescence." The time lag between -biological and sociological maturity which seems to accompany every -urbanization of a formerly agrarian culture is thus, in our view, an -anachronizing process for the young." - - -Another illustration is. to be found in the predicament of the -technologically unemployed. We confront here a strange situation in -which millions of workers whose old skills are anachronisms can find -no work in an economic system which complains of a shortage of -metachronic technicians with new skills. This condition is as neatly -paradigmatic of wholesale achrony as we can imagine. The "economy" which metachronically creates new roles faster than it can fill -them serves also to illustrate the reciprocity between rushing and -lagging rates of social process. - - -While it would be possible to show that anachronizations may -occur anywhere along the continuum of the processes of individual -development which Erikson calls the life cycle, systematic elaboration of the group process equivalent of these ideas must wait upon a -more elaborate formulation which will make it possible to study the -paces involved in group phases of development in their sequence and -continuity." 3 - - - - -The anachronic and metachronic orientations are, then, characteristic ways of experiencing dyssynchronous rates of experience. -They may be used as reciprocal terms, since they are relational -concepts. Thus, someone who feels he is behind may rush, and -someone who is rushing may feel himself slowing down. Conversely, -someone who feels behind may experience relief by speeding up a -bit, and someone who feels himself hurtling may feel relief by -relaxing a bit. Somewhere between these extremes, people sometimes -feel that their rates are comfortable, that they are "doing alright," -"making it," "groovin'."*4 This horizontal aspect of the paradigm is -familiar enough, capturing the linear model to which we have been -accustomed. Our terms are the simplest we can devise to focus on -rate variations. - - -The epichronic situation and its reciprocate, the catachronic, -refer to feelings of being "above" or "below" a given social process. -Although we often say that distance may be comfortable (in the face -of danger) or uncomforable (when "far" from a desirable outcome), -we sometimes say that "rising above" a painful situation will alleviate -its stressful implications. Thus the "buzzing blooming confusions" of -too complicated a set of roles may take on meaning when seen from -(high) above. Although we know that details are often lost in this -stance and that pattern is achieved only at the cost of variety and -richness, we argue that when pattern is sought, detail must be -sacrificed. That will be the view of the epichronic person who tries to -rise politically above the bewildering chaos of memberships too -complicated for his comfort. He may pronounce that nothing really -changes, that all action is illusion, or that cycle and repetition are the -co-monarchs of true reality. He may even deny that time is real at all, -by erecting unchanging, inflexible dogmas which are true "for all -time" over which he now feels the master. Parmenides comes to -mind, or the early Plato of the "eternal" forms. Mercia Eliade's -works are especially valuable in this context. Mysticism (of one kind) -serves as another illustration of the epichronic attempt to alleviate -the slings and arrows of outrageous process by climbing into a -timeless realm where eternal order reigns. Paranoia (of one kind) -serves as another. - - - - -Socially, we observe the epichronic stance in the application of -power to what the powerful regard as a threatening situation. Martial -law is its most obvious incarnation, the denial of civil liberties a less -obvious but perhaps more insidious replication. The 'majority" -which imposes its will on "minorities" is a familiar case in point, as is -Marx's analysis of the refusal of the capitalists to distribute the -rewards of a new mode of production as rapidly as they accumulate. -Injustices have never been difficult to catalogue; instances of power, -the reciprocate of oppression, are no more difficult to compile. -Recondite analysis of power, however, is another question.?*5 We -focus here on that frequently noted situation in which those who -oppress are angrily envied by those they oppress, a phenomenon - - -which Anna Freud has named "identification with the aggressor." It -is not entirely dissimilar to Hegels' analysis of the master-slave -antinomy. Others have pointed out that relationships of this sort -may also be in evidence in intergenerational conflicts." ° - - -The catachronic is not so fortunate. He feels that the process of -events which constitute his situation are too heavy to be altered by -his poor strengths. He is depressed. He feels that "time hangs heavy -on his hands," that life is unjust and unfair. Regulations and edicts, -whether official or informal, weigh him down. He is a creature of the -depths, insulted, injured, damned. The decisions which effect events -are made by those "above" him, but the climb up to that level is too -arduous for him. He may despair, sinking lower and lower, possibly -into suicide. A milder catachronic will sing "low down" blues. - - -Just as we see a reciprocity between the anachronic and the -metachronic, who seem sometimes to shuttle back and forth along -their continuum, so we may observe a reciprocity between the -epichronic and the catachronic. Frequently, one who feels himself to -be living catachronically will seek release from his depthful prison. -Narcotics will turn off feelings of catachrony and transport the user -almost magically into an epichronic realm where time moves so -slowly (if at all) that the feeling of being "down under" is almost -instantly replaced by a feeling of "being high."