The Monastery and the Clock

- Imagine and briefly describe a world without clocks. What would your life look like without measured time?

I would imagine a world without clocks would be a much more laid back, if somewhat chaotic society. It would be harder to run late to meetings or to work, and there wouldn't be much of a rush to be anywhere at any given time. Time would be more approximated, using the sun or other natural, outside factors. However, it would be somewhat difficult living in modern society without a measured sense of time. Catching transportation like trains or planes would be a constant worry, and it would be very troublesome scheduling classes or interviews using vague measurements of time. However, to make up for this, a much more lax system would probably be developed for labor and education. I think it would be for the better. I personally think there's too much stress for deadlines and "time is money." It would be a supreme hassle if clocks disappeared all of a sudden for us, because all of our systems revolve around measured time. If it had never come about, we would have molded our current society around the lack of it.

-What did Mumford mean by the statement: “Time-keeping passed into time-serving and time-accounting and time-rationing. As this took place, Eternity ceased gradually to serve as the measure and focus of human actions.” Ponder the technologies available to us today in terms of instantaneous communication. How will/have our perceptions of time changed?

Mumford probably meant that, when humans started taking measured time and applying their daily lives around it, they focused less on the distant future and time as a grand whole, and instead became obsessed with the time of today. Things need to be done by this time tomorrow, what can I accomplish in this one hour, time wasted is money lost... We do not consider the future anymore, and instead prefer the gratitude of the now. Though society's current actions may harm those who will come, it's easier for us now, so why should we change? Smart phones, computers, and even older inventions like the television and microwave emphasize speed, from food to communication. Though these inventions are definitely a testament to the genius of humanity and have bettered the lives of millions, there's no doubt we've become a somewhat impatient society.

-How did the clock standardize production and disassociate time from nature? What is the difference between mechanical time and organic time?

Clocks made time much more universal, and easier to make schedules for oneself, from work and meals to travel and sleep. Before, people normally went to sleep when the sun went down, ate when they were hungry, etc etc. But with the advent of measured time, along with other technologies, humans could schedule everything they did to repeat every day at the same times, regardless of natural urges. Organic time follows the natural course of life cycles, to put it simply. There's time for fruit to ripen, or nocturnal animals to become active, to bears needing to hibernate; the natural, instinctual, or uncontrollable aspects of life that happen regularly. Mechanical time is measured using the human concept of numbers and the perceived regularity of planetary and astral movement. Its main use is for human societal actions and behaviors, and to conform our natural functions around our busy human schedule of mundane things. 

- In this article what is the relationship between time and space? How did people’s relationship to history change with the clock?

When measured time became a thing, it could be seen as something of its own space, in an abstract way, at least. Something to be filled with something else, like eating, working, sleeping, etc. And it can be divided up or expanded with the use of labor-saving technology. It is a new medium of existence that humans base their entire lives around. With the advent of clocks, people became more time-conscious, and looked to the past to revive past ideals and fashions. More things were recorded and changed on a daily basis, making record-keeping easier, and history more reliable to read about. Trends changed more often, many yearly as opposed to generational.