Chronocentrism

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Chronocentrism ( chronos , Greek "time"; centrum, Latin or (old) Greek kéntro (n) "center") initially describes the idea that a certain present is superior to past or future times.

definition

The term first appeared in the mid-1970s in an article by Jib Fowles in scientific discourse. Chronocentrism is defined by him as:

The idea that our era is more significant than others provokes no chagrin; at worst, it is considered platitudinous. The immensity of the deception goes unnoticed. Chronocentrism - to give a name to the misconception - is the believe that one's times are paramount, that other periods pale in comparison. It is a faith in the historical importance of the present. A such, it suggests a slighting of the past and future (FOWLES 1974, p. 65).

Concept history

FOWLE's criticism was of a group of futurists at the time who shared the notion that the present was the hinge of history. So present (in the sense of contemporary) social conditions would be perceived as a change in time. Long-term planning and initiated programs are used to prepare for the future to control them. However, this would create structures that may seem impractical to future generations. In the analogy to ethnocentrism , FOWLES postulates a temporal imperialism when he writes:

Just as ethnocentrism accompanied imperialism, chronocentrism suits a growing conviction that the future must be dominated. The propriety of tampering with the future has become the first article of faith among futurists. "We want to forecast in order to act", says Bertrand de Jouvenel , the pre-eminent theorist of futures research, echoing the pattern of missionaries who first familiarized themselves with the language and ways of those they intended to bring under their sway. Futurists seem little concerned with what it means to make the future the subject of actions taken in the present (FOWLES 1974, p. 65).

Similarities to Other Terms

In addition, there are works to be found that address similar issues, from which, however, we must conceptually distance ourselves at this point:

  1. Temporocentrism is a term that comes from historical studies and anticipates elements long before FOWLES and its proposed meaning of chronocentrism:

[. . .] may be defined as the unexamined and largely unconscious acceptance of one's own century, one's own era, one's own lifetime, as the center of sociological significance, as the focus to which all other periods of historical time are related, and as the criterion by which they are judged. It is thus the temporal analogue of ethnocentrism (BIERSTEDT 1948, pp. 27-28) .

The term temperocentrism appears with a similar scope in an article by C. Milton COUGHENOUR and John B. STEPHENSON from 1972. The extent to which the terms recur cannot be understood in the context of this work. In any case, FOWLES does not refer in his article to COUGHENOUR and STEPHENSON, nor to the statements of Robert BIERSTEDT or those authors who have used these terms.

2. Ageism aims at the exaggeration of a group of people of a certain cohort , mostly people of advanced age. The anthology by NELSON (2002) provides an introduction to the topic of age discrimination and an instrument for measuring ageism is presented in PALMORE (2001).

While a different focus is placed in the discrimination of a certain age group in Ageism, Temporocentrism and Temperocentrism are largely identical to the meaning of Chronocentrism. The group of authors who explicitly deal with the concept of Chrono- / Temporo- / Temperocentrism is small, manageable and strongly interdisciplinary. For example, in a citation study on criminological research , ROCK (2005) states that papers older than 15 years are largely ignored by scientists. See also work in the ethnology STRECK (1990) and in the linguistics BROMHEAD (2009). FOWLES is the first author to address chronocentrism and systematize it accordingly. After that, individual works are published that use the concept with reference to FOWLES, but neither evaluate it critically nor transfer it to current discourses and discuss them.

Term extensions

Achim LANDWEHR (2012; 2016), however, does not refer to FOWLES, but uses the term without a detailed discussion of its scope in order to postulate:

With the concept of non-simultaneity, the Europeans secured the temporal monopoly on the socio-cultural present. The Eurocentrism was therefore always a Chronozentrismus (LANDWEHR 2012, p 22) .

LANDWEHR goes one step further, namely to relate the concept of chronocentrism to the implicit complexity of temporal stratifications or chronoferences and not just, as with FOWLES, to the overestimation of the present. In this respect, LANDWEHR draws attention to a largely existing research gap for the description of the temporal superiority construction based on a certain time perspective. The term chronocentrism changes its meaning to a central set of auxiliary instruments for the meaningful description of Eurocentrism and thus of modernity as an epoch and product of Eurocentric epistemology .

Scientific chronocentrism

Elsewhere a chronocentrism is postulated in the social sciences . On the basis of a theo-philosophical legacy, the history of ideas is firmly anchored in sociological thinking. Thus the linear conception of time of ancient Greek philosophy was at least partially influenced by the salvation history of Zoroastrianism . The term chronocentrism used in this context can be defined

as a construction of superiority carried out in the current present, which, based on an objectivist temporality perspective, increases in a discriminatory manner compared to other social times.

The resulting consequences of temporal ethnocentrism , as already formulated by LANDWEHR , would become a problem in the re-production of methodology and theory formation in the social sciences. Under a scientific guideline, there would be a constructed allochronicity of the other or the research object, which includes individuals as well as groups and entire societies.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jib Fowles: On chronocentrism . In: Futures . tape 6 , no. 1 , April 11, 2002, p. 65-68 , doi : 10.1016 / 0016-3287 (74) 90008-1 .
  2. ^ Robert Bierstedt: The Limitations of Anthropological Methods in Sociology . In: American Journal of Sociology . tape 54 , no. 1 , July 1, 1948, ISSN  0002-9602 , p. 22-30 , doi : 10.1086 / 220264 .
  3. ↑ C. Milton Coughenour, John B. Stephenson: Measures of Individual Modernity: Review and Commentary . In: International Journal of Comparative Sociology . tape 13 , no. 2 , January 1, 1972, ISSN  1745-2554 , pp. 81-98 , doi : 10.1163 / 156854272X00163 .
  4. ^ Nelson, Todd D .: Ageism: stereotyping and prejudice against older persons . MIT Press, 2004, ISBN 0-262-14077-2 .
  5. ↑ Erdman Palmore: The Ageism Survey First Findings . In: The Gerontologist . tape 41 , no. 5 , October 1, 2001, ISSN  0016-9013 , p. 572-575 , doi : 10.1093 / geront / 41.5.572 ( oup.com [accessed April 19, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Paul Rock: Chronocentrism and British criminology * . In: The British Journal of Sociology . tape 56 , no. 3 , September 1, 2005, ISSN  1468-4446 , p. 473-491 , doi : 10.1111 / j.1468-4446.2005.00078.x .
  7. ↑ Bernhard Streck: Review of Travel in the Past Present. History and Historicity of Non-Europeans in 19th Century Thought: The Exploration of Sudan. Mainz Ethnologica 3 . In: Journal of Ethnology . tape 115 , January 1, 1990, pp. 283-284 , JSTOR : 25842163 .
  8. ^ Helen Bromhead, The Reign of Truth and Faith: Epistemic Expressions in 16th and 17th Century English . 1 ed. Mouton de Gruyter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-020559-6 ( worldcat.org [accessed April 19, 2017]).
  9. ↑ On the 'simultaneity of the non-simultaneous': Historical magazine. September 1, 2012, accessed April 19, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Chronocentrism | Modern crowd . In: Modern mass . 2017 ( modernemasse.de [accessed April 19, 2017]).
  11. ^ Johannes Fabian: Time and the other: how anthropology makes its object . Columbia University Press, New York 1983, ISBN 0-231-05590-0 ( worldcat.org [accessed April 19, 2017]).