?" Alternatively, the - - - - -catachronic may sink into a self-defeating hedonism where every -impulse is given free reign. Durkheim's egoistic suicide is homological --- his altruist resembles our epichronist in that he may feel the -ultimate values to be more valuable than his own life, justifying his -martyrdom. Joan of Arc comes to mind. For the epichronic, time -should move very slowly if at all. For the catachronic, it moves too -slowly, if at all. The former wants order, the latter escape. - - -Durkheim's "fatalistic" suicide is similarly homological to the -"fatalism" of the catachronic orientation. Thus, when we asked -Oscar Lewis why it seemed to him that the bearers of "culture of -poverty" always seemed hopeless and resigned, without viable plans -of action, he replied that it was because they knew "damn well there -was little they could do" about the inequitable allocation of the -world's good things.?® Similarly, the low castes, wherever and -whenever observed, have traditionally been described as people who -do not regard time as benevolent. Among the untouchables of India, -time is a "tooth" which tears away at the flesh of life. Albert -Cohen?® described the lower class time orientation of the delinquent -as immediate and hedonistic, in contrast to the middle class boy who -learns to postpone present gratifications, in the hope of more and -better gratifications "in the future." - - -We turn now to our third axis, the continuum of sensitivity. -Here we enter unchartered regions, involving such unknowns as -temporal threshholds, rate tolerances, affective sensibilities and -insensibilities. Why are some of us more sensitive to time's passage -than others? Why do some of us feel speed to be exhilerating while -others abhor it. Some drive a car at a steady pace, comfortably -within the speed limit for hours on end, while others enjoy speeding; -the temporally timid and the rate rebel, as it were. Why? - - -Although these are presently imponderables, we include them -for several reasons: 1. we recognize these phenomena repeatedly -albeit crudely, 2. we have devised an experimental technique for -their investigation, 3. they tantalize our theoretical appetite. - - - - -Certain questions which we cannot at present even ask -intelligently (ramifications of point 3 above) motivate us to attempt -the construction of a bridge from feelings about rate-of-behavior -phenomena to the sociological circumstances which generate them. -For example, imagine an era in which the pace of social change is -said to be great (i.e., our own). Imagine further, two populations, -one of hyperchronics (i.e., people very sensitive to change) and one -of hypochronics (i.e., people not particularly bothered by the -rapidity of events). Will the hyperchronics become more catachronic -sooner? Will the hypochronics "adjust" more easily, becoming -willing compulsives in the "rat race" for success? We do not at the -present know the answers to these questions, nor even whether these -are intelligent questions. - - -Nevertheless, before passing on to the attempts we are making -to investigate these phenomena experimentally, three further aspects -of the achrony-synchrony paradigm require elaboration. The first is -the relation of achrony and synchrony to the general issue of affect -and emotionality; the second is the relation of our paradigm to the -general issue of dialectical thought; the third is the extent to which -the paradigm described above rests on an assumption of uniform -acceleration and/or deceleration. That is, we have discussed so far -only those aspects of temporal behavior which either increase or -decrease at a constant rate of increase or decrease. Before we enter -into a discussion of such temporal phenomena as experience which is -taking place at a decreasing rate of increase; or conversely, at an -increasing rate of decrease (and other such phenomena), let us -consider the question of dialectical time. - - -ON DIALECTICAL TIME??? -A. Thesis: -Freud wrote: - - -There is nothing in the id that corresponds to the idea of time; -there is no recognition of the passage of time, and --- a thing - - - - -that is most remarkable and awaits consideration in philosophical thought --- no alteration in its mental processes produced by -the passage of time. Wishful impulses which have never passed -beyond the id, but impressions too, which