Time Wars
Book: Time Wars: The Primary Conflict in Human History. Jeremy Rifkin.
URL = http://www.foet.org/books/time-wars.html
Description
"Time Wars: Not since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring has one book tackled a subject of such importance. A battle is now brewing over our present conception of time. Its outcome will help determine the future of our society in the coming century. On one side are the power-time advocates, who would have us enter a hyperefficient computerized world where time is taken beyond human conception and recorded in nanoseconds (billionths of a second)-an artificial time world where past, present, and future blur together to create a simulated paradise divorced from the organic and seasonal time orientation of the planet. On the other side stand the time rebels, who question society's capitulation to the nanosecond time frame.
They argue instead for an ecological time orientation that would resynchronize our social and economic activities to the biological and physical rhythms of the natural world. Just as the "small is beautiful" idea challenged the myth that "bigger is better," the new ecological time vision, "slow is humane," challenges the prevailing view that increased speed and efficiency automatically mean progress. The distinguishing feature of any society is its use of time, posits the author. Even before the Middle Ages when bells of the Benedictines first ordered the lives of monks, to the clocks and schedules, computers and programs of today, individuals have been organized into time-regulated groups as a requirement for social and economic security. Jeremy Rifkin provides a context for the emerging "time wars" by arguing that the great political battles in history have been waged over competing temporal visions. The author surveys Western culture and concludes that changes in civilization take place only with corresponding changes in our conception of time. In the process Rifkin offers persuasive evidence to demonstrate what happens to our species when time is snatched from its biological and environmental moorings. Time Wars is for everyone who wonders why, in a culture that is so intent on saving time, we find so little time left for ourselves and for each other."