In his recent offering for The New York Times titled "On Modern Time," Espen Hammer examines modern society's perception of time. Hammer's prognosis is bleak. Modern society is dissatisfied and the clock is to blame. So what is the remedy? Hammer offers one, but it seems wholly unhelpful. Nonetheless, the subject (i.e. time) is important. That being the case, I would like to share some thoughts that Hammer's treatment of the subject brought to mind.
Hammer begins by pointing out that "Clock time is the time of our modern, busy and highly coordinated and interconnected lives." We function based on the increments given on a clock. Time is neatly broken up into hours, minutes, and seconds. It is very deliberate and efficient. "The factory, the office, transportation, business, the flow of information, indeed almost everything we do and relate to is to a greater or lesser extent controlled by the clock." For Hammer, the modern perception of time can be contrasted with the perception of time before clocks, such as in a medieval village.
Hammer states, "It was not always like this. In a medieval village, the day started not with the beep of the alarm clock but with birds gradually beginning to twitter...When the observation of natural cycles played a greater role in people’s awareness of temporality, change was 'softer,' less precisely calculable, and intimately tied to a more fluid and large-scale sense of rhythm." By contrasting modern and medieval perceptions of time, Hammer hopes to highlight two forms of dissatisfaction that accompany modernity's "clock time."
First, modern "clock time" brings about dissatisfaction in that "it exacerbates and intensifies our sense of transience." Hammer asserts, "If time is understood as a succession of discrete moments, then, strictly speaking, our experience will be one of perpetual loss: every instant, every unit of time, is a mere passing from that which has not yet been to that which will never again be, and the passing itself will not endure but simply be a boundary between future and present." Clock time clarifies the finite nature of existence, the coming into and passing away. Apparently our finite existence is readily evident in way not available to those of a pre-clock society.
Second, the modern perception of time "generates a problem of existential meaning." The modern perception of time does not allow for the certainties that were available to a pre-clock era. Time passes away with every second and meaning goes along with it. For Hammer, "We are entrepreneurs and consumers in a liquid, fast-moving society. We look forward rather than backward, to the new rather than the old, and while a huge space of innovation and possible change is then opened up, we seem to have lost a sense of the unquestionable meaning that those who came before us seemed to have had in abundance."
The situation for modern folks is dire indeed, but Hammer has a solution: narratives. "Stories" you ask? Well, sort of...sure. Hammer doesn't give a clear definition of what he means by "narratives," but they seem to be related to "the way we interpret ourselves and our relations to other human beings." He states, "Some narratives will tend to remain in the foreground of one’s engagements and orientations. These will include things like our self-conception and our relationships with others...stories about our relationships almost always tend to be matters of reflection, rethinking and revision." So what we need are narratives, stories about our lives, loves, losses, etc. By way of these narratives or stories, we can in some sense give meaning to our experience of time instead if simply "moving through" it.
Let me begin by saying that Hammer's approach to time seems to be at once modern and not-modern. On the one hand, Hammer seems to embrace (albeit with dissatisfaction) the modern approach to time, clock time. It is not as if the clock is wrong. Seconds are definitely ticking away. And, it is not desirable or even possible to embrace a perception of time such as that which pre-dates clock time. It is not as if we can easily live by the time of the moon or of the seasons. Our world is structured around clock time. For Hammer, this is a brute fact. So in this sense, Hammer seems to embrace (even if reluctantly) the modern perception of time.
On the other hand, Hammer's approach appears not-modern. As soon as he begins speaking in terms of "narratives," Hammer leaves the firm foundation of modernity behind. The modern turn of mind rests on certainty. The modern understanding does not want a narrative about what x means. The modern understanding wants to know what x means. So Hammer begins with the certainty of passing time and connects this certainty with modern existential dissatisfaction. Both seem to be facts. Time passes and people become dissatisfied with the passing of time. So it would seem that a fact is exactly the kind of solution we are looking for, right? No. What we need in the face of the facts are stories.
I have always been troubled by the assertion that narratives offer meaning. This is not because some good stories are meaningless, but because I am asked to view reality as a mere story. There is a difference between a story that refers, and a mere story. Likewise there is a difference between a narrative that refers and a mere narrative.
