This realization lies behind new theories of time which argue that modernity brings with it a lack of freedom and increased time pressures which may have the appearance of rationality, but which are detrimental to society and the individual (e.g. Ritzer 1993). In Rhythmanalysis Henri Lefebvre argues that much of modernity is composed of mindless rhythmic routine, of a kind of external training he calls ‘dressage’, for which he uses examples like monasteries, schools and the military, which instil habits as a form of discipline. ‘Liberty is born in a reserved space and time, sometimes wide, sometimes narrow; occasionally reduced by the results of dressage to an unoccupied lacuna’ (2004: 43). In this, Lefebvre follows Durkheim, agreeing that liberty is found in a lack of routine; his quarrel is that modernity has not reduced the place for it in society. Instead the state and its institutions have stepped in to force us into a mindless pace of routine which occupies our daily lives and limits the space of freedom, turning the practice of autonomy into the evasion of routine, rather than self-discovery or exploration.
For Lefebvre and many others, the profusion of goods and advertising, as well as the sheer profusion of goods in consumer culture, are key elements in limiting freedom and creating the dull routine which characterizes modernity. In a similar turn, Simmel and Veblen long ago predicted that the rational thrust of modernity would get diverted into a forest of emotions and social games built around fashion and consumption. A host of other social critics, from Stuart Ewen (1976) to Benjamin Barber (2008), have elaborated on the critique that modern people have become slaves to their own shopping and spending, a kind of ‘second serfdom’ of luxury rather than agrarian squalor.
The growing literature on ‘time drought’ and the increasing pace of modernity raises the question of whether it is the density of events and crowding of experience into limited time which restricts freedom in modern times, or if instead it is the habitual and repetitious rhythm, the crushing boredom of routine which gives people the experience of time shortage. In other words, are we suffering from too much choice, or too little choice? Or is it possible that we could be suffering from both at the same time? This certainly would help explain Jalas’s insightful comment that something about the pace and tempo of contemporary life allows boredom and busyness to coexist (2006: 42).
This cannot be the whole story, for it runs completely contrary to a well-developed and widespread popular perception that wealth and the choices of consumer culture in the marketplace are enjoyable, liberating and allow the full development of the human capacity for autonomous as well as social pleasure (see Maslow 1943, one of the most often-cited papers in social science). Certeau (1984) makes a strong argument for the way modern people make material culture choices in creative ways which undercut the efforts of advertisers and marketers to impose uniform categories. And the sociology of life-styles, sub-cultures and fashion communities is based on the idea that consumption enables people to craft new ways of life, forming cultures of choice around alternative life-styles (e.g. Featherstone 1991).
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