Chronocentrism is the assumption that certain time periods (typically the

present The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is a period of ...

) are better, more important, or a more significant frame of reference than other time periods, either past or future. The perception of more positive attributes such as

morality Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scien ...

, and

sophistication Sophistication has come to mean a few things, but its original uses were a pejorative, derived from sophist, and included the idea of admixture or adulteration. Today, as researched by Faye Hammill, it is common as a measure of refinement—di ...

to one's own time could lead an individual as a member of a collectivity to impose their forms of time on others and impede the efforts towards more homogeneous temporal commons.

History

Chronocentrism (from the Greek '' chrono-'' meaning "time") was coined by sociologist Jib Fowles in an article in the journal ''Futures'' in February, 1974. Fowles described chronocentrism as "the belief that one's own times are paramount, that other periods pale in comparison". A critical view described it as the belief that only the present counts and that the past is irrelevant except to serve as a reference to a few basic assumptions about what went before. More recently, it has been defined as "the egotism that one's own generation is poised on the very cusp of history". The term had been used earlier in a study about attitudes to

ageing Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. ...

in the workplace. Chronocentricity: "...only seeing the value of one's own age cohort...described the tendency for younger managers to hold negative perceptions of the abilities or other work-related competencies of older employees." This type of discrimination is a form of

ageism Ageism, also spelled agism, is discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism. Butler d ...

Ethnocentrism

Chronocentrism as

ethnocentrism Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—means to apply one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead o ...

is the perceiving and judging of a culture's historical values in terms of the standards of one's own time period.

Antichronocentrism

The Long Now Foundation is an organization that encourages the use of 5-digit years, e.g. "02016" instead of "2016," to help emphasize how early the present time is in their vision of the timeline of humanity. The use of two-digit years before Y2K was an example of chronocentrism (in the early years of computing, the years 2000 and 1899 were believed to be too far in the future or the past, and thus of less importance than being able to save two digits in computerizing and typing out years).

Applications

The "Copernican time principle" is a temporal analog of the

Copernican principle In physical cosmology, the Copernican principle states that humans, on the Earth or in the Solar System, are not privileged observers of the universe, that observations from the Earth are representative of observations from the average position ...

for space, which states that no spatial location is any more or less special of a frame of reference than any other spatial location (i.e., that our physical universe has no center). Some authors have extended this to also include that no point in time is any more or less special than any other point in time (e.g., in outdated steady-state theories), though this cannot be universally applied (e.g., the Big-Bang singularity is a special point in time that can be logically used as a frame of reference to date later events). Chronocentrism is also considered a norm in music until the twentieth century when musicians believe their music preserved a style of interpretation that formed an unbroken chain of authority and orthodoxy. For instance, Romantic musicians deliberately changed the style when performing earlier repertoire.

References

{{Ethnocentrism 1974 neologisms Philosophical theories Time Historical eras

History

Ethnocentrism

Antichronocentrism

Applications

See also

References