Another Time, Perhaps

Another Time, Perhaps

by Marco M. Pardi

“Time is Nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.” Adapted from:Ray Cummings. The Time Professor. 1921

“Both in thought and feeling, even though time is real, to realize the un-importance of time is the gate of wisdom.” Bertrand Russell. Mysticism and Logic.

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Although Russell is correct in a circumscribed sense, the conceptualization of demarcated time is illusory. Time is simply a measure of change. No change, no time. As the television series Kung Fu pointed out, the instant you conceive of the present it becomes the past; it is Not. The future is not here; it, too, is NOT. But if past and future are not, and present instantly becomes past, where is time?

The second hand sweeps at a fixed speed and we pass the minutes. We have a clock. The radioisotope decays at a fixed rate and we have an atomic clock. Remove all possibility of measuring change, perhaps by sitting in a windowless room with no chronometers of any kind and then tell me how you “tell the time”. This was demonstrated some years ago by volunteers deep in an Italian cave, with unpleasant psychological outcomes. It has been demonstrated accidentally by miners trapped underground for periods known to the rescuers but unknown to the miners. Invariably, they report grossly distorted impressions of the passage of time, always on the long side. Of course, this phenomenon is known to those who have sat through my classes.

But time travel is a constant fantasy, even desire for many. Some long to go back within their own lifetime and get a “do over”. Others, more adventurous, want the long view, a visit to long before they were born. One of the early examples in common literature was Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. In either choice one faces the questions: Do I go back as the person I am now, knowing what I know now? Or do I simply go back as a person living in that era?

The answer to the second question is easy. If one went back as simply a person living in that era one would not know it. Everything would be normal, the person would have no concept of having “returned” from some future state. The person who “was” would be erased and the person who is would be, well, is. Perhaps wondering what it would be like to live in the future. Where’s the gain? There is none.

But most people opt for the first choice: arriving in the distant past as the person they are now. And here’s where an Anthropologist might be of help, first in trying to talk one out of it and second in trying to prepare a person for a reality likely quite different from what they expected.

Many Anthropologists have been time travelers, of a sort. Those of us who have done field work, living with people in “under developed countries” especially as they do from day to day face a dual but deceptive reality. While it is easy to assume that such “marginal” people represent a long past stage in the development of “modern” society it is critical to understand that these people are living in their own present reality. They may not have the developed histories (which are often manipulated and/or outright wrong) modern societies rest upon but they do have generational memory preserved in folklore and oral traditions. And, they often have ways of doing things that would stun the sensibilities of modern Time Tourists. In the United States Thanksgiving has just passed. How many Americans went out into their yards and slaughtered a turkey for the festive meal? How many even know what a living turkey looks and sounds like, and how it behaves? But you get the point.

Personnel in other careers also find themselves at times in “other worldly” settings. In the military I recall shortly after dawn on the Great Libyan Desert hearing and then seeing a camel caravan coming over a huge dune about 50 yards from me. Camels’ padded feet are silent but they often have strings of bells hanging from their halters. As they plodded past I was transported into an uncertain time warp; it could have been centuries ago or just last week. I half expected to see a bearded prophet followed by disciples trailing along behind.

Being alone out there with my attack dog on leash I felt free to respectfully wave at who appeared to be the leaders. But as they waved in return I knew that under those colorful robes there possibly were the latest Soviet issued Makarov handguns and the large parcels on the pack camels could be carrying Soviet supplied firearms and ammunition destined for the modern guerrilla fighters repeatedly attacking our base drinking water pumping stations about fifteen miles away.

