Rhuthmos

Joey Alexander – Lush Life (2015)

2026-05-25T12:00:00Z

Tōru Takemitsu – Distance de fée (1951)

2026-05-21T11:23:26Z

Sayaka Shoji, violon

Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, piano

The tyranny of clock time ? Debating fatigue in the US truck driving industry

Benjamin H. Snyder — 2026-05-10T05:00:00Z

This very interesting article, originally published in Time & Society vol. 28.2, 2019, was brought to my attention by Leo Singer of the University of Liverpool. It can be accessed freely on SageJournals or on SageJournals.pdf.

Abstract : Social theorists frequently claim that clock time—a cold, mechanical, and intensifying culture of time reckoning—has the tendency to dominate “process time”—a warm, humane, and leisurely culture of time-reckoning. This article interrogates this “tyranny of clock time” narrative through an in-depth examination of the fatigue debate in the US truck driving industry. I find that trucking regulators use clock time to encourage rest and recovery. Drivers, meanwhile, are committed to process time in ways that encourage intensification and overwork. Process time culture involves its own forms of time discipline that are related to power, exploitation, and overwork in surprising ways. Yet even though the normative ends of the two time orientations are reversed in this case, I still find that clock time is tyrannical in a certain limited sense. Clock time disrupts the rhythms of the labor process leading to work scenarios that drivers find fatiguing. In their efforts to use clock time to regulate fatigue, then, trucking regulators have actually created new kinds of fatigue. The tyranny of clock time narrative is thus challenged and supported in ways that refine our understanding of both clock time and process time. The distinction between clock time—a highly quantitative conception of time focused on abstract and decontextualized measurement—and process time—a more qualitative conception of time focused on the concrete rhythms of social activities, bodies, and the natural environment—has been foundational to the social analysis of time. Scholars have drawn this distinction in myriad ways and have long found it useful for understanding differences in ways of “doing” time. One of the most enduring claims arising from this distinction is that clock time is tyrannical toward process time. Clock time is cold, mechanical, and empty. It alienates us from the natural environment, encourages the hyper-rationalization of social life, and intensifies labor. Process time, by contrast, is warm, organic, and alive. It is a more humane temporal culture that encourages rest, recovery, and playful spontaneity. Scholars frequently argue that, when they are pitted against each other, clock time tends to “triumph” over process time. This “tyranny of clock time” narrative is pervasive in social theory and lies at the heart of many of the most compelling critiques of modernity (Giddens, 1995 ; Lukacs, 1971 ; Marx, 1955 ; Postone, 1996 ; Thompson, 1967).

In this paper, I interrogate the tyranny of clock time narrative by grounding it in a concrete empirical case—the US truck driving industry—a context in which the proper management of time is a matter of life and death, and clock time, in the form of drivers' work schedules, is seen as both cause of and solution to the industry's notorious health and safety problems. I focus on a period of heightened debate about work time and driver fatigue, which occurred between 2010 and 2013. Through an in-depth examination of this debate, I document how two cultures of time have developed within the truck driving industry : a clock time culture practiced by regulators, and a process time culture favored by drivers and other industry insiders. I show that, contrary to theoretical assumptions, it is regulators' clock time culture that is allied to norms of rest, recovery, and a more humane relationship to bodily fatigue, while drivers' process time culture encourages intensification and overwork, thus confounding the typical formulation of these concepts. In yet another complication, however, I ultimately find that regulator's clock time culture is indeed tyrannical in a certain limited sense. It tends to disrupt drivers' ability to fully commit to process time, resulting in work scenarios that drivers find fatiguing. The resulting picture, then, both contradicts and supports the tyranny of clock time narrative in complex ways.