have been sunk into -the id by repression, are virtually immortal; after the passage of -decades they behave as if they had just occurred. They can only -be recognized as belonging to the past, can only lose their -importance and be deprived of their cathexis of energy, when -they have been made conscious by the work of analysis, and it -is on this that the therapeutic effect of analytic treatment rests -to no small extent. +If we inquire now, as Murray and Erikson do,\bknote{19} whether there resides in each of us a sense of our \e{rate} of experience, it follows that we may also sense variations in this rate. If for example, we say that someone is falling behind in his work, we are referring to an anachronistic rate of attainment. Such a statement is possible only on the assumption that there is a rate of attainment which would "keep up with" the rate of expectation. Although this is customarily referred to as "normalcy," we prefer, for reasons which we hope will soon become apparent, to designate that situation in which the rate of attainment is in harmony with the rate of expectation by the word "synchrony." In the language of the hipster, he who is synchronic is "with it." When "the time is out of joint,"\bknote{20} we observe achrony.\bknote{21} Referring to the diagram above, synchrony is the sphere whose diameters are equal. Achrony may be depicted as a misshapen or asymmetric sphere. +How many forms of achrony are there? Although it seems at first sight to be unusual, it is equally possible for someone to be "ahead" of his expectations --- to go faster than a "normal" rate of process. The precocious child, the avant-garde painter, the bohemian who feels the entire planet to be populated by reactionaries and squares, are instances of what we call the metachronic orientation. So is the person who must race headlong, all the time; he constantly feels he must go faster than he can, as.if "time were running out." He may do this because he wants to decelerate his 'falling behind" (to prevent becoming an anachronism) by adopting a faster rate, which, unfortunately, he then feels is too fast for comfort (a metachronism). "Sometimes it takes all the running one can do just to stay in one place," as Alice remarked in Wonderland. The rabbit who was always rushing because he was late, late, late, also describes a typically metachronic orientation. -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 have I -myself made any progress here.?! +Sociologically we may observe a metachronic process when, for example, a goal is achieved before the participants are ready for it. Sudden attainment of a position of increased responsibility qualifies as a model frequently encountered \e{in vivo} by revolutionaries who rise to find that the ship of state steers heavily now that they have suddenly assumed the helm. Similarly, our interpretation of the "delinquency" literature leads us to view as anachronistic the period between biological and sociological pubescence. Were it not for the fact that "legitimate" property and sex "rights" are conferred on young people long after they are biologically ready to have them, we would have no time known as "adolescence." The time lag between biological and sociological maturity which seems to accompany every urbanization of a formerly agrarian culture is thus, in our view, an anachronizing process for the young.\bknote{22} +Another illustration is to be found in the predicament of the technologically unemployed. We confront here a strange situation in which millions of workers whose old skills are anachronisms can find no work in an economic system which complains of a shortage of metachronic technicians with new skills. This condition is as neatly paradigmatic of wholesale achrony as we can imagine. The "economy" which metachronically creates new roles faster than it can fill them serves also to illustrate the reciprocity between rushing and lagging rates of social process. -Marcuse accepted the gauntlet thrown down by Freud in the -foregoing passage, but it was his genius to perceive that the couch -was not and could not be an adequate instrumennt to deal with what -he called "surplus repression:" that is, the extent to which cultures -engender far more repression by political oppression than the -amount he felt to be minimally necessary. Attempting to forge a -synthesis between a Marxian analysis of society and a Freudian -analysis of civilization, Marcuse addressed himself to the issue of -time in the last five pages of his Eros and Civilization.** There he -writes that: +While it would be possible to show that anachronizations may occur anywhere along the continuum of the processes of individual development which Erikson calls the life cycle, systematic elaboration of the group process equivalent of these ideas must wait upon a more elaborate formulation which will make it possible to study the paces involved in group phases of development in their sequence and continuity.