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Punctuality an Inquiry Into the Psychology of Modern Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Raymond Melka
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Extract

Modern man in the western world is constantly afraid of wasting time. He therefore measures time, uses it in small quantities, and conducts his activities in such a way as to waste as little as possible; he arranges his appointments with a remarkable degree of precision, his offices are known for their scrupulous punctuality, and the word “urgent” is nowadays used a great deal. Sportsmen are intent on breaking the kilometre record by a few tenths of a second, and the omnipresent instruments for measuring time—watches, clocks, chronometers, also agendas, calendars, etc., reveal the preoccupations of modern man. Civilization today shows itself acutely conscious of the value of time, and regards it as a sign of economic rationality that everyone should attempt to divide his time economically between all the tasks of which his existence is made up. “Time is money,” says the popular proverb, and one meets hundreds of people who express their anxiety “not to waste time” on activities of lesser importance, which “can afford to wait” or do not “deserve to have too much time spent on them.” So that the importance of a matter is measured in practice by the amount of time one is willing to spend on it. Equally, time itself gains in precision and exactness, and we try to fit into an incompressible period of time a mass of activities which would formerly have been spread over a longer period. Our civilization is the civilization of impatience.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 17 , Issue 65 , March 1969 , pp. 20 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

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