Cultural Differences on the Perception of Time

I saw this this morning and found it rather fascinating.


Many African cultures have a view of time that seems directly opposite of how time works in Western philosophy.

The African view doesn't include a concept of future, it sees time as flowing from deeds. In that way, to the African way of thinking there is no wasting time, because the act of sitting under a tree doing nothing isn't wasting time, it's creating time.

Essentially, in African philosophy time flows backwards. The closest thing I can see in Western culture is the concept of "Creating Memories", but without the value judgement and doesn't require planning.

There is some accuracy to this.

The schism here regards clock-based time versus event-based time. Across much of the West, time is a commodity that can be saved, spent, wasted, and managed down to the minute. This "clock time" is linear and progresses forward irrespective of our actions. In contrast, many traditional African cultures operate on "event time." wherein time is not some abstract entity but is created by and tied to events. As an example, an appointment may not be at a specific hour but instead subsequent to some precipitating activity aka a meeting is "after the morning milking" instead of at 9:00AM.

This leads to differing views on the importance of various aspects of time. We tend to think of time as having a deep past, a vast, open future, but the present is always seen as fleeting and perhaps of minimal impact versus the momentum of the past and the opportunity for the future. Whereas in at least some African and other societies, while there remains that deep past, the present is much more important, and the future of something of an afterthought since when using an event based clock there is nothing in the distant future to measure.

I see pros and cons to the two different views. Having a notion of an important, vast, open future sparks the imagination, however that often comes at the expense of investing in the present which again, in Western thought, is often viewed as a fleeting and less significant moment. I wonder if there is a conception of time that maintains the impact of the past and promise of the future without sacrificing mindshare for the present...