\bknote{23} +The anachronic and metachronic orientations are, then, characteristic ways of experiencing dyssynchronous rates of experience. They may be used as reciprocal terms, since they are relational concepts. Thus, someone who feels he is behind may rush, and someone who is rushing may feel himself slowing down. Conversely, someone who feels behind may experience relief by speeding up a bit, and someone who feels himself hurtling may feel relief by relaxing a bit. Somewhere between these extremes, people sometimes feel that their rates are comfortable, that they are "doing alright," "making it," "groovin'."\bknote{24} This horizontal aspect of the paradigm is familiar enough, capturing the linear model to which we have been accustomed. Our terms are the simplest we can devise to focus on rate variations. -... Death is the final negativity of time, but 'joy wants -eternity.' Timelessness is the ideal of pleasure. Time has no -power over the id, the original domain of the pleasure -principle. But the ego, through which alone pleasure -becomes real, is in its entirety subject to time. The mere -anticipation of the inevitable end, present in every -instant, introduces a repressive element into all libidinal - - - - -relations and renders pleasure itself painful. This primary -frustration in the instinctual structure of man becomes the -inexhaustible source of all other frustrations --- and of their -social effectiveness. Man learns that 'it cannot last -anyway,' that every pleasure is short, that for all finite -things the hour of their birth is the hour of their -death --- that it couldn't be otherwise. He is resigned before -society forces him to practice resignation methodically. -The flux of time is society's most natural ally in -maintaining law and order, conformity, and the institutions that relegate freedom to a perpetual utopia; the flux -of time helps men to forget what was and what can be: it -makes them oblivious to the better past and the better -future. - - -This ability to forget --- itself the result of a long and -terrible education by experience --- is an indispensable -requirement of mental and physical hygiene without which -civilized life would be unbearable; but it is also the mental -faculty which sustains submissiveness and renunciation. To -forget is also to forgive what should not be forgiven if -justice and freedom are to prevail. Such forgiveness -reproduces the conditions which reproduce injustice and -enslavement: to forget past suffering is to forgive the -forces that caused it --- without defeating these forces. The -wounds that heal in time are also the wounds that contain -the poison. Against this surrender to time, the restoration -of remembrance to its rights, as a vehicle of liberation, is -one of the noblest tasks of thought. - - -This magnificent passage nonetheless leaves us with a question: "How -shall we re-member?" (the pun is deliberate). +The epichronic situation and its reciprocate, the catachronic, refer to feelings of being "above" or "below" a given social process. Although we often say that distance may be comfortable (in the face of danger) or uncomforable (when "far" from a desirable outcome), we sometimes say that "rising above" a painful situation will alleviate its stressful implications. Thus the "buzzing blooming confusions" of too complicated a set of roles may take on meaning when seen from (high) above. Although we know that details are often lost in this stance and that pattern is achieved only at the cost of variety and richness, we argue that when pattern is sought, detail must be sacrificed. That will be the view of the epichronic person who tries to rise politically above the bewildering chaos of memberships too complicated for his comfort. He may pronounce that nothing really changes, that all action is illusion, or that cycle and repetition are the co-monarchs of true reality. He may even deny that time is real at all, by erecting unchanging, inflexible dogmas which are true "for all time" over which he now feels the master. Parmenides comes to mind, or the early Plato of the "eternal" forms. Mercia Eliade's works are especially valuable in this context. Mysticism (of one kind) serves as another illustration of the epichronic attempt to alleviate the slings and arrows of outrageous process by climbing into a timeless realm where eternal order reigns. Paranoia (of one kind) serves as another. +Socially, we observe the epichronic stance in the application of power to what the powerful regard as a threatening situation. Martial law is its most obvious incarnation, the denial of civil liberties a less obvious but perhaps more insidious replication. The "majority" which imposes its will on "minorities" is a familiar case in point, as is Marx's analysis of the refusal of the capitalists to distribute the rewards of a new mode of production as rapidly as they accumulate. Injustices have never been difficult to catalogue; instances of power, the reciprocate of oppression, are no more difficult to compile. Recondite analysis of power, however, is another question.