Many people seek vicarious time travel through historical fiction, and some through serious historical accounts. But with the notable exceptions of Ken Follett, Neal Stephenson, and few others historical fiction is sparse on the details of day to day life in past times. I would be quite careful in recommending it to personnel outward bound to some of the more traditional societies. The television series Little House on the Prairie did not much mention the little house behind the little house on the prairie, where attending to toilet function was unpleasant at best and life threatening during serious winters. And thinking of that imaginary prophet (there were hundreds at any given time) followed by his disciples, I wonder why the biblical literature, so descriptive of violence, doesn’t mention: And, lo, a straggler fell back from the group, calling to the brethren, “You guys go on. I’ll catch up. I gotta take a dump.” And so it came to pass…………..

Serious literature can also raise questions. The Talmud, Torah, and especially the Mishnah precisely explain the moments of everyday Hebrew life. Reading through the proscriptions and ritual ablutions before, during, and after sexual intercourse one is left wondering how the next generation of Hebrews got there. But like notable denominations of modern Christianity, how people say they should live is not necessarily how they do live.

Which brings us more or less to the “present”. It’s hard to repeat the trite sayings such as The past is behind you when we are living with the consequences of four years of horrendous internal turmoil, greed, lies, disregard of foundational principles and even laws, and the blatant attempt by the reincarnated American Fascist Party to replace democracy with outright fascism. The past is alive when we wonder how it is that so many supporters of the current regime who had family members who were maimed or killed fighting fascists in World War II Europe are blinded by their single issue obsession, such as banning abortion and even contraception, to the point where they will destroy the foundations of democracy and imperil all life on the planet we all share. It’s as if Time did not simply progress, but shifted into an alien dimension.

As soon as it won the last presidential election the Trump administration became known around the world as The dog that caught the car. An amusing metaphor at first, it soon turned out that this dog was intent on destroying the car, the passengers, the road, and the countryside around it all in the name of personal and corporate greed. Ongoing international studies have shown that during the 40 years between 1970 and 2010 over 65% of the world’s wildlife has disappeared, including an accelerating number of species that have gone extinct. 40 years are less than an eye blink in the time humans have walked the Earth. But extinction is forever.

In those 40 years we see the Democratic Party was in power for only 14. And now, as another Republican orgasm ebbs, we see a frantic effort on its part to roll back and/or eliminate any and all remaining environmental safeguards crafted by the scientific community over the past decades. We see around 300 lifetime appointments of “conservative” federal judges just in this recent four year span following the successful Republican blockade of centrist or left leaning judges during the previous administration. We see what used to be a fairly balanced, lifetime appointment Supreme Court now turned into a lop-sided 6 to 3 “conservative” court mostly beholden to the American Fascist group recently posing as the Republican Party. Would you like your case to come before this court?

In other words, the Ship of State is firmly set on a course from which it will be very hard to turn before Democracy is irreparably damaged, the environment is pushed beyond the tipping point, and our current generation of young children is indoctrinated into the subservience that serves the Fascist Fatherland. Already an increasing number of young people are electing to forego having children lest they bring them into the world that is plainly awaiting them.

But herein is the deepest tragedy. The very people who, by their awareness and concern are the most qualified to alter the course of the ship are the ones choosing not to change and empower the crew. There has long been no doubt that the best thing Mankind can do for the future of this planet is to dramatically reduce its numbers. But the irony is that this call to action is being heeded by the very people best qualified to prevent the environmental, economic, and social disasters deeply sewn by those who beguiled “the base” into supporting their short term rapacious greed. (I find it amusing that people who do not speak Arabic miss the fact that “the base”, as Trump supporters are so widely characterized, translates into al qaeda – a vicious, transnational terrorist organization centered around their interpretation of one of the three great religions of the West.) Oh, well. Another time.

The Doomsday Clock is ticking toward midnight. Do we have the time to get up and act, or shall we just sit back and listen for the last tick? As the next administration steps into office it will be important to remember that undoing the horrendous damage will not come overnight. And, as we saw after the United States and the Fascist Axis Powers formally entered into World War II against each other, Fascists don’t change their minds just because they changed their stripes. They melt back into our communities, our schools, churches and courtrooms. Waiting for another time.