After years of fighting against the reigning mantra of elite academe that we are living in 'The Matrix', i.e. that the concepts of science and rationality are artificial 'constructs' designed to preserve the existing social order in which we are all slaves duped into thinking we have some freedom from our roober baron masters, I have to concede I have finally run up against just such a thing.
While the sun in the sky is not a construct, and perhaps noon is not a construct if it is defined as the time that the sun is directly overhead, the time that our clocks say is decidely a cultural con job. Forgetting the arbitrary idea of rebooting our circadian rhythms twice a year going on and off of daylight savings time (which could be easily fixed by my proposal for adopting daylight savings time year round), the fundamental 'construct' that gives rise to the debate in the first place is time zones.
The sun is not directly overhead at all places in the time zone at noon, even on standard time. Indeed the sun actually rises and sets more or less an hour earlier at the leading edge of each time zone than at the trailing edge. (That was the best thing I noted about living in Michigan, the trailing edge of the eastern time zone, compared to Rhode Island, out there on the eastern front of eastern time). We order our lives around an agreed time for the efficacy it provides to us all. But is this an evil capitalist plot?
Added to this fundamental question of the hegemony of the hourglass is whether daylight savings time is yet another plot to further separate the haves and the have nots. If you were to listen to the anti-Daylight Savings Time ravings of Michael Downing, you might think so.