\bknote{25} We focus here on that frequently noted situation in which those who oppress are angrily envied by those they oppress, a phenomenon which Anna Freud has named "identification with the aggressor." It is not entirely dissimilar to Hegels' analysis of the master-slave antinomy. Others have pointed out that relationships of this sort may also be in evidence in intergenerational conflicts.\bknote{26} -Freud and Marcuse are united in giving central importance to -the notion of time in the task of liberation. To Freud's relatively -bourgeois program, Marcuse, a "left Freudian," adds the social-political dimension. But Freud and Marcuse are also united more in +The catachronic is not so fortunate. He feels that the process of events which constitute his situation are too heavy to be altered by his poor strengths. He is depressed. He feels that "time hangs heavy on his hands," that life is unjust and unfair. Regulations and edicts, whether official or informal, weigh him down. He is a creature of the depths, insulted, injured, damned. The decisions which effect events are made by those "above" him, but the climb up to that level is too arduous for him. He may despair, sinking lower and lower, possibly into suicide. A milder catachronic will sing "low down" blues. +Just as we see a reciprocity between the anachronic and the metachronic, who seem sometimes to shuttle back and forth along their continuum, so we may observe a reciprocity between the epichronic and the catachronic. Frequently, one who feels himself to be living catachronically will seek release from his depthful prison. Narcotics will turn off feelings of catachrony and transport the user almost magically into an epichronic realm where time moves so slowly (if at all) that the feeling of being "down under" is almost instantly replaced by a feeling of "being high."\bknote{27} Alternatively, the catachronic may sink into a self-defeating hedonism where every impulse is given free reign. Durkheim's egoistic suicide is homological --- his altruist resembles our epichronist in that he may feel the ultimate values to be more valuable than his own life, justifying his martyrdom. Joan of Arc comes to mind. For the epichronic, time should move very slowly if at all. For the catachronic, it moves too slowly, if at all. The former wants order, the latter escape. +Durkheim's "fatalistic" suicide is similarly homological to the "fatalism" of the catachronic orientation. Thus, when we asked Oscar Lewis why it seemed to him that the bearers of "culture of poverty" always seemed hopeless and resigned, without viable plans of action, he replied that it was because they knew "damn well there was little they \e{could} do" about the inequitable allocation of the world's good things.\bknote{28} Similarly, the low castes, wherever and whenever observed, have traditionally been described as people who do not regard time as benevolent. Among the untouchables of India, time is a "tooth" which tears away at the flesh of life. Albert Cohen\bknote{29} described the lower class time orientation of the delinquent as immediate and hedonistic, in contrast to the middle class boy who learns to postpone present gratifications, in the \e{hope} of more and better gratifications "in the future." +We turn now to our third axis, the continuum of sensitivity. Here we enter unchartered regions, involving such unknowns as temporal threshholds, rate tolerances, affective sensibilities and insensibilities. Why are some of us more sensitive to time's passage than others? Why do some of us feel speed to be exhilerating while others abhor it. Some drive a car at a steady pace, comfortably within the speed limit for hours on end, while others enjoy speeding; the temporally timid and the rate rebel, as it were. Why? -depicting the plight of the repressed, than in the definition of -political prescriptions. They whet our appetite for exploration. +Although these are presently imponderables, we include them for several reasons: 1. we recognize these phenomena repeatedly albeit crudely, 2. we have devised an experimental technique for their investigation, 3. they tantalize our theoretical appetite. +Certain questions which we cannot at present even ask intelligently (ramifications of point 3 above) motivate us to attempt the construction of a bridge from feelings about rate-of-behavior phenomena to the sociological circumstances which generate them. For example, imagine an era in which the pace of social change is said to be great (i.e., our own). Imagine further, two populations, one of hyperchronics (i.e., people very sensitive to change) and one of hypochronics (i.e., people not particularly bothered by the rapidity of events). Will the hyperchronics become more catachronic sooner? Will the hypochronics "adjust" more easily, becoming willing compulsives in the "rat race" for success? We do not at the present know the answers to these questions, nor even whether these are intelligent questions. -Insofar as he is inspired and provoked by Marx, we may say that -Marcuse is not only a left Freudian, but also a "left Hegelian." But -even the "right Hegelians" (e.g., Kierkegaard and many of the -existentialists) did not fail to see that insight into temporal process -was central to their concerns as well. Heidegger's Sein und Zeit?