What do philosophies of time have to do with human life? Do they have any bearing on how we live, act and relate to each other and other species? And can they help us deal with the grand-scale problems of the Anthropocene, such as climate change, mass extinction and chemical pollution? With a starting point in questions 4 and 5, this essay will explore if and how a more diversified approach to time can help us navigate the current predicament of humankind and become better ancestors.
The Anthropocene and our Broken Relationship with Time
Becoming better ancestors requires us to become better at imagining and envisioning futures, perhaps even deep futures. Arguably, this requires us to develop our abilities to inhabit different temporalities.
Time philosopher Michelle Bastian (2012) argues that there is a connection between our sense of time and our broken relationship with nature. Building on a 2003 article by Bill McKibben, she states that there is a "temporal confusion in regarding to timing, synchronization and pace", and that "the interrelations between "nature" and "culture" are hidden because one is not thought to be in time with the other." (Bastian, 2012, 24)
In simplified terms, we might say that our relationship with time is broken. Industrialized societal systems stress certain temporalities and ignore others. In some ways, our society seems obsessed with time. We trade financial instruments called "futures", and capital markets allow for trading at nano-second timescales. As a legal consultant, I can attest to the saying that "time is money" quite literally. The need for greater precision has even driven us to decouple our standard time from the rotation of the Earth.
The strive for optimization of all our time permeates not just the professional domains but can also be seen to seep into our personal lives, even into our sense of identity. A flood of books in the self-help genre teaches methods to help us make the best use of our time.
But at the same time, in other ways our industrialized society seems to completely ignore time. When production timelines are the primary focus, both the present, the past and the future are discounted and largely ignored. As Bastian (2012, 24) notes, "far from being able to coordinate our actions with the significant changes our world is currently undergoing, we are increasingly out of synch. Schedules for transitioning to low carbon energy production, for implementing truly sustainable fishing policies, or for developing transport systems independent of cheap fossil fuels, for example, are all running decades behind."
Limitations of the Human Psyche
This is a paradox: How can we simultaneously be so focussed on time, while at the same time constantly failing to take the political, economic and behavioral action required to protect future generations? As historian Chakrabarty (2009, 219) points out, "reason may not be all that guides us in our effective collective choices – in other words, we may collectively end up making some unreasonable choices". Indeed, the human psyche seems to be ridden with many biases that work against our ability to handle grand-scale issues – our minds are not designed to understand the future, let alone the deep future.
Behavioral science and behavioral economics have shown some of the ways that the human psyche is not attuned to making "rational" choices. Furthermore, our economic system is built on a number of inherent assumptions and features that are based on a narrow now, and which work against making good choices for the future.
Add to these mental limitations the constant disruptions of modern society. My grandfather, born in rural Iran in the 1910s, described the arrival of the first telegraph as a big happening. From those times of early technological communications, we have seen the development of global telecom, computers, the internet and, recently, advanced AI models. A person who only 40 years ago tried to imagine the near future would need to dig deep into imagination in order to come anywhere close.
Reimagining our Place in the Universe
In the early 2000s, I took an introductory astronomy class. In one lecture, the professor described human efforts in astronomy with an analogy: it is as if a single cell in a human knee would try to understand its place in the body. Pretty hopeless, yet we do our best. Perhaps understanding time, and our place in it, is similarly an effort that goes beyond human limitations. But just as we explore space, can we find ways to explore the unexplorable, to imagine the unimaginable? Perhaps one necessary starting point towards better understanding the future is to reimagine our relationship with time, nature and history. In terms of time, would we be helped by more diversity in our temporal consciousness? Could we learn to view time in muddier, more diversified ways, perhaps with more nuance? And could this serve to improve our ability to deal with big challenges – like applying different tools for different purposes rather than using the same hammer for everything?
Bastian (2012, 25) emphasizes time's role in managing the intertwined relationality of everyday life and proposes that "in the current context of multiple ecological crises, time needs to be more clearly understood, not as a quantitative measurement, but as a powerful social tool for producing, managing, and/or undermining various understandings of who or what is in relation with other things or beings."
Chakrabarty (2009, 220) has suggested that "the crisis of climate change calls for thinking simultaneously on [two] registers, to mix together the immiscible chronologies of capital and species history" and that "anthropogenic explanations of climate change spell the collapse of the age-old humanist distinction between natural history and human history".
Allowing for Increased Temporal Diversity
Indeed, there seems to be a need to think about not just the facts, but the meta-facts – the methodologies that we use to reflect on and structure our thinking. How might we accomplish this in practice?
Indigenous and relational temporalities, as described by Rose (2012) and Whyte (2021), offer alternative frameworks that emphasize cyclical and interdependent relationships among species and ecosystems. By conceptualizing time through kinship, cycles, and practices that "automate" considerations for future generations and other species, indigenous cultures integrate deep histories and long-term futures into the present. These approaches challenge the linear and extractive modes of thinking that dominate contemporary decision-making.
Critics might argue that such philosophies, developed in contexts vastly different from our current, technologically driven world, lack relevance today. Another concern is that adopting indigenous temporalities could slow down the innovation and progress urgently needed to address modern challenges. However, I believe this is a case of the synechdochic fallacy, where one aspect of indigenous philosophies – such as their emphasis on continuity or preservation – is mistakenly generalized to represent their entirety, overlooking their capacity to adapt, innovate, and contribute valuable perspectives to contemporary challenges. Rather than slowing humanity down, non-linear temporalities could foster relational and ethical frameworks essential for addressing the interconnected predicaments we face.
For example, Bastian (2012, 41–45) suggests exploring alternative ways of marking time, such as a "turtle clock", as a way to coordinate ourselves with and through other relationalities within our world. Bastian proposes that the turtle clock can enable us to "maintain an awareness of the inter-meshing relations of turtles, governments, conservationists, and shrimpers" and "[i]n doing so, it foregrounds the inherent difficulties of coordination in a complex multi-species world, rather than hiding such work under the cover of a 'universal' time" (45).
If it seems farfetched to overturn our relationship with time, I will argue that we already live in a world of temporal diversity, where each of us employs different ways of inhabiting time. The linear time concept may be essential to production and performance within industrialized structures. But people don't just live in that realm, do they?
In terms of experienced time, we live in a multitude of temporalities. Consider sleep; when we dream, we are on a different time-plane. Similarly, when we are absorbed in reading, creating art or in an interesting discussion – this tends to also happen in a different time-plane. If we are bored, or if we are waiting for somebody who is late, time can seem to drag endlessly. We use expressions such as "time flies" or "time goes more slowly". Anyone who has been under the influence of alcohol has also experienced a different sense of time. And lastly, in the context of neurodivergence, there are also multiple ways of experiencing time. Divergent perceptions of time – including so-called "time blindness" – are part of the difficulties related both to autism and ADHD.
In a world of high complexity and unpredictability, we need to develop the ability to juggle many thoughts simultaneously. As moral imagination advocate Phoebe Tickell says: "We need more plurality, more true diversity and more courage to exercise different ways of thinking and for moral imagination to thrive" (Lucca, 2024).
Perhaps this is one path by which we can become better ancestors?
Note: This essay was written as a submission for the course "Deep Time" at Stockholm University, in January 2025.
References
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