{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2","title":"Time The Modern and Postmodern Experience","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2","id":"d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2","uuid":"d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2","title":"Time The Modern and Postmodern Experience","normalized_title":"timethemodernandpostmodernexperience","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":178,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20The%20Modern%20and%20Postmodern%20Experience","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d3ee5fbb-1124-4191-99e1-3139801e0da2/search"},"page":{"printed_page":150,"pdf_page":148,"physical_index":148,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"75865313be373fe7536599155e1be229f948c5e5da39dd34ec9f51e23b293548"},"chapter":"An Embarrassment of Proper Times:","content":"Sociologists and anthropologists long ago referred to the symbolic, time-setting and structuring process by means of which ‘social time' is created by human beings and between them. For Norbert Elias, a glance back at Galileo's experiments shows in vivo, as it were, the departure of the concept of time in physics from the matrix of social time centred on human beings, which was linked with a corresponding change in the concept of nature.29 For him, the division into a time of physics and a social time is closely connected with the rise of physics and the natural sciences in general, which led to a conceptual dualism. In this respect, scientists have superseded priests in establishing the right' moment which signifies rise or decline and is the decisive factor for chaos and order, no matter whether it is derived from the detected correspondence with the happenings of the gods or from the scientifically based investigation ofnature and its processes. Elias gives a detailed account of the contents of the novel by an African author, Chinua Achebe, which focuses on a conflict over determining time. It concerns a first-hand report of life in an Ibo village in Eastern Nigeria during the period in which the old way of life was just beginning to change under the influence of colonial power. The focal point of the novel is the high priest who serves the god of six villages, and one of whose most important functions is to proclaim the right moment. It was indicated by the arrival of the new moon, for which the priest had to be on the look-out and which was to be greeted as a welcome guest. People's business was dependent on the arrival of the new moon, as well as the festivals and the beginning of harvest time with which the New Year was inaugurated. Achebe/Elias sympathetically describe what it meant for people to learn the right moment from an authority integrating their activities, and the way in which knowledge of the secrets of determining time represented a source of the priest's power. They give insight into an early form of the experience of time and demonstrate how important it was for people to hear the proclamation that the time for the harvest had come. For when, after a dramatic worsening of the conflict with the colonial administration, the priest falls silent and does not proclaim harvest time, people begin to starve.\n\n150\n\nThe Longing for the Moment","previous_page":149,"next_page":151}