Walter Kern-Joanna Bennett

Kern first addresses time with two opposing ideas. Isaac Newton states that absolute time, “flows equally without relation to anything external” (21), whereas Immanuel Kant defines time as a subjective form of all experiences. It was not until the late nineteenth century that the homogeneity of time was even considered questionable. Many novelists, psychologists, physicists and sociologist brought about a debate over homogeneous versus heterogeneous time. Kafka uses his novel to address his personal feelings toward the conflict time produces when he says, “The inner one rushes on in a devilish or demonic way while the outer one goes, falteringly, its accustomed pace” (24). Taking a scientific approach, Einstein developed the special theory of relativity stating that time depends on the perspective of “relative motion between an observer and the thing observed” (25). Sociologists such as Durkheim believe time is dependent upon social agendas and groupings. They believe there is a social relativity of time that is affected by recurring events such as feasts and ceremonies. Turning to a psychiatrist’s opinion of time in relation to mental illnesses, Karl Jasper provides examples from two cases in which one patient experienced time as interminable, while another patient experienced a lifetime of inescapable anxiety due to her distorted sense of time.
Science, film and art all contribute to the argument for the atomistic nature of time. Newton’s calculus envisions time as a, “sum of infinitesimally small but discrete units” (26). In film, chronophotography is used to piece together pictures taken simultaneously to create a finished product of, for example, a horse galloping. Also photodynamist is used in film by leaving the lens open longer to capture the blurred vision of the in-between movements. Both these forms of film support time as having an atomistic nature. Many use art as an argument for atomistic time, saying that in art, “everything was fixed in a single moment” (27). Artists such as Paul Cezanne, Juan Gris and Salvador Dali painted obscured and sometimes defaced clocks to acknowledge their inability to depict an image over time. Opposing atomistic nature, the theory that time is flux is inspired by the theory that human consciousness is a stream. William James describing the mind as “pailfuls” of rain first suggested the theory in an essay. He argues that, “each mental event is linked with those before and after it” (28). Henri Bergson attempts to compare movement with time stating both are an indivisible flux. He believes atomism opposes time’s true nature saying, “we cannot consider movement as a sum of stoppages nor time as a sum of temporal atoms without distorting their essentially fluid nature” (29). Edouard Dujardin’s novel addresses temporal fluidity with a monologue displaying the, “mixture of thought and perception, and its unpredictable jumps in space and time” (30). The monologue depicts a moment of thought flowing from one subject to another free of breaks or pauses. This monologue exemplifies the reality of thoughts in time, showing the fluent nature these thoughts entail.
The forward movement of time, clocks and days tell us by instinct that time is irreversible. New technologies such as electric lights and cinemas sparked a dispute on the reversible nature of time. The ability to run film backwards was introduced by Louis Lumiere, and caused many to question their certainty about the irreversibility of time. Novelist such as James Joyce have experimented with time in their novels by using, for example, forty pages to describe a few seconds of thought. Psychologists and sociologists use dreams, psychoses and magic to argue for the reversibility of time, saying they neglect chronological relations. Freud relates his theories on the reversibility of time by arguing that, “unconscious mental processes are ‘timeless,’ for the passage of time does not change them in any way and the idea of time cannot be applied to them” (31). All arguments presented in Walter Kern’s debate over time are compelling and display strong opinions in regards to the controversy of time.
Kern concludes his work on time by distinguishing between the reality of private time as opposed to that of public time. He pronounces public time as human interrelated, and distinguishes this time by its homogeneity and irreversible nature. In opposition to public time, Kern describes private time as subject to solely the individual who is consumed by it.