WEEK 3 – Rough Draft

Group Members: Lozano, Alonte, Odal, Tiongco, Salvador

Section: Xenon

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly fifty books—both

novels and non-fiction works—as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. The authors of this

response essay will analyze one of the many essays Huxley wrote; “Time and Machine”.

Huxley had the intentions of writing an essay that looks into the psychological and social effects of an

increasingly industrialized society. His essay, at that time, looks into the distant future, and adds in the subject

of time to compare and contrast an industrialized society and the pre-industrialism world’s time awareness.

He says that Time is our tyrant of a lord, who rules pretty much of our daily lives. Huxley’s observation remains

true until today, where our consciousness of time is acute, and remarks that the only men who still remember

the ‘art of waiting’ are those of the East or the Orient. But, this is the Modern Age now, these countries' economic

progress are catching up to the West, and these Eastern countries will inevitably face the same psycho-social

crisis that Huxley observes in the United States and the United Kingdoms in his time.

Huxley observes a paradox: namely the extreme knowledge of brief periods of time but almost a blind

ignorance of broader time-scales such as the length of a day, the change of seasons; in short, the natural passing

of time. Huxley relates this to the urban expansion of the world, which has made it impossible for the everyday

man to even see the heavens and the nature of reality around them with its 'artificial universe' of skyscrapers

and concrete jungles, much less to actually calculate time. Huxley seems to lament the age of industrialization

and the age of 'hand-work' with mourning.

Time, as Huxley said, is a recent invention of Man. But what does time have to do with a mortal’s life,

for instance, how did it affect the ancestors of the past and today’s post-industrialism humans? Huxley’s essay

explains to us both our ancestors’ time awareness (cosmic time) and the effect of Industrialism on the time

awareness of working men and women.

The essay flashes the changes produced by the recently created time convention. The changes

however are equally beneficial and risky, making the choosing of sides a significant matter of

perspective. Different minds comprehend different ideas, people would inevitably choose one side over the

other, and again it all proves to be a matter of perspective.

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Before diving further into the analysis of the essay, it is important to note that time is not displayed as

a scientific fact, rather it is shown to the reader as a consciousness that is impacted by how humans perceive it.

This different conception may start off as biased, opinionated, broad, and factually comes off as incorrect to the

reader as he starts reading the essay. But as the essay progresses and discusses the distinct characteristics of

the two perceptions of time, Huxley manages to persuade the reader to view time and the world that revolves

around it through his own lens that Huxley himself procured to prove his own point. His own point being the

superiority of cosmic time, though the multiple issues of this point will later be discussed by the authors of this

response essay.

The reason that his conclusion of the superiority of cosmic time is strongly questioned by the authors

of this response essay is the numerous issues contained in his essay. But first, let us differentiate the two

different consciousness of time. Time is divided into two major concepts: cosmic time and post-industrialism

time. The Pre-Industrialism Era focuses on man’s connection with nature as it is also man’s link with time.

Nature was then considered as man’s only link with time since there were no machines that could be used to

determine the hour or month in the year. Of course, nature did not identify time in months or hours, but as

seasons and from constellations, only an estimated time. The Industrialism Era and the time period after are

driven by the constant ticking of the clock, the modern man never ceasing to pause in his own busy life. In this

era, with the invention of machines, the link with nature is no longer needed. In this era, time is divided into

smaller acute measures: seconds, minutes, hours. Man has a precise awareness of time in its smallest fractions

and has machines that can accurately identify the time down to the smallest unit. Huxley strongly differentiated

these two eras, showing the reader two different perceptions of time which were both weighed by their

advantages and disadvantages.

In his essay, Huxley highlights properly and unbiasedly the psychological drawbacks of the new time

consciousness. The problems he stated were problems that are present in many people today, specifically the

distress that everyone suffers from being tortured in anxiety. The first problem to be discussed is the stress

that people feel from the constant news to organize time into fixed blocks. As Huxley mentioned, machines now

set the pace for the workers, and for them to cope with this new pace they must learn to create schedules to

manage their time effectively. But this method of time management is not an easy task and a majority of

working men and women find it stressful and drives the general masses mad. Huxley also emphasized the stress
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created by managing workloads. As Huxley expressed in his essay, records are to be and must be broken within

fractions of a day: in hours, minutes, or even seconds. With the workload modern men have, a large majority

do not have the luxury of relaxing at any time since doing so could destroy the whole order of a working man’s

day. Furthermore, there is also distress from thinking that every time block must have its own meaning. That

is to say that time, in its own nature, must be used to its best accord. Huxley emphasized that there are ‘trains

to be caught, clocks to be punched and tasks to be done in specified periods’. This anxiety created from always

questioning themselves if there is something else needed to be done in a specific time gives people a sense of

paranoia, a deep fear of lost time, something all humans know is irredeemable. This new awareness does give

a lot of stress, however, this stress is also a product of industrialism itself and should not be blamed wholly on

the new concept.

