Abstract
In four short meditations, approaches to time and the future are explored through both a time and futures lens. A compressed poetic form of expression is used to distil the essence of the processes involved. The shapes emerge in the writing and once discernable they begin to guide the choice of words. Theory becomes a playful activity that draws on a deep and extensive pool of time theory. The first meditation expresses the difficulty for conventional social science to engage with the future. The second depicts temporal relations of modernity that encompass features shared by humanity across the ages. The third piece explores time encoded in nature, money and society. The last meditation engages with approaches to sustainability and indicates the significant differences that arise with the respective standpoints of the present future and future present. It closes the circle back to the first meditation on disciplinary challenges presented by the temporal and engagement with future presents.
Future, Futurity, Sociology Past & Present Time-based Praxis The Time of Nature, Money & Society Approaches to Future and Sustainability
Future,Futurity,Sociology
Future Futurities Future presents Challenge to sociology Future makers are we Our desires and expectations Hopes & fears, projections & plans All implicated in our knowledge practices The study of futurity is focus on shadows The shadows beckon to be illuminated Illusions of detachment disintegrate Implicated we are contributors Contributors are responsible The future their subject & duty Present futures amenable to science Future presents realm of values & morals We study futurity as present future With tools from a by-gone age Finding answers in the past We seek the unknowable Challenge to sociology Future presents Futurities Future
Past and Present Time-Based Praxis
the earth’s rhythms are tracked temporality is transformed finitude is transcended the spirit is rising life is bounded death is unavoidable recognising the inescapable the human spirit has been tempered death is transcended, immortality secured worshipping heroes in song & tale creating immortal things burying the dead knowing nature’s rhythms tracking cycles with instruments recording time as dates in calendars creating time to human design with clocks commodification of time: time = money time compression: speed = efficiency time colonisation with clock time time is controlled everywhere not all time equals money speed needs energy & pollutes we are parasites in future presents out of control – no one holds us to account
Nature
is contextual is interdependent is being and becoming is duration, succession & cycle is birth and death, growth and ageing is all of past & future gathered up in the present is rhythmic repetition with variation: invariability is death is re/production, regeneration and repair/healing is temporality, timing, tempo, intensity is internalised memory & history is finite & transcendent is multi-layered is creative is life
Money
is an artefact is linear-spatial is infinitely divisible is quantified and measured is empty, neutral, decontextualised is counting time units represented by number is repetition of the same irrespective of when and where is invariable units discounted against future is creation of time to human design is naturalised as time per se is imposed circularity is externalised is lifeless fiction
Society
is life & fiction is performed & produced is repetition with/without variation is reproduced, regenerated and regulated is all of past and future gathered up in the present is structure and development, interpreted and interpreting is history and biography, memory and anticipation is irreversible, (de)contextual and abstract is measured product and process is finite and transcendent is exchange value is negotiated change
Approaches to Future & Sustainability
What can the future do for us? What are we doing to the future? Two questions – different standpoints: Present future is standpoint of/for present Future present is standpoint of others’ future Sustainability encapsulates and engages futures Different modes, perspectives, standpoints implicit Present future and future present a central dividing line How can we sustain our present conditions and resources? How does our resource use affect successors’ resource bases? Standpoint of present future is our unquestioned status quo Standpoint of future present is the exception to the rule Requiring structural change in knowledge practices To accompany our actions to unknowable effects To uncertain invisible un/real and im/material Deeds rippling through space-time-matter Caring for strangers & fellow beings Not yet existing but implicated Our processes in progress