Excerpt from:

Edward Hall. The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time. New York: Doubleday. 1983.

rBz THE DANCE OF LIFE
It seems to be particularly difficult for the men and women
who run our nation to grasp the fact that how culture molds
behavior significantly in-fluences what happens in the world. In
the sense that it is used here, culture is almost totally divorced
from the political process. There are ideologically neutral dif-
ferences among the peoples of the world: there are mouochronic
and polychronic time systems, high and low context cultures,
there are open and closed scores, long-term time and short-term
planning, centralized and decentralized decision making, and
individual and group performance on the job--all of which can
be changed. If Margaret Mead's people of Manus2 could sit
down and deliberately redesign their culture and bring it in Jine
with the twentieth century, we should be able to do the sane.
But r,vhy bother to try to understand, to empathize, to learn
somebody else's culture? Why bother to lear-n a new set of rules
and new ways of communicating? Isn't the job too subtle, too
complex, and too ill-defined? Perhaps. But the rewards can be
very great, and the alternatives are unthinkable. First we must
be willing to admit that the people of this planet don't
just live
in one world but in many worlds and some of these worlds, if
not properly understood, can and do annihilate the others.
Tirne can be a metaphor for all of culture. And though we
have said virtualiy nothing about physical time, there is one
physicist, I. I. Rabi, who does have something to say. Address-
ing himself to the matter of time, the Columbia Univelsity
Nobel Laureate says:
"The
real answer was given only in this
century by Einstein, who said, iI1 efiect, that time is simTtlg
u;hat a clock reads. The clock can be the rotation of the earth,
an hourglass, a pulse count, the thickness of geological deposits,
or the measured vibrations of a cesium atom" (italics added).3
They all have one thing in common: each is a physical mecha-
nism. Much of what has been discussed in this book is consistent
with Einstein's and Rabi's statements. However, culture's clocks
add dimensions to physical time, since each cloek represents a
particular type of organization. Like the elaborate astrolabes of
the Renaissance, whic'h were working models of our solar sys-
tem, cultural models of time ale also models of everything else
in that culture. The metaphor of the astrolabe is worthy of
further examir.ration. It is as though each culture had its own
coD rs rN THE DETATLS rB3
model of the universe and lived in terms of tlat model. Further-
more, in at least some instances the models are so designed that
they can literally annihilate each other if they overlap or are
too close. As is the case with monochronic and polychronic time.
Support for this view comes from an unexpected source, Carlos
Fuentes. Speaking to a college audience, the Mexican author
and literary spokesman for developing countries in Latin Amer-
ica said: "The ffnal question of time
[is]
whether we shall live
together or die together . . . The West has been in love with
its suceessive linear image of time . . . It has cnndemned the
past to death as the tomb of irrationality and celebrated the
fufure as the promise of perfectibility."n According to Fuentes,
our denial of the past has led to the degradation of morality and
the denial of the lessons of the past. Denial of the rights as well
as the reality of other culfures is another of the consequencs
of Western time concepts. As Fuentes says, 'We shall know each
other or ertermirwte each othet'' (italics added
).
Fuentes has clearly identiffed our dilemma and, as is typical
of polychronic, highly situational logic, some of the links in his
chain of arguments are missing. Nevertheless, Fuentes knows
the two worlds of which he speaks as well as anyone on the
globe; his views cannot easily be dismissed. My only quarrel
with his argument concerns his view of how we Americans look
at the future. The future in the United States is a dream. Some
make the dream come tme, others do not. My point is that the
future is not actually real to us. If it were, how could we do
such terrible things to others and to our environment? And how
could our government and our businesses act so blindly, deny-
ing the reality of other cultures and, in so doing, alienating the
world because of cultural ineptitude? To us, the future seems
either extremely narrow or else very short-term.
Observing my countrymen over the years, I have noticed two
things which stand out: our warped and inadequate view of tlrc
past and the future, and our failure to acknowledge the reality
of internalized tim+--our own time. Time is all we have in thi'-
life, and it is my belief that life can be richer and more mean-
ingful if people were to know more about time as it affects thcrn
personally. Then perhaps the future would begin to take on
some reality and we might begin to act more realistically.
r84 THE DANcE oF LrFE
In this book, I have done my best to sketch the outlines of
what will someday be an active, important, major field of study,
with significance to everyone. Why do I believe that the science
of time will assume greater stature in the future? There are
many leasons, such as the fact that humans in all parts of the
earth have been involved with time from the very beginning.