Temporal cultures

Temporal cultures are grounded in what Glennie and Thrift (2009) call communities of temporal practice—groups that share similar ideas, skills, and technologies related to temporal reckoning. Social theorists typically divide temporal cultures into two ideal types, which for the sake of simplicity I call “clock time” and “process time.” This framework has ancient roots, such as the distinction between Chronos and Kairos in the Greek rhetorical tradition (Kinneavy, 2002), and has been reformulated by contemporary scholars in dozens of ways (e.g., Adam, 1990 : 30). Postone, for example, uses the words “abstract” and “concrete.” Abstract time refers to “uniform, continuous, homogeneous, ‘empty' time” and is thus marked by “equal, constant, nonqualitative units” (Postone, 1996 : 202). Concrete time, by contrast, refers to “various sorts of time that are functions of events : they are referred to, and understood through, natural cycles and the periodicities of human life as well as particular tasks and processes” (Postone, 1996 : 201). Whatever the specific terms, scholars draw this distinction in order to describe two ideal typical ways of “doing” time. Whereas the more abstract clock time perspective assumes action is best planned ahead of time, the more concrete and embodied process time perspective assumes “things take the amount of time they need to take” (Davies, 1994 : 279). [...]

Castoriadis critique de Heidegger

Claude Helbling & Olivier Fressard — 2026-04-30T05:00:00Z

Cela fait maintenant plusieurs années que je regrette de ne jamais avoir eu le temps de pénétrer plus profondément dans l'œuvre et la pensée de Cornelius Castoriadis, dont certains aspects rappellent fortement celles de ses contemporains de la « Constellation rythmique ». En guise d'ouverture de ce dossier, voici une présentation extrêmement claire des critiques portées par Castoriadis à la pensée de Heidegger et de tous ses suiveurs plus ou moins inspirés, en particulier en France, à quoi les auteurs ont ajouté un ensemble de textes choisis où Castoriadis rentre dans les détails. Il y a certainement là la base d'une analyse rythmologique de son œuvre, qui reste entièrement à faire. Avis aux amateurs. On trouvera ci-joint une bibliographie de et sur Castoriadis établie par Claude Helbling que je remercie au passage de me l'avoir transmise. – PM.

Ces textes ont été publiés dans la revue Texto ! Textes et cultures, vol. XXVIII, n°2-3 (2023).

Version augmentée (en extraits) de l'article publié (sans les résumés ci-dessous), dans le livre collectif : Métapolitique contre culture. L'Heideggérisme en question, dir. François RASTIER, Édition Lambert-Lucas, juillet 2023.

Castoriadis critique de Heidegger

Résumé. — Cornelius Castoriadis reste surtout connu pour avoir fondé, avec Claude Lefort, le groupe Socialisme ou Barbarie ainsi que la revue du même nom. Dans les années 1950 et 1960, il y a développé, d'un point de vue révolutionnaire, une théorie générale des sociétés contemporaines en termes de bureaucratie et, en particulier, une critique radicale du régime stalinien issu de la Révolution russe. Mais, il a également élaboré, après la dissolution du groupe en 1967, une pensée philosophique originale. Entamée avec un bilan critique systématique du marxisme, elle a pris ensuite la forme d'une philosophie politique articulée à une ontologie du social-historique. Castoriadis a, au cours de son enquête philosophique, lu attentivement Heidegger. Malgré certaines similarités thématiques entre les deux pensées, qui tiennent à l'historisation de la raison et de l'ontologie, Castoriadis a vivement critiqué les principales idées de celui-ci. Il a, en particulier, récusé la thèse de la différence ontologique et mis en cause les interprétations heideggériennes de l'histoire de la philosophie, en particulier celles portant sur la Grèce ancienne. Critique radical des sociétés occidentales contemporaines, Castoriadis n'en a pas moins dénoncé le caractère très unilatéral de l'appréciation négative de la modernité par Heidegger. Enfin, à l'antisémitisme et au nazisme de celui-ci, puis aux conséquences quiétistes de sa pensée d'après-guerre, Castoriadis a opposé, opiniâtrement, une philosophie de l'action et un projet politique qui vise à promouvoir la capacité d'autonomie individuelle et collective.

