Made out of people

Temporality of Political Science

Via Crooked Timber and a discussion of the "best political science and political philosophy papers of the last ten years" (a fascinating discussion, since my poli-sci is fairly strong around the 17th century, but not so good in the 20th), What Time is It

Irritatingly, the article appears to be cut off by a server error.

Starkly put, political time is out of synch with the temporalities, rhythms, and pace governing economy and culture. Political time, especially in societies with pretensions to democracy, requires an element of leisure, not in the sense of a leisure class (which is the form in which the ancient writers conceived it), but in the sense, say, of a leisurely pace. This is owing to the needs of political action to be preceded by deliberation and deliberation, as its "deliberate" part suggests, takes time because, typically, it occurs in a setting of competing or conflicting but legitimate considerations. Political time is conditioned by the presence of differences and the attempt to negotiate them. The results of negotiations, whether successful or not, preserve time: consider the times preserved in the various failed attempts to deal with the secession crises prior to the Civil War. Thus time is "taken" in deliberation yet "saved." That political time has a preservative function. is not surprising. Since time immemorial political authorities have been charged with preserving bodies, goods, souls, practices, and circumscribed ways of life.

May 17, 2004 11:01 AM | TrackBack | in Temporality