MONTHLY BLOG 182, TO LAUGH OR CRY? RESPONDING TO ACADEMIC CRITICISMS

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Fig.1. Laugh or Cry – song lyrics by Roger Taylor (1981):

‘You just gotta laugh or cry
Right till the day you die.
Just open up your heart,
Or open up your eyes …
Laugh or cry!’

A few days ago, I had the strange experience of hearing my life’s work dissected by a panel of critical experts, in front of a large and knowledgeable audience, and in my presence. I was part thrilled, part gobsmacked. The speakers were excellent – incisive and thoughtful. Hearing my work put into the historical context of the evolution of History as a research subject was also salutary.

The whole experience has given me much to think about. One striking theme is the relationship of academics to debate and criticism. Of course, the world of academe is not the only one that thrives upon continual arguments. Politicians, for example, have to become quickly accustomed to debates on all sides. They regularly argue not only with rivals in other political parties but also with colleagues within their own. And they may too be assailed on all sides by the general public.

So academics are not unique. But they have an interesting double relationship with assessment. They themselves are constant assessors. They regularly have piles of students’ essays to mark, as well as occasional examination scripts. Many academics also review new books, whether in published journals or in confidential pre-publication assessments for publishers. The task requires giving an objective summary of each book’s contents plus a favourable or critical response, as appropriate. And it goes on: when listening to lectures, academics try to be ready with at least one pertinent question – again, favourable or hostile, according to taste.

Simultaneously, however, academics are also on the receiving end of a constant stream of criticism. If they seek to publish a book or an essay (and the pressures to publish are these days very great), academics get a double whammy of debate. Before a book or essay is accepted for publication, it goes to anonymous readers (usually fellow academics) for prior assessment. Then, once past that potential barrier, published books and essays are often publicly reviewed in print – sometimes by more than one critical colleague. Such assessments can again be either favourable or hostile. And the barrage of responses can continue for a long period.

Meanwhile, all academics are subject to yearly internal reviews. Many institutions regularly survey student opinion about the skills and abilities of their lecturers. And academic promotion generally depends upon getting good reports not only for teaching but also for publishing well-received books and essays in sufficient quantity.

Without doubt, the old days of the doddering don, who did absolutely nothing whilst enjoying the status of being an eminent professor, have long gone.

As a result, academics live in a permanent atmosphere of potential criticism – which they both give and receive. It all helps to brace the intellect. Indeed, really good criticism can ultimately be very helpful – particularly it if arrives before the research work in question has got into print. An accurate critique, phrased tactfully, allows academics to clarify and/or to sharpen the expression of their thoughts; to remove inconsistencies; to strengthen (or perhaps to adapt) their arguments; and, if need be, to insert a rousing defence of their case against fundamental objections.

In all, to repeat a phrase: it’s bracing. Whether a given individual’s response is to laugh or to cry is a matter for personal judgment. Pointed criticisms, if they are really spot-on, can be taken badly. Colleagues sometimes cry or sulk; and refuse to continue with any further revisions of their work. (Mistakenly).

Anonymous criticisms in particular are supposed to be worded kindly, even if critically. Every now and then, however, assessors get carried away by the cloak of anonymity. They launch into personal attacks, alongside the criticisms. But all assessments, whether anonymous or otherwise, are supposed to be couched in impartial and objective terms. So if, every now and then, someone takes unfair advantage of the system of anonymity, much the best response is to ignore it completely. Laugh it off!

(By the way, anyone seeking an audit of their own personal behaviour should talk to a frank but trusty friend, who can deliver home truths constructively).

All in all, living in a bracing barrage of potential criticism is something that I personally enjoy. As a research student, I was influenced by two doughty arguers. One was the social/cultural historian, E.P, Thompson;1 and the other my PhD supervisor at the LSE, F.J. Fisher, who was an expert in London economic history.2

With each one of these two masters of dialectics, I engaged in lengthy and searching debates. And, gradually, I learned to hold my own – though I don’t think that, in either case, I ever delivered an intellectually knock-out blow.

To laugh or cry at pointed criticisms? First of all, don’t cry. It drives one into loops of negativism and does not improve the work in question. So laugh instead. Laugh because someone cared sufficiently to engage with your work. And, simultaneously, don’t ignore the criticisms. They may not always be right. But they challenge the recipients to assess for themselves. Then, if needed, corrections can be made. And, if corrections are not needed, then a rousing defence of the core argument can be inserted instead. Academic debates can be both fun and fruitful. Laugh loudly; and keep the debates going – without personal abuse – but with the critical intellect fully engaged!

ENDNOTES:

1 See P.J.C., ‘E.P. Thompson, The Historian\: An Appreciation’, first pub. in New Left Review, 201 (1993), pp. 10-17; and in slightly amplified text (2018) in PJC website: https://www.penelopejcorfield.com/history-making/fellow-historians/6.3.5 PDF45.

2 See P.J.C., ‘F.J. Fisher (1908-88) and the Dialectic of Economic History’, first pub. in P.J. Corfield and N.B. Harte (eds), London and the English Economy, 1500-1700: Essays by F.J. Fisher (London, 1990), pp. 3-22; and in shorter and punchier text (2018) in PJC website: https://www.penelopejcorfield.com/history-making/fellow-historians/6.3.1 PDF46.

