THE HOOD SCHOLAR

No political structure of any size can dispense with order, and one of the fundamental applications of order is to time, for no communal human activity can take place with out it. Indeed one might say that the regulation of time is the primary attribute of all government. A new power which wants to assert itself must also enforce a new chronology; it must make it seem as though time had begun with it. Even more important to such a power is that it should endure. Its own estimate of its greatness can be deduced from the stretch of future time it lays claim to: Hitler’s Reich was to last 1,000 years. The Julian calendar endured longer than this and, even today, the month called after Julius Caesar is known by his name [July]. Of historical figures only Augustus succeeded in attaching his name uninterruptedly to a month. Others tried it, but their names have crumbled with their effigies.

The most impressive mark on the reckoning of time is that made by Christ. Here he supposed even God himself, from whose creation of the world Jewish chronology began. The Romans counted from the foundation of their city, a method which they took over from the Etruscans and which certainly played a not inconsiderable part in the world’s picture of Rome’s mighty destiny. Some conquerors content themselves with inserting their names somewhere in the calendar: Napoleon is said to have had hopes of August 15th. There is an irresistible attraction in the idea of linking one’s name with a regularly recurring date. That the vast majority of people are ignorant of the origins of such designations seems to have not the slightest effect on the desire of rulers to immortalize themselves in this way. No one man has succeeded in attaching his name to a season, although, there are whole centuries which are known by the name of dynasty. Chinese history, indeed, is reckoned in dynasties; one speaks of the Han or the Tang period. Even short-lived and inglorious dynasties, which would be better forgotten, got the benefits of this. Among the Chinese is has become the usual method of reckoning large stretches of time, but it is families rather than individuals which it immortalizes.

A ruler’s relationship with time, however, is not exhausted by the vanity of his name. He is concerned with the regulation of time and not only giving his name to existing units. Chinese history begins in this way. The prestige of the Chinese legendary rulers derives in great part from the effective regulation of time which is ascribed to them. Special officials were appointed to watch over this and were punished if the neglected their duties. It was when they achieved a uniform calendar that the Chinese first became a nation.

Civilizations are perhaps best distinguished by their arrangement of time. They prove themselves by their continued capacity to organize their traditions and they disintegrate when they cease to do this. A civilization comes to an end when a people no longer take it chronology seriously. At this point an analogy with the life of an individual is permissible. A man who no longer knows or cares how old he is has finished with life; he might as well be dead, when he cannot know. For a civilization, as for an individual, periods when the awareness of time is lost are periods of shame, which are forgotten as soon as possible.

There are obvious practical reasons for the overwhelming importance which the regulation of time has acquired. It binds together large groups of men who may live far apart and not be able to meet face to face. In a small group of perhaps fifty people everyone knows what everyone else is doing it is easy for them to join in common activity. The rhythm of their lives is beaten out within the pack. They dance the continuity of the group, as they dance so many other things. The time gap between one pack activity and another does not matter, for since people live in close proximity they can always alert each other when they need to. Every expansion of the physical milieu makes it more important to do something about time. Drum and smoke signals, which bridge distance, serve this purpose.

A different kind of unity was given to large groups of people by the lives of single individuals: Kings embodied the whole period of their reign. Their death, whether it came with the decline of their strength or, as later, coincided with their natural span of life, indicated a break in time. They were time. Between one king and the next, time stood still. There was a gap in it – and interregnum – which people sought to keep as short as possible (Canetti).