Article

Time & Society

0(0) 1–5
Four meditations on time ! The Author(s) 2018
Reprints and permissions:
and future relations sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0961463X18789222
journals.sagepub.com/home/tas

Barbara Adam
Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

Abstract
In four short meditations, approaches to time and the future are explored
through both a time and futures lens. A compressed poetic form of expression
is used to distil the essence of the processes involved. The shapes emerge in
the writing and once discernable they begin to guide the choice of words.
Theory becomes a playful activity that draws on a deep and extensive pool
of time theory. The first meditation expresses the difficulty for conventional
social science to engage with the future. The second depicts temporal relations
of modernity that encompass features shared by humanity across the ages.
The third piece explores time encoded in nature, money and society.
The last meditation engages with approaches to sustainability and indicates
the significant differences that arise with the respective standpoints of the
present future and future present. It closes the circle back to the first medita-
tion on disciplinary challenges presented by the temporal and engagement with
future presents.

Keywords
Finitude, future, futurity, invisibility, process, responsibility, sustainability, time

1. Future, Futurity, Sociology

2. Past & Present Time-based Praxis
3. The Time of Nature, Money & Society
4. Approaches to Future and Sustainability

Corresponding author:
Barbara Adam, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, Cardiff, South Glamorgan CF10 £WT, UK.
Email: adamb@cardiff.ac.uk
2 Time & Society 0(0)

Future,
Futurity,
Sociology

Future
Futurities
Future presents
Challenge to sociology

Future makers are we

Our desires and expectations
Hopes & fears, projections & plans
All implicated in our knowledge practices
The study of futurity is focus on shadows
The shadows beckon to be illuminated
Illusions of detachment disintegrate
Implicated we are contributors

Contributors are responsible

The future their subject & duty
Present futures amenable to science
Future presents realm of values & morals
We study futurity as present future
With tools from a by-gone age
Finding answers in the past
We seek the unknowable

Challenge to sociology
Future presents
Futurities
Future
Adam 3

Past and Present

Time-Based Praxis

the earth’s rhythms are tracked

temporality is transformed
finitude is transcended
the spirit is rising
life is bounded
death is unavoidable
recognising the inescapable
the human spirit has been tempered

death is transcended, immortality secured

worshipping heroes in song & tale
creating immortal things
burying the dead
knowing nature’s rhythms
tracking cycles with instruments
recording time as dates in calendars
creating time to human design with clocks

commodification of time: time ¼ money

time compression: speed ¼ efficiency
time colonisation with clock time
time is controlled everywhere
not all time equals money
speed needs energy & pollutes
we are parasites in future presents
out of control – no one holds us to account
4 Time & Society 0(0)

Nature
is contextual
is interdependent
is being and becoming
is duration, succession & cycle
is birth and death, growth and ageing
is all of past & future gathered up in the present
is rhythmic repetition with variation: invariability is death
is re/production, regeneration and repair/healing
is temporality, timing, tempo, intensity
is internalised memory & history
is finite & transcendent
is multi-layered
is creative
is life

Money
is an artefact
is linear-spatial
is infinitely divisible
is quantified and measured
is empty, neutral, decontextualised
is counting time units represented by number
is repetition of the same irrespective of when and where
is invariable units discounted against future
is creation of time to human design
is naturalised as time per se
is imposed circularity
is externalised
is lifeless
fiction

Society
is life & fiction
is performed & produced
is repetition with/without variation
is reproduced, regenerated and regulated
is all of past and future gathered up in the present
is structure and development, interpreted and interpreting
is history and biography, memory and anticipation
is irreversible, (de)contextual and abstract
is measured product and process
is finite and transcendent
is exchange value
is negotiated
change
Adam 5

Approaches to
Future & Sustainability

What can the future do for us?

What are we doing to the future?
Two questions – different standpoints:
Present future is standpoint of/for present
Future present is standpoint of others’ future

Sustainability encapsulates and engages futures

Different modes, perspectives, standpoints implicit
Present future and future present a central dividing line
How can we sustain our present conditions and resources?
How does our resource use affect successors’ resource bases?
Standpoint of present future is our unquestioned status quo
Standpoint of future present is the exception to the rule
Requiring structural change in knowledge practices
To accompany our actions to unknowable effects

To uncertain invisible un/real and im/material

Deeds rippling through space-time-matter
Caring for strangers & fellow beings
Not yet existing but implicated
Our processes in progress

Changes in Practice
& Responsibility