Time perspective and social structure

Lewis Coser

Rose Coser

pp. 191-202

in: John Hassard (ed), The sociology of time, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1990

Abstract

The social roots of time-reckoning — i.e., the group-sustained ways of thinking of time — have engaged the interest of some sociologists since the pioneering work of Durkheim and his school (Durkheim, 1947; Durkheim and Mauss, 1910–12; Hubert and Mauss 1909; Halbwachs, 1935). Durkheim, for example, stated that a "calendar expresses the rhythm of collective activities, while at the same time its function is to assure their regularity" (1947, pp. 10–11). Among primitive people, the names of days, months, seasons and even of years are frequently fixed by the rhythm of economic and social activities. In our own, more complex societies, where the astronomical calendar provides an "objective" measurement of time, we find it necessary to introduce such concepts as "a semester", "a weekend" — terms indicating the social rather than the strictly chronological meaning of time. And if, at a social gathering, we tell stories about some time past, we locate the events in a social context, such as "during the New Deal", "after the First World War", etc., for the related events gain meaning through their location in social rather than in merely calendrical time. Merton and Sorokin state: "Systems of time-reckoning reflect the social activities of the group. Their springs of initiation are collective; their continued observance is demanded by social necessity.