In Greek mythology, Zeus became king of the gods because he overthrew his father, Cronus. Warned that one of his offspring would dethrone him, Cronus had developed the nasty habit of swallowing his children, whole, as soon as they were born. Understandably, Cronus's wife, Rhea, was not pleased, so when Zeus arrived, she hid him, wrapping a stone in blankets for Cronus to swallow instead. Zeus subsequently grew up, swept aside his father and took over as head of the gods.
More than just the story of another dysfunctional royal family, this gory tale of betrayal acquired new meaning in the light of Speed Limits, a seminar held last weekend as part of the Critical Voices series.
In a relentlessly accelerating society, time - chronos in ancient Greek - is a deeply political subject, the key to power. Whoever dictates the rate and manner of the flow - or rhea - of time, money, communication and activity calls the shots.
"People who control speed exercise the ultimate power, not those controlled by it," said Michael Cronin, dean of the joint faculty of humanities at Dublin City University, in the opening address. His remarks established the backdrop for panel discussions in which experts from various fields took time out to focus on time itself.
The participants in this one-day think tank included the sociologists Zygmunt Bauman and Saskia Sassen, the journalist Karlin Lillington, the writer Jay Griffiths, the architect Raymund Ryan, the artist Nigel Rolfe, the composer Donnacha Dennehy and the teacher and writer Barra ╙ Seaghdha. Present to moderate were the writer and academic Barbara O'Connor and the photographer and calligrapher Kevin Honan.
Our society seems to thrive on ever-increasing speed, which it regards as a virtue in itself. "Stasis becomes a stigma," as Cronin quoted Bauman. Technology has changed the conditions for international interaction from geopolitics to "chronopolitics". Rolfe reminded us, however, that four-fifths of the world has no access to such technology. The Republic has strained not to be left in this "static" four-fifths, throwing itself onto the rapidly accelerating bandwagon of multinational economics, services and culture.
Once a country in which, when God made time, he made lots of it, the Republic has been able to accrue a new wealth and stature within Europe through the technologies that accelerate transaction and communication. The speed of technologically assisted communication makes it possible to disregard the physical reality of space - geography transformed into chronology.
"Our obsession with time not only transforms but pushes away the significance of space," said Bauman. This means an island on the outskirts of Europe, and separated by an ocean from North America, can become a contender in the international marketplace.
Yet, as Sassen pointed out, speed is an abstraction that diverts attention from the static physical material that enables it. Much of her work centres on the concept of the global city, in which a concentrated "mass of very material conditions" facilitates the speedy flow of communication and transaction.
These conditions have permitted Dublin, too, to become a global city, a hub of economic transaction, albeit on a smaller scale than New York, London or Tokyo.
But controlling the velocity of those communications and transactions is an ability that eludes most of us. Speed - "that novel condition that leaves us a bit breathless," as Sassen described it - has become an end in itself. This leaves little time for reflection, contemplation or analysis. But in today's political and economic world, this has benefits.
"Learning is the substance of culture, the great human ability; this is the way we progress," said Bauman. "But in a fast-changing environment, learning is a liability." He cites the way that, in the United States, those applying for planning permission often ask at the same time for permission to demolish the building in the future - an indeterminate kind of politics that avoids lasting and durable consequences.
Employment has shifted its focus from careers to projects, making a virtue of adaptability, so "in our fast-paced culture, forgetting is a virtue, the ability to de-learn for rapidly changing situations".
We impose this forgetfulness on our environment and on nature, as well as on ourselves. Griffiths recounted how ancient and less technologically obsessed peoples regard the earth as a repository of memory, and illuminated the many ways in which we try to obliterate that memory, from ruthless mining to genetic modification.
And we try to usurp power from the earth by imposing our time on it - even our clocks don't move according to the rhythms of nature but respond to the pulsing of atoms - our attempt to "correct" nature's "inaccurate" seasonal rhythms. " 'What's the time?' " she said, "is a dishonest question, a political question."
Art can perhaps provide the means to identify the point at which our obsession with speed becomes harmful, destabilising and absurd. In art's traditional dependence on the material and laws of physics, the need for the creation and experience of art to take place within time and space, we have a unique tool with which to assert an alternative and defiant power. Speed is an illusion, Rolfe informed us, "not body time, but head time. It's illusory, destructive and not much good to the human race".
The creation and appreciation of art takes time. Additionally, art bends time, alters it to its own purpose. Dennehy pointed out that the physics of creating music puts an upper limit on its velocity, but not a lower one. And "if I can destroy the sense of time in a piece of music, I'm glad". People have often told him that his pieces seemed much longer or shorter than their length according to the clock. "And I'm always flattered when this happens."
Historically, those who would achieve power have been deeply suspicious of - even aggressive towards - cultural, artistic and architectural creations that threaten their control over time. In their conquest of the new world, said Griffiths, the Spanish destroyed the calendar of the Tewa people of New Mexico, seeing in this a locus of Native American power and a threat to their own. "If you can control the timing of things, it adds to your prestige." The traditional gamelan music of the native people of Bali is a source of irritation to Indonesia's Muslim elite, who have tried to eradicate it. Circular, repetitive and slow, it challenges their idea of time.
The most spectacular recent example of a creation - architectural, in this case - perceived as a threat to power was a reactionary one: the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center. When the "knot of materiality" located in the towers was destroyed, said Sassen, the West for a short period lost control of its time, the time in which its market transactions and communications take place. Time slowed down.
Rolfe recounted how, watching the event on television with his class, one of his graduate students, glued to the screen after 40 minutes, said: "I'm still waiting for the plane to come out the other side."
Should we seek in art as a time-altering device the power to slow us enough for self-examination? Certainly, believes Rolfe. "In postmodernism there is no leading focus - anything, it seems, of importance or values. We need some beacons on the hill. Where else would challenge come from if not from the creative? We are in deeply corrupt times."
Critical Voices, run by the Arts Council in partnership with The Irish Times and Lyric FM, is a programme to bring international writers, critics and artists to observe the cultural scene here and to participate in public debate. Further information from www.artscouncil.ie