® is -illustrative. It falls short in my view, because, though it stresses that -time lies at the root of all consciousness, it construes time in a -hopelessly naive linearism, and restricts its attention unnecessarily to -what I shall later characterize as "mere becoming," thus effectively -precluding attention to the possibilities of what I shall call -"transcendent becoming," i.e., liberation. +Nevertheless, before passing on to the attempts we are making to investigate these phenomena experimentally, three further aspects of the achrony-synchrony paradigm require elaboration. The first is the relation of achrony and synchrony to the general issue of affect and emotionality; the second is the relation of our paradigm to the general issue of dialectical thought; the third is the extent to which the paradigm described above rests on an assumption of uniform acceleration and/or deceleration. That is, we have discussed so far only those aspects of temporal behavior which either increase or decrease \e{at a constant rate} of increase or decrease. Before we enter into a discussion of such temporal phenomena as experience which is taking place at a decreasing rate of increase; or conversely, at an increasing rate of decrease (and other such phenomena), let us consider the question of dialectical time. +\sec On Dialectical Time\bknote{30} -The intimate connection between anguish, the existentialist -notion of pathos, and linear temporality, is not merely intimate but -necessary, because anguish results whenever temporal experience is -politically linearized. That is, whenever a society insists that the only -viable choice is a millenialist utopia or a contemporary "ek-stasis," it -does so by oppressively constricting temporal experience to one -dimension. Indeed, Marcuse's One Dimensional Man?* reveals the -poverty of this thesis. +% TODO lettered subsections +\secc Thesis: -The situation is no better when we turn to a group I will call the -middle Hegelians, i.e., the advocates, disciples, and students of -Husserl's phenomenology (among the principal figures here I would -include Albert Schutz, Maurice Natanson, and others).?* Phenomerologists of this sort?® accomplish a valuable inventory of the -contents and processes of consciousness, but in so doing, it seems to -me, they begin with the temporally fragmented structure of -consciousness when it would be preferable to account for it, both -genetically and epidemiologically, tasks which too often fall outside -of their charted domains. +Freud wrote: +\Q{There is nothing in the id that corresponds to the idea of time; there is no recognition of the passage of time, and --- a thing that is most remarkable and awaits consideration in philosophical thought --- no alteration in its mental processes produced by the passage of time. Wishful impulses which have never passed beyond the id, but impressions too, which have been sunk into the id by repression, are virtually immortal; after the passage of decades they behave as if they had just occurred. They can only be recognized as belonging to the past, can only lose their importance and be deprived of their cathexis of energy, when they have been made conscious by the work of analysis, and it is on this that the therapeutic effect of analytic treatment rests to no small extent. -Nor may we expect promising fulfillment from the "genetic -epistemologists," among whom we must of course name Piaget as the +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 have I myself made any progress here.\bknote{31}} +Marcuse accepted the gauntlet thrown down by Freud in the +foregoing passage, but it was his genius to perceive that the couch +was not and could not be an adequate instrumennt to deal with what +he called "surplus repression:" that is, the extent to which cultures +engender far more repression by political oppression than the +amount he felt to be minimally necessary. Attempting to forge a +synthesis between a Marxian analysis of society and a Freudian +analysis of civilization, Marcuse addressed himself to the issue of +time in the last five pages of his \bt{Eros and Civilization}.\bknote{32} There he +writes that: +\Q{... Death is the final negativity of time, but 'joy wants eternity.' Timelessness is the ideal of pleasure. Time has no power over the id, the original domain of the pleasure principle. But the ego, through which alone pleasure becomes real, is in its entirety subject to time. The mere anticipation of the inevitable end, present in every instant, introduces a repressive element into all libidinal relations and renders pleasure itself painful. This primary frustration in the instinctual structure of man becomes the inexhaustible source of all other frustrations --- and of their social effectiveness. Man learns that 'it cannot last anyway,' that every pleasure is short, that for all finite things the hour of their birth is the hour of their death --- that it couldn't be otherwise. He is resigned before society forces him to practice resignation methodically. The flux of time is society's most natural