Mots-clés. — social-historique, imaginaire radical, autonomie/hétéronomie, déterminité, création, critique de la modernité, différence ontologique, histoire de l'Être, oubli de l'Être

« C'est l'activité humaine qui a engendré l'exigence

d'une vérité brisant les murs des représentations

de la tribu chaque fois instituées »

C. Castoriadis, « La ‟fin de la philosophie” ? », 1990.

1. Castoriadis, penseur politique et philosophe

Cornelius Castoriadis est un intellectuel gréco-français né à Constantinople en 1922. Il mène de front des études de droit, d'économie et de philosophie à Athènes. Il s'engage en politique dès l'adolescence en rejoignant une organisation trotskyste. Dans la tourmente de la guerre civile grecque, il est la cible du parti communiste grec stalinien. Suite à l'obtention d'une bourse de l'Institut français d'Athènes, il vient à Paris à la fin 1945 pour y faire une thèse de philosophie. Il milite brièvement au PCI, branche française de la Quatrième internationale, puis fonde avec Claude Lefort, en 1949, le groupe Socialisme ou Barbarie. Dans la revue de même nom, il expose, sous divers pseudonymes, ses conceptions sociales et politiques. Parallèlement, il gagne sa vie comme économiste à l'OCDE. Après la dissolution de S. ou B. en 1967 et sa démission, en 1970, de l'OCDE, il s'installe comme psychanalyste. En 1979, il est élu directeur d'études à l'EHESS où il tiendra, jusqu'en 1995, un séminaire hebdomadaire de philosophie sous l'intitulé générique « Institution de la société et création historique ». Il décède à Paris en 1997.

La pensée de Castoriadis se présente, rétrospectivement, sous deux aspects principaux étroitement solidaires, l'un politique, l'autre philosophique. [...]

Bibliographie détaillée par Claude Helbling

Learning from the whirlpools of existence

Michel Alhadeff-Jones — 2026-04-23T05:00:00Z

This paper has already been published in the European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2021) : Learning in times of crisis.

Abstract : The aim of this paper is to problematize and enrich the use of the concept of crisis in adult education to theorize further its contribution to the study of transformative processes. This paper discusses first the implications inherent in the adoption of event-based and processual approaches to crises. It seeks then to nuance and problematize the ways in which the relationships between crisis, learning and (trans)formative processes are conceived in adult education, especially through transformative learning theory and biographical approaches. The reflection highlights the difficulty of capturing the fluidity of learning and (trans)formative dynamics. Inspired by Edgar Morin's paradigm of complexity and illustrated by examples taken from the COVID-19 pandemic, three principles are defined to help conceiving what structures, regulates and reorganizes such dynamics. The contribution concludes by emphasizing the importance of developing a critical awareness of the rhythms that shape educational processes.

Keywords : crisis, transformation, complexity, rhythm, Adult education, COVID-19

Learning from the whirlpools of experience

Every crisis leaves traces that appear both through the regressions and the advances that emerge from it. In many regards, when we refer to the lessons learned and the transformations associated with the experience of a crisis, we are referring to its most striking effects, what emerges from it. However, from an educational perspective, the experience of a crisis cannot be reduced to the explicit marks it leaves. The outcome of a crisis depends indeed on all the activities deployed to contain, regulate, and transcend it, before, during and after the occurrence of a specific perturbation. These activities manifest themselves through processes that express the evolution of tensions (e.g., dilemmas, psychological distress, social conflicts) whose effects over time eventually lead to the emergence of specific transformations.

[...]

John Adams – China Gates (1977)

2026-04-16T05:00:00Z

Segundo de Chomón – Les kiriki (1907)

2026-03-31T16:54:50Z

Pour Eva

Maurice Ronet – Bartleby (1976)

2026-03-31T16:52:33Z

Hommage à Éliane Radigue – Occam Delta XV (2018)

2026-02-27T06:00:00Z

Quatuor Bozzini

Cat Hope – Wanderlust (2018)

2026-02-17T06:00:00Z

Cat Hope's “Wanderlust” (2018), performed by Reed Wallsmith (alto saxophone)