If Marschack's theories are correct,5 records of the seasons and
the phases of the moon engraved by Acheulean hunters on the
ribs of Ice Age mammoths represent mankind's ffrst move in the
direction sf ssisnqs-the earliest extensions of the human brain.
Much later, in the Bronze Age, Stonehenge6 was only one of
hundreds if not thousands of early devices built to record and
forecast the movements of the sun, moon, and planets. In those
days, all people lived in time and, one assumes, were not as
alienated from time as are many today.
The study of time has led the human species out into the
universe, down into the heaft of the atom, and is the basis of
much of the theory concelning the nature of the physical world.
In addition, it has held the attention of philosophers and psy-
chologists, who have tried to define the nature of time as well as
the experience of time.
In the second half of this century, the subject of biological
clocks marked the first demonstration that all life is regulated
intemally and extemally by rhythms synchlonized with nature.
Although there were only a few who recognized time as culture,7
the study of time as a product as well as a molder of the human
brain in the culfural serlse was not reported until well into the
second half of this century. While the study of micro tin.re and
primary level, out-of-awareness time came even later,s both
William S. Condon'sg pioneering work on synchrony as well as
my owr.r. sfudies on time as an out-of-awaleness systern of com-
munication cry out for continued research.
Condon's work in particular adumbrates a cultural stagg
when it will be possible to make short film or TV sequences of
people interacting in public-random samples-that will pro-
vide data on the degree of stress people are experiencing. The
index of synchrony and dissynchrony will be as informative as
samples of the blood. How people sync'hronize could also be
used as an accurate index of acculturation. The Colliers' studies
GOD IS IN THE DETAILS I85
of classrooms of Native Americans and Eskimos also show great
promise as a means of measuring the coherence and success of
the learning envfuonment.lo
Much remains to be investigated about time rs an organizing
frame for life. Basic systems such as monoclx'onic and poly-
chronic time patterns are like oil and water and do not mix
under ordinary circumstances. In a schedule-dominated mono-
chronic culture like ours, ethnic groups which focus their
energies on the primary groups and primary relationships, such
as the family and human relationships, ffnd it almost impossible
to adjust to rigid schedules and tight time compartments. This
country could do much worse than follow the example of former
Congressman Ben Reifel, a Sioux Indian, who taught his people
technically how to be on time for school and buses on the
reservation.ll Reifel realized that it is not enough to tell poly-
chronic peoples to be on time or to plan ahead. Time in this
sense is like a language and until someone has mastered the
new vocabulary and the new grammar of time and can see that
tlere really are two different systems, no amount of persuasion
is going to change behavior. The writer Richard Rodriguezl2
has much to say about the importance of teaching language and
culture in the schools. The point is that until now the schools
lacked even a framework or theory for describing primary level
systems.
Human beings are such an incredibly rich and talented species
with potentials beyond anything it is possible to contemplate
that from the perspective of this writer it would appear that
our greatest task, our most important task, and our most strntegic
task is to learn as much as possible about ourselves. At present,
it would seem that most of the worlds capitals are ruled by
Stone Age mentalities using Stone Age models of what the
human race is all about. If the insights gained from the study
of individuals trying to cope with life mean anything at all, it
is that there is a direct relationship between the unvoiced pic*
ture that people have of themselves and their view of human
nature.
My point is that as humarx learn more about their incredible
sensitivity, their boundless talents, and manifold diversity, they
should begin to appreciate not only themselves but also others.
186
THE DANCE OF LIFE
One hopes tbjs will ultimately lead to lessening our tendency to
subjugate or stamp out arrything that is different. The human
race is not nearly enough in awe of its own capabilities. My
picture of the future is not so much one of developing new
technologies as it is of developing new insights into human
nafure,
This book has taken one Iittle corner of human nature and put
it under a microscope. What I see is a whole new dimension or
set of dimensions to be explored. God really is in the details. And
I for one do not think for a moment that He intended us to blow
each other off the face of the earth.