ally in maintaining law and order, conformity, and the institutions that relegate freedom to a perpetual utopia; the flux of time helps men to forget what was and what can be: it makes them oblivious to the better past and the better future. -most talented investigator. Piaget's work on the genesis of the -concept of time*' demonstrates, with the pungent clarity we have -come to expect from him, that the notion of time, contrary to -Bergson and the phenomenologists, is not 'an immediate datum of -consciousness;"°*® that, for his youthful subjects, there are in fact -four distinct steps through which contemporary western children go -at various ages before they arrive at the notion of time with which -the phenomenologists begin. Piaget's subjects distinguished: (1) -events of arrival; (2) events both of arrival and of departure; (3) -distance traversed by moving figures; and (4) measure of the distance -between moving figures. Piaget is able to conclude from these and -similar experiments by his colleague Paul Fraisse?? that the notions -of temporal succession, temporal order, temporal duration, and -temporal velocity are initially distinct and subsequently miscible -notions. +This ability to forget --- itself the result of a long and terrible education by experience --- is an indispensable requirement of mental and physical hygiene without which civilized life would be unbearable; but it is also the mental faculty which sustains submissiveness and renunciation. To forget is also to forgive what should not be forgiven if justice and freedom are to prevail. Such forgiveness reproduces the conditions which reproduce injustice and enslavement: to forget past suffering is to forgive the forces that caused it --- without defeating these forces. The wounds that heal in time are also the wounds that contain the poison. Against this surrender to time, the restoration of remembrance to its rights, as a vehicle of liberation, is one of the noblest tasks of thought.} +This magnificent passage nonetheless leaves us with a question: "\e{How} +shall we re-member?" (the pun is deliberate). -Nor have clinical enquiries into the pathology of the "time -sense" been lacking. The Dutch psychiatrist, Meerloo, has summarized this literature*® for us. His review catalogues the extent to -which the allegedly normal time sense in western subjects may -disintegrate into weird mixtures of the elements described by Piaget -and into other strange temporal compositions. However, neither -Meerloo nor Piaget examine or take into account the extent to which -the pathologies of the time sense derive from political oppression -and/or "psychological" repression. Indeed, this failing is as often -encountered among the phenomenologists, as among experimental -and clinical investigators.* * +Freud and Marcuse are united in giving central importance to the notion of time in the task of liberation. To Freud's relatively bourgeois program, Marcuse, a "left Freudian," adds the social-political dimension. But Freud and Marcuse are also united more in depicting the plight of the repressed, than in the definition of political prescriptions. They whet our appetite for exploration. +Insofar as he is inspired and provoked by Marx, we may say that Marcuse is not only a left Freudian, but also a "left Hegelian." But even the "right Hegelians" (e.g., Kierkegaard and many of the existentialists) did not fail to see that insight into temporal process was central to their concerns as well. Heidegger's \bt{Sein und Zeit}\bknote{33} is illustrative. It falls short in my view, because, though it stresses that time lies at the root of all consciousness, it construes time in a hopelessly naive linearism, and restricts its attention unnecessarily to what I shall later characterize as "mere becoming," thus effectively precluding attention to the possibilities of what I shall call "transcendent becoming," i.e., liberation. -No such defect characterizes the recent work of Jean-Paul -Sartre, whose preface to his Critique de la Raison Dialectique has -appeared as 'Search for a Method.'*? I will not summarize this -well-known work since a curt summary could not do justice to its -bold and promising character. Suffice it here to say that in it, Sartre -attempts to unite and synthesize, and then to go beyond the -dialectical heritage of Hegel and Marx, the phenomenological -heritage of Heidegger and Husserl, the psychoanalytic heritage of -Freud and the new Freudians, and even to carry forward his own +The intimate connection between anguish, the existentialist notion of pathos, and linear temporality, is not merely intimate but necessary, because anguish results whenever temporal experience is politically linearized. That is, whenever a society insists that the only viable choice is a millenialist utopia or a contemporary "ek-stasis," it does so by oppressively constricting temporal experience to one dimension. Indeed, Marcuse's \bt{One Dimensional Man}\bknote{34} reveals the poverty of this thesis. +The situation is no better when we turn to a group I will call the middle Hegelians, i.e., the advocates, disciples, and students of Husserl's phenomenology (among the principal figures here I would include Albert Schutz, Maurice Natanson, and others).