See:
The Horn Of Time
Time the Destroyer and Regenerator
Lion-Headed Time (Scroll down)
There Will Be Time
The Corridors Of Time
Time Patrol
The Shield Of Time
No one can possibly read or reread all that! But my point is the importance of time as shown in some of Poul Anderson's titles and in a few powerful phrases like "the horn of time" and "Lion-Headed Time."
OK. It is late and I am thinking about time.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And in "Delenda Est" Anderson discussed how the first mechanical clocks were invented by Christian monks sometime after AD 1200, to accurately regulate the hours of prayer. There, I mentioned something time related from PA's works!
Ad astra! Sean
Attitudes towards time have changed profoundly -- modernization imposes a completely different perception of it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And we see the villainous William Walker discussing that in one of your Nantucket books! That is, pre-modern humans could do "bursts" of tremendous amounts of work when necessary, but the idea of doing simply doing steady, consistent work for, say, five days a week was alien to them. Walker used slavery in his kingdom of Greater Achaea to force workers to work at the kind of steady, consistent pace at fixed times that his factories needed.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yup. That's why factory discipline in early industrial times is usually so brutal, and why employers were convinced that if wages went up, workers would only work until they had "enough" by traditional standards and then spend the rest on leisure and drink -- "Saint Monday", it used to be called.
Note that only in recent times have the upper classes become associated with long workdays. Even successful entrepreneurs in the 19th century tended to come in later and leave earlier than their subordinates.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Even allowing for the problem caused by many workers drinking, I believe early industrial factory employers were wrong to be so harsh or even brutal about hours of work and pay. Treat your workers decently and reasonably and, long term, you should still come out ahead.
And I would have thought many entrepreneurs would work even harder and longer than their employees!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: not once their businesses were established. Not working long regular hours was a mark of social success for a long time. Note that the financiers of London didn’t come in as early as their clerks did, either, and left sooner and took long holidays; note the phrase “bankers’ hours”. Civil servants also worked fairly short days until the late Victorian period.
Bankers and bureaucrats were much more closely associated with the aristocracy than, say, Manchester cotton-mill owners. Aristocrats often worked hard, but they didn’t have to work to anyone’s schedule and they chose to do what they did, and they didn’t make any particularly clear distinction between home and work and between working time and leisure time.
An aristocrat’s socializing was closely connected to their work as political leaders, and their houses -were- where they worked, just like a hand loom weaver.
Note, there were always some occupations which were done “away from home”, like fishermen and sailors and miners, but these were exceptional. Most people earned their living in and around their home. Women’s work included cooking and childcare, but this was combined with gardening, dairying, spinning and/or weaving, etc., all done in and around the home.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Noted, that most work used to be in or near one's home. Which means the early to work, last to leave behavior of Scrooge in Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL was very unusual for a successful business man.
And I did note how long and hard British aristocrats could work, in fields like politics, diplomacy, the military, sciences, etc., but I see now it was done the way you said.
Ad astra! Sean
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