Jonathan Martineau

Time always seems to be something “out there” independent of human control or structure. But time is not ontological, but socially mediated; produced through social practices and time systems which vary from one society and historical period to another. We now live in the dominant mode of clock-time, but in the past time may be measured in other ways, such as through events, or the natural moving of physical bodies. The prophet Muhammad s.a.w for example, was born during “the year of the elephant” because that was the year a king rode an elephant into the city and the first time the arabs saw that animal. Social time relations is no longer the order of the day though since capitalist social time entails the alienation of time. The current order of time - how it’s perceived, used - has been imposed through imperialism and domination. It is a facet of our alienation in capitalism as it divorces us from our more natural rhythms of time telling. It aids labour exploitation. It’s what fascists have also used for historical revisionism (think of how pol pot wanted to reset the calendar to year 1!)… (mer)