\bknote{35} Phenomerologists \e{of this sort}\bknote{36} accomplish a valuable inventory of the contents and processes of consciousness, but in so doing, it seems to me, they begin with the temporally fragmented structure of consciousness when it would be preferable to account for it, both genetically and epidemiologically, tasks which too often fall outside of their charted domains. +Nor may we expect promising fulfillment from the "genetic epistemologists," among whom we must of course name Piaget as the most talented investigator. Piaget's work on the genesis of the concept of time\bknote{37} demonstrates, with the pungent clarity we have come to expect from him, that the notion of time, contrary to Bergson and the phenomenologists, is not 'an immediate datum of consciousness;"\bknote{38} that, for his youthful subjects, there are in fact four distinct steps through which contemporary western children go at various ages before they arrive at the notion of time with which the phenomenologists begin. Piaget's subjects distinguished: (1) events of arrival; (2) events both of arrival and of departure; (3) distance traversed by moving figures; and (4) measure of the distance between moving figures. Piaget is able to conclude from these and similar experiments by his colleague Paul Fraisse\bknote{39} that the notions of temporal succession, temporal order, temporal duration, and temporal velocity are initially distinct and \e{subsequently} miscible notions. +Nor have clinical enquiries into the pathology of the "time sense" been lacking. The Dutch psychiatrist, Meerloo, has summarized this literature\bknote{40} for us. His review catalogues the extent to which the allegedly normal time sense in western subjects may disintegrate into weird mixtures of the elements described by Piaget and into other strange temporal compositions. However, neither Meerloo nor Piaget examine or take into account the extent to which the pathologies of the time sense derive from \e{political op}pression and/or "psychological" \e{re}pression. Indeed, this failing is as often encountered among the phenomenologists, as among experimental and clinical investigators.\bknote{41} -"existential manifesto." He does so by giving centrality to the notion -of "project," which goes beyond the Hegelian notion of process in -that it is a call to action, and not merely a call to vision. He accepts, -it seems to me, Marx's critique of the Hegelians that the task of -philosophy is not to understand the world, but to transform it. He -insists that no middling compromise can be reached between the -determinations which social forms impose on consciousness, and the -character of freedom which his existentialism proudly defends. +No such defect characterizes the recent work of Jean-Paul Sartre, whose preface to his \bt{Critique de la Raison Dialectique} has appeared as \et{Search for a Method.}\bknote{24} I will not summarize this well-known work since a curt summary could not do justice to its bold and promising character. Suffice it here to say that in it, Sartre attempts to unite and synthesize, and then to go beyond the dialectical heritage of Hegel and Marx, the phenomenological heritage of Heidegger and Husserl, the psychoanalytic heritage of Freud and the new Freudians, and even to carry forward his own "existential manifesto." He does so by giving centrality to the notion of "\e{project,}" which goes beyond the Hegelian notion of \e{process} in that it is a call to action, and not merely a call to vision. He accepts, it seems to me, Marx's critique of the Hegelians that the task of philosophy is not to understand the world, but to transform it. He insists that no middling compromise can be reached between the determinations which social forms impose on consciousness, and the character of freedom which his existentialism proudly defends. +I have passed in review the thoughts of the foregoing men to underscore the fact that these leading theoreticians to whom we look for guiding vision, without exception, have focused their principal energies on the notion of temporal experience, and yet none has produced a major tract on the subject. In the paragraphs that follow, I suggest some considerations which seem requisite for a beginning --- notes, as it were, toward a new epistemology of experienced process. -I have passed in review the thoughts of the foregoing men to -underscore the fact that these leading theoreticians to whom we look -for guiding vision, without exception, have focused their principal -energies on the notion of temporal experience, and yet none has -produced a major tract on the subject. In the paragraphs that follow, -I suggest some considerations which seem requisite for a beginning --- -notes, as it were, toward a new epistemology of experienced -process. - - -B. Antithesis: +\secc Antithesis: Freud, Marcuse, Heidegger, and Sartre, not to mention Hegel and Marx, did not fail to allude to "the divine Plato," as Freud calls |