Industrialism had an enormous impact on our society as we know it today. The coming of the new

consciousness had made positive and negative changes to man, but Huxley emphasized more on the negatives

and had antagonized Industrialism. Even if progress is vital for us humans, the essay puts the pre-industrial

man on a higher level compared to the industrial man, since time was not a bothering problem for them.

Unfortunately for the industrial man, with schedules and routines, time has become of equal value and

importance as money. One could even go as far as to say that time is more important than money. The mindset

of “I have got to do it today!” and “I will have no time to do these by tomorrow!” is as toxic as Chernobyl, and

with the Butterfly Effect, it may cause grave consequences which could cause humanity to slowly destroy itself.

Industrialism had more corruption than pre-industrialism, the authors of the paper themselves have observed

that the rich and privileged had plenty of time to kill and where the poor had a scarcity of it. Albeit the

awareness of time made man more efficient in work and progress, it has resulted in being less efficient in self-

care and time management. Progress is a double-edged sword, just by the discovery of steam power and the

awareness of time has made man more efficient than ever but at the same time, produced a society of anxiety,

a society where man is often forced to prioritize work over time spent with his family. This section shows

readers that the new consciousness was groundbreaking, bringing up new changes with pros and cons that are

rather questionable.

Factories, offices, skyscrapers, restaurants, and a bunch of other buildings are what replaced nature’s

touch on the land, driving away some of the local fauna, now littered with humans walking through and from
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their homes to their jobs. Huxley exaggerated some parts of the situation, but it is true that Industrialism had a

great effect on our world, still felt today. Huxley assumes and generalizes Man that they have completely lost

touch with nature. In other parts of the world, for example, a man of the Orient still shows a connection to

nature, he who still remembers the natural movement of the universe and knows the art of waiting (with even

a hint of satisfaction). Huxley might have viewed the advancement of technology as a threat to society as a

whole, changing everything that we know to something newer and “better”. The authors of this response essay

strongly disagree with this part in Huxley’s essay. It is true that machines have replaced the role of nature in

society, but as stated above it is a generalization of the human race. True, humans do not need to look to the

stars to determine the day, humans do not need to see if a tree’s leaves are falling to tell it is autumn, but these

feelings still contribute to the entire concept of the present time. Humans are still connected to the natural

world, only this time, they are aided by gadgets that provide them with accuracy and sureness that they did not

have before. Yet it is certain that since the coming of the machine-governed age, man has lost touch with nature

and instead has a newfound connection to the machines.

The essay gives no positive future on the path of industrialism. Industrialism produces progress,

stability, and technology. This gave people a new variety of entertainment to enjoy as well as advancements in

all fields of science. People have increased their lifespan and gave themselves more time to enjoy themselves.

This may not be possible without the new awareness that opened a way for people to manage themselves in

order to keep on improving. Because of this, the readers could conclude that the essay focuses on the adversities

that humans receive in exchange for the new consciousness. It is true that stress and anxiety were drawbacks

of this new consciousness, but are they really the only things that matter? It overlooks the fact that the new

concept of time speeds up the development of society. It has given the human race a sense of urgency, the bitter

truth that their time on Earth is a mere dot in the course of cosmic time; thus giving birth to humans’ present

time consciousness. Because of this sense of urgency, humans have adapted their lifestyles to working

efficiently leading to better results at work that may benefit society; this being wholly overlooked in the essay.

The entire concept of ‘losing time’ has led the human race to value time.

The authors of this response essay strongly believe that the argument regarding the better type of

time-consciousness has no endpoint. To move forward, society must understand that time is constantly passing

by each individual, that humans are constantly losing it if they choose to keep the past state of mind. But to
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value the beauty in the simplicity of the Pre-Industrial era is not wrong either, as choosing to value such a thing

is a simple matter of preference. The authors of this response essay feel that the minor details used by Huxley

to illustrate his point were fine and concise, but those he chose to overlook were straight up annoying to miss

in his essay, as these other details were seemingly the only ones that contradicted his concept.

Nevertheless, Huxley managed to stir the authors’ minds, making them question the time they once

thought they knew. His essay was truly astounding, interesting, and thought-provoking. Though the selection

did have a few points that aren’t exactly agreeable, it also interests those who agree and the essay gives them

a pleasing review. One could realize the perspective of the author, making them aware of the things that they

are ignorant about such as the intensity and seriousness of stress and anxiety due to time awareness. A failure

in waking up due to alarm clock tolerance is bound to ruin the whole day of a person. A simple mishap in reading

the time or being tardy even for a few minutes, would create multiple consequences afterwards. The anxiety of

losing and wasting time is enough to make one’s life harder than it was. For people with a perspective against

the authors’, they could raise questions about the benefits of time awareness and industrialism or risks of

staying in cosmic time reference. The idea of the Time and the Machine is without a doubt something that has

carved today’s present conception of time. Profoundly, the Time and the Machine are an interesting

combination; one of true chemistry and grave importance in today’s modern world.