Punching the Clock

NOTE: This episode is a rebroadcast. There may be minor differences between the episode and the transcript you see below.

PETER: Now, if you’re tuning in, this is BackStory. And I’m Peter Onuf, representing the 18th century.

ED: I’m Ed Ayers, speaking for the 19th century.

BRIAN: And the 20th century has elected me to defend it. I’m Brian Balogh.

Unfortunately, listening to all the elements of the show so far, I got to acknowledge, it’s the 19th century that is grabbing the gold ring. I mean it sounds to me like everything about time turns on these changes, the electric light, the railroad–

ED: Unless-

BRIAN: –all this stuff that happens in Ed’s century.

ED: I’ve been waiting so long for you to see the light here, Brian. And this is only the tip of the iceberg because think what happens in the factory, in which people’s lives are divided for the first time into the hourly wage, in which people’s lives are sliced and diced, run by huge clocks and whistles. You come in and you punch the clock and it punches you back.

PETER: Oh, oh, [INAUDIBLE]. Save the–

ED: Yeah.

PETER: –punching. Save the whistling. You guys are a couple of vulgar technological determinists.

BRIAN: Ouch.

PETER: Come on. Time consciousness does not come out of the Industrial Revolution. It’s not determined by artificial light or factories or any of the things that you are talking about, you and Brian are talking about.

Look, it goes back to the, well beginning of time. And there’s of course natural time, the Sun coming up and going down on a regular basis. But we note that regularity. That’s part of our time consciousness. And there’s also sacred time, the notion that we live on God’s time, in our brief moment on Earth and we have to cherish every moment. We have to redeem the moment.

And in the same way, the marketplace does the same thing, commercial transactions. Now, Ben Franklin says time is money. He says this before we have punch clocks. Now think about the market, the market that Ben Franklin himself what have known in Boston and later in Philadelphia. That’s a real place for people get together. And they say to each other hey, let’s meet at the market on a particular day.

But increasingly, the market is an abstraction. It’s not where you are. It’s where your money is or where your commodities are going or it’s where things are coming from.

We’re talking an abstraction. We have a new way of thinking about the world that’s not immediate and it’s not right around us. Our world is not our neighbors. Our world is a much bigger place.

And when it becomes bigger, we develop these abstract schemes in time and space, latitude and longitude. The way we keep track of the passage of time, that’s a product of well, the era of discovery, the settlement of the New World. And most of all, the 18th century Enlightenment brings it all into clear focus.

ED: And it makes possible, the efflorescence of time awareness in my century. Now Peter, it’s very kind of you guys to lay the foundation for the real transformation that I see. All those things are fine if you’re Benjamin Franklin or you’re some scientist or you’re some preacher. I’m talking about people getting up every day with a lunch pail and having the entire course of their lives determined by the clock.

BRIAN: Well, I’d love for you guys to keep arguing about whether time is God’s time or time is some abstraction represented in the chiming of the factory bell or whistle because none of that stuff really matters–

ED: Ouch.

BRIAN: –in the 20th century. In the 20th century, what really matters is for the first time people begin to struggle over who owns time. In both of your centuries, time is outside of people. During the 19th century, people become more aware of this abstraction. They incorporate it into their lives. It’s in the 20th century that they take control of time.

And what do I mean Ed, I mean it’s no longer the railroads who determine time or those factory whistles. It’s the workers, who begin to demand a 40-hour work week. It’s the workers who demand paid time and fringe benefits.

And you know what, it’s consumers who say we put in our time at the factory. We own this other time. So you can argue till the houses come home, and I don’t know what time they come home, that it’s God’s time–

PETER: Oh, Brian.

BRIAN: –or nature’s time. What matters is in the 20th century, people begin to own that time.

PETER: Brian, I liked it better when you were just a technological determinist. Now, you’re a cheerleader. I mean come on, we don’t own time. Time owns us. That’s the way you’re integrated into a world over which well, we think we have the illusion of control. But in fact, all that time controls us.

BRIAN: Yeah. I do agree that perhaps we’ve ensnared ourselves. How do we use that time now that we are connected 24/7? Well, we do more and more work at home when we’re on our quote, “own” time. We feel if we don’t respond to an email in 30 seconds, we are remiss. So you know, Peter might be right.

ED: Well, fortunately, since I seem to be losing this argument, that’s all the time we have for this segment.

PETER: You’re listening to BackStory. We’ll be back in a minute.