The Virtues of Dead Time
Why we need "dead time" and what happens when we lose it.
The Machine never sleeps. Neither the power station. Perhaps soon, neither the factory nor the office either if the economists and CEOs have their way. Always in motion, always productive, always working — dancing to the tune of more and more Mammon. This is the economists ideal: the economy’s gold standard. When our world is imagined as such, when this is the vision we strive for, no time can be allowed for “dead time”.
The politicians, economists, and corporate executives standing at the helm of our nation states love numbers, especially big numbers that have the innate tendency to grow ever larger. One number in particular is the apple of their eye, the golden apple they can’t help but adore: Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This statistic is supposedly the measure of how productive our economies are. As the claim goes, the higher the nation’s GDP, the stronger and more powerful the economy. And “healthier”, whatever that means. GDP is everything to our politicians and economists.1 When it falls, full-on panic mode ensues, and when it rises, celebration, self-congratulatory headlines, and “vote for me” publicity will be trotted out as sure as the sun rises in the morning.
We all have our part to play in increasing this number. As members of modern societies who live under the “benevolent” shadow of national GDP, (for when it rises, we are said to “all benefit”)2 we may have many roles (office workers, teachers, shop keepers, writers…) but only one main duty: to do our bit to grow our respective economies.3 To work, work, and work; to produce more, more, and more; so we all can grow, grow, and grow. And become happier. Potentially.
It is our supposed moral duty to work in this way.4 Everyone else in the nation suffers by missing out on the fruits of extra growth when we disobey this mantra: when we are slow, unproductive, or too generous. It is “wrong” for the delivery driver to stand on the doorstep for a chat; selfish for the craftsman to spend that extra time making his craft “unnecessarily” beautiful; an economic vice for the shopkeeper to give his struggling customer a little bit extra for free. It is, in a sense, immoral, according to modern economic orthodoxy, when we don’t give the economy5 our all. “Focus on raw and pure productivity” the economists say, “cut out all that is unnecessary, all that impedes efficiency, productivity, growth”. “And all will be well”.
Few things could be hated more by our economists and politicians, therefore, than that chief economic villain: Dead Time6. This is the time, whether it be microseconds or hours, when we are not working. When we are unproductive, or when we are doing activities (like making our work beautiful) that are not conducive to quantifiable growth statistics. Dead time can be found in the little periods of inefficiency when we switch between tasks; when we rest and take a break; when we go the unnecessary extra mile; and when we spend too much time thinking — contemplating our lives or even our work. All this is to be eliminated as much as possible, with just enough rest allowed to keep us from burnout — the worst kind of dead time7. Some of our most tyrannical companies have even employed intrusive technologies such as eye tracking monitors8 to ensure their “valued employees” are always active and dedicated to their work. Such is the hatred of dead time. Such is the love of productivity.
But it is an irrational hatred. Granted, there are some forms of dead time are totally and undeniably undesirable: getting stuck in a traffic jam, constant power cuts (such as those experienced during South Africa’s dreaded “load shedding”), and deliberate laziness from employees. Other forms of dead time, though, are totally natural and in a very real sense, necessary. Only a machine can totally eliminate dead time, and as much as politicians, bosses, and technocrats may try to kid themselves (and their workforce), we are, and always will be, humans. Not machines. Dead time is part of our humanity.
Waging total war against what is natural is almost always stupid. And we have started to do some really foolish things in our societal war against dead time: like trying to dispense with our natural human and biophysical limits. Though the wisdom in respecting the limits that nature and our bodies impose on us is crystal clear, we have instead collectively decided that the optimum cause of action is to bulldoze our limitations into annihilation.
A few examples might help us picture the folly. The supposed “masterstroke” of industrial farming is how it removed the dead time that the limitations of the seasons, day length, and livestock and crop growth rates once imposed. Now we can grow most foods anywhere, anytime, and at unnatural rates — and use copious amounts of energy and cause copious amounts of pollution in the process. The masterstroke of the factory system was removing the dead time that occurred when workers changed between tasks. Instead, individual workers were given one simple and monotonous task in the long chain of production, all to be accomplished in a giant, noisy room devoid of natural light — which completely ignores their varied skills, interests, and intellectual and sensory needs. Speaking of light, we have removed the limit the darkness of the night once imposed on our work, the very same darkness that reminded us we need to sleep — the most necessary dead time. It is why our power stations are always active: to give us never-ending streams of artificial light whenever we need it. Only, in doing so, we have sacrificed our vision of the stars.
