Nate,
I like your story. The sense of disorientation you describe reminds me of
the way I feel when I dream that I'm totally naked in some public place and
I'm the only one who seems to be aware of it. In such dreams I try to hide
my awareness of being naked because it is this and only this that might
alert the people in the public place to the problem I am so totally aware.
Interestingly, when someone else in the dream is naked we usually conspire
to keep it a secret. The feeling of disorientation, being out of kilter
with what's going on with everyone else, sticks with me even after I wake
up. Clearly the idea of nakedness is a social construct, a norm whose
transgression leaves one feeling out of whack with the order of things.
Marx's discussion of the Epicurean discussion of time seems to me relevant
to distinguishing between the social construct and the basic experience out
of which it is constructed. The change is what is really experienced.
Appearance is constantly changing. Time is the experience of that change in
itself, not as the change of this or that appearance. The changes in
different objects (different compositions of atoms in Marx's discussion of
Epicurus) as associated with each other -- changes in the length of days
associated with changes in the presence and color of different plants, for
example -- allow the abstraction/reflection of change into itself and this
abstraction is what we come to call time. It's the objectification of lived
(sensual) experience which is one of constant change. Clocks simply relate
all changes to the changes of a uniform object's changes: the relationship
between a given quantity of sand falling through an opening of given
diameter, the relationship between gears of different sizes and ratios, the
rate of change of atomic disintegration in radioactive materials, etc.
Money too is an abstraction but no less socially real for that.
I don't think of this as a theory as much as a description. Heidegger found
boredom to bea
good field for developing the description into the subjective experiential
dimension. Wittgenstein's only empirical study was of musician's
perceptions of time. I haven't read it but I don't think he figured out
how to make a tune swing!
Paul H. Dillon
"It seems ridiculous to me to attempt to study society as a mere observer.
He who wishes only to observe will observe nothing, for as he is useless in
actual work and a nuisance in recreations, he is admitted to neither. We
observe the actions of others only to the extent to which we ourselves
act." - Jean Jacque Rousseau
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