If you ask me to narrate the events surrounding my vacation last summer,then I might relate the facts that Alice Anne and I went to my mother's house in Florida, spent time with family, went to Disney, and had an exceptionally good time. We can consider this a narration or a story, but we understand that the intention is to refer to what actually occurred. This is not a mere narrative or story.
According to Hammer, I do not derive meaning from my summer trip in itself, but from my "narrative" of my summer trip. Why would this be the case? In my opinion, Hammer's solution via "narratives" is the result of a modern "hangover."
Modern philosophers (e.g. Locke and Kant) distinguished between a thing and a "thing in itself." I can know something about the cup I am drinking from; however, what I know about this cup is always filtered through my experience (i.e. my five senses and the ideas that are formed via these senses). I cannot know anything about my cup "in itself" because I cannot step outside of my experience and into the cup (so to speak). Hammer's use of narrative seems to function in the same way. I do not derive meaning from my summer trip, but from my narrative of my summer trip. The problem here is that my trip is a fact;whereas, my narrative is liable to " reflection, rethinking and revision."
For Hammer, narratives "frame" our experience and it is from these framed experiences that we can derive meaning. Of course, this meaning is not certain or even trustworthy because it is always subject to change. I may share my narrative about my summer trip in one way offering one meaning, and I may share my narrative differently offering another meaning. I do not know about you, but for me meaning only means something if it is true. And...therein lies the problem.
Hammer may not agree, but it seems that for him "narratives" are the same as "mere stories." They do not refer to anything real, and if they do they are not treated as if they refer to anything real. All we have are the narratives. And, narratives being what they are (mere stories), they do not need to be true. At this rate we might as well construct meaning out of nothing, so that we are guaranteed to find the meaning we want. In this way we need not mess with narratives that refer to nothing anyway.
Hammer's assessment of modern time and its attending dissatisfaction is modern through and through, and so is his solution. He is still reeling from the drunkenness that results from the modern search for certainty. Not finding any, he becomes incredulous and rests in nice stories that create what may be certainly missing.
Let me add that his assessment of modern time seems overstated. Pre-clock cultures understood the fleeting character of time just as we do...read book XI of Augustine's Confessions. People have always been dissatisfied not because of time, but because of finiteness. Furthermore, our clear understanding of our transience is not because of clocks, but because of death (see my first post). Our struggle with meaning and transience results from our impending death. In fact, I would be willing to argue that the continual tick-tock of the clock would seem irrelevant if we lasted forever.
I will let what I have said so far stand as it is. In the next post I want to address some specifically theological considerations related to these subjects of time, narratives, and meaning.
Theological Considerations:
I agree with the assertion that our finite existence brings about dissatisfaction. I do not agree that this is an exclusively modern problem. This is a human problem. Furthermore, it is my belief that the solution to this dissatisfaction is Jesus Christ.
In western Christianity we have emphasized the moral implications of Christ's life, death, and resurrection. This is a necessary emphasis, but it is not sufficient. We also need to proclaim the ontological implications of Christ's life, death, and resurrection. We are created with the potential to become the image of God in Jesus Christ. Certainly one aspect of this image is that we become people of love. However, another aspect of becoming the created image of God is everlasting existence. Once we embrace the ontological implications of the Christian faith, then meaning becomes accessible and palpable. Moreover, once the gospel is perceived in its fullest extent (moral and ontological), then our perceived transience changes into everlasting becoming. There is so much more I should say here, but I will let it be and move on to another relevant point.
I would not even care about Hammer's assertions regarding meaning and narratives if this kind of thinking were not already becoming part of Christian conversations. In fact, some Christians are promoting this kind of approach to understanding the gospel.
There are a number of reasons why some Christians may be embracing the concept of "narrative" in relation to the gospel. I suppose some Christians struggle with those modern assumptions that always create difficulty for belief. For instance, the events of the gospel are not empirically verifiable. That being the case, how are we to believe what we have not seen or heard (I might refer to the disciple Thomas at this point)? I will leave it to the reader as homework to deal with this question. I simply want to say that faith, by its very nature, is generally only applied to what is not empirically verifiable. In short, (surprise, surprise) it takes faith.
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