And perhaps the future masterstroke, the ultimate masterstroke, will be that of transhumanism: the merging of man with the machine, and thus dispensing with our biophysical limitations altogether. With egoistic “techbros” at the transhumanistic helm, it stands to reason that we will face myriad emergent ethical and physical problems and are setting ourselves up for one tremendous, catastrophic fall.
Kicking against nature and kicking against our limits can only end up in tears. It’s like the child who kicks away his mother, the very person who wants and is designed to nurture him. Fighting strenuously to eliminate dead time and our natural limitations in all their forms will hurt us. We will one day look upon an urban landscape full of burnt-out, stressed, and constantly anxious workers dehumanised by the ceaseless demands laden on their shoulders. We will wonder why our soils are spent and degraded, and our livestock sickly and diseased.9 We will wonder how we could have thought that merging man and machine together was a wise idea now that all the emergent problems and ethical issues are as plain as day. And we will wonder where all the stars have gone.
We will wonder where it all went wrong.
It should be clear that I think dead time is more important — more virtuous even —than we realise. It allows both us and the natural world to rest, refresh, and recuperate. Dead time is sustainable and humane, an integral part of our humanity. For, it is in those little moments of rest and diversion, the pondering and reflection, the little chats with colleagues and customers, the pause for fresh air or to admire the robin outside the window, that we engage in activities that make us human: conviviality, imagination, encouragement, recreation, care.
Furthermore, dead time is conducive to productivity in the truest and most valuable sense. By allowing, and even embracing, the virtues of dead time, we enter into the slower, more focused, and reflective pace of life that is essential for quality, beautiful, and skilful work. The output of such quality-focused work should be the ultimate measure of our productivity, not mere quantity and GDP. The death of dead time only makes sense in a culture whose values are inverted and perverse; a culture infatuated with more and more and which is never content. Conversely, embracing dead time makes perfect sense in a culture oriented towards quality, where well-made things are demanded and expected. Where an emphasis is put on rest, well-being, and sustainability. Where an emphasis is put on humanity and the Good Life.
The artisanal craftsman of old was incredibly inefficient by modern standards. His daily work was laden with dead time: the constant need to change between tools, pausing to chat to customers, reflecting on the quality of his woodwork, and carving intricate and “unnecessary” designs into his handles, table legs, and shelf-brackets. But his craft has endured. He created true value, enduring value. So much so, that his produce is still being sold in antiques stores or is passed down from generation to generation as precious heirlooms. It was because his working day made good use of dead time and allowed for the development of the vocational virtues of skill, wisdom, and beauty (that all flourish in an environment of slowness) that he was truly productive in the quality sense.10 He did work that really mattered — to the good life of his community and to his local economy. None of this dead time was really dead time. It was time when he was most truly alive.11
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It is worth mentioning GDP isn’t necessarily a bad or negative thing or measure. Though I would argue severe problems arise when it is the exclusive measure of economic and human welfare. (See Herman Daly for more on this).
Though the truth of this is highly debatable.
Within the confines of the law, of course. But from reading about some of the habits of our commodities traders, it is debatable whether they keep to this.
Of course, I am employing irony here.
The status quo, GDP-based economy that is, not the barter, or gift economy.
Even the phrase “dead time” implies the hatred our economists have towards it. We avoid death at all costs. In the West, we look upon the person who raises the morbid subject of death as some wild, mad-man and quickly change the conversation. Such is the visceral impulse we have towards the subject. Anything related to death is to be avoided. So too, in the modern industrial world is “dead time” and by using the word “death” in the phrase, we ensure the negative connotations and implications will be plain for all to see.
But one look at our dire burnout statistics implies we seem to be throwing petrol on the fire of our overburdened lives instead of putting the fire out.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/watched-while-working-use-monitoring-ai-workplace-increases-2023-04-25/
And now, in the spirit of this old craftsman, I shall go and do something productive for my writing by staring in wonder at a tree.
Thank you for writing this, Hadden. If there's one thing I learned from old farmers, it's the cultural value of stopping to visit when you meet in the field, or in the dooryard. For them, being busy amounts to a disavowal of the village, the neighborly web.
Fantastic thoughts, Hadden.
My mind immediately goes toward the spiritual disciplines and practices that we find very, very hard in modern life: Receiving and rejoicing in the fully-alive kind of Sabbath rest, prayer, silence, solitude, hospitality, etc. Granted, we know they have always been difficult for people, because we are fallen creatures. And yet, the mature Christian life requires dead time to be developed at all. These things take time. Time that won't be carved out on its own!