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MONTHLY BLOG 181, A YEAR OF POEMS

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Fig.1. Rudbeckia Birta –

flower commonly known as ‘Black-Eyed Susan’

1st January 2026: I’m now recovering from a spectacular black-eye, caused by falling down stairs at home, when hurrying and carrying a tray – so being unable to put my hands out to break fall. As I plummeted downwards, I felt a surge of extreme annoyance: annoyance at having to miss that evening’s party with friends; annoyance at putting everything on the tray at risk, including a smart china teapot (which broke, irretrievably); and, especially, acute annoyance at the vivid sensation of my own life and limbs being beyond my control.

Philosophy has since calmed me down. No bones broken (went next day into hospital for check). Many people have to put up with far worse injuries and illnesses. The fact that we missed one jolly neighbourhood Christmas party is a shame but really not the end of the world. And my partner Tony was very concerned to look after me and, when I suggested, amidst groans, that he should continue to the party without me, he refused very firmly.

Thereafter, having to rest and to take things easy over the festive period was quite calming and pleasant in its way. And I have resolved henceforth to watch my footing at all times – a wise decision, which will stand me in good stead for years to come.

My theme for this year’s BLOGs is Poetry. And there are lots of splendid and witty poems about feet.1 But nothing quite matched my personal experience. So here’s my own doggerel rhyme about falling and getting a black eye:

My dancing feet

They missed the beat;

I fell downstairs,

Spite all my cares.

 

I felt robust,

But got concussed.

My face went slack;

One eye turned black.

 

I felt a fool!

So my new rule:

On stairs or street,

Watch the damn feet!
 

ENDNOTES:

1 For a wonderful array of poems about human Feet, consult the Hello Poetry website: https://hellopoetry.com/tag/feet (viewed 31 Dec. 2025).

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MONTHLY BLOG 180, TIME & INSPIRATION

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Fig.1. Time Flies, illustrated by Hour-Glass with Wings,
vector design Generative AI:
© Dreamtime 2025

The relentless passage of Time is at once a threat and an inspiration.1 Of course, in one way, it’s menacing: Time flies! Time, once lost, cannot be retrieved! Time travels onwards and does not come back!

Yet that very fact can also provide an inspiration. As Abraham Lincoln once remarked: ‘In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count – it’s the life in your years’. Time is a finite resource; and therefore is best not squandered.

Charles Darwin expressed that very thought rather sternly, as befits an earnest Victorian: ‘A man who dares to waste one hour of Time, has not discovered the value of life’.

Or as the lyrics of Pink Floyd’s song on Time (1973), written by bass-guitarist Roger Waters, wryly noted:

‘Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day,
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way. …
And then, one day, you find ten years have got behind you,
No-one told you when to run – you missed the starting gun.’

It’s necessary, therefore, to accept the brute fact that Time moves ever onwards. However much people may wish to ‘call back yesterday, bid Time return’, as one character in Shakespeare’s Richard II eloquently declaims,2 they cannot.

So the ever-moving passage of Time poses a bonny challenge. Optimists like the American essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, gave those prone to gloom some uplifting advice: ‘Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year’. And Benjamin Franklin was somewhat less exuberant but equally emphatic, as he warned that: ‘You may delay, but Time will not’. In other words, use Time, don’t waste it.

On the positive side, too, there’s a potential learning curve. Thus the eighteenth-century poet and moralist, Alexander Pope, observed sagely that: ‘No one should be ashamed to admit he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.’

Thus humans can look back at the past, not just with emotions that range from nostalgia to horror, but also to learn. And it’s essential that we do. The past – or rather the human study of the past – has generated a massive stock of information and expertise. Some things, it is true, are learned in the immediate moment. But we cannot learn from the future that has not yet happened.

Evidence, analysis, expertise and inspiration – surviving from the past, and tempered by perceptions and evaluations today – together provide the operating stock of knowledge that is needed for living successfully in Time.3 Without such a resource, humanity would face the same troubles that afflict individuals who have lost all memories and cannot function unaided. So the point is not just: don’t waste Time! But, crucially: learn from it! That wise advice was given by the world’s most renowned expert on temporal challenges, Albert Einstein. He urged: ‘Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow’. Action stations for us all! Learn and live! Proverbially: There’s no Time like the present!

ENDNOTES:

1 This BLOG concludes PJC’s year of Time-BLOGS (2025). For more, see too P.J. Corfield, Time and the Shape of History (2007); and idem, Time-Space: We Are All in it Together (2025).

2 Earl of Salisbury in Shakespeare’s Richard II (written c.1595/6; first pub. 1597), Act 3. sc.2.

3 For the multifarious debates on these complex issues, see C. Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time (2011).

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MONTHLY BLOG 179, IDENTIFYING DIFFERENT ERAS OF TIME: POTENTIAL & PITFALLS …

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Dandelion in the wind @ Shutterstock 2025

There is a perennial conflict between, on the one hand, looking at history in terms of specific periods (for example: ‘ancient’, ‘medieval’, ‘modern’) and, on the other, trying to interpret past events without using any of these pre-set concepts. To lump or to split?

The advantage of pre-set periods is partly descriptive. It is much more economical to write ‘in medieval England’ than it is to write ‘in England during the years from the fifth century AD to the later fifteenth century’.

But, once the deed is done, and centuries of history are clumped together, questions instantly multiply: Was there one medieval period? (Scholars disagree). If so, are those the right dates for it? Why is it sometimes divided into the ‘Low Middle Ages’ and the ‘High Middle Ages’? Is the concept basically fractured?

Moreover, if it is one period, then what are its major characteristics? Is the medieval era one of chronic ignorance and backwardness? Or it is a vanished era of romance and chivalry? Or, perhaps, neither of those options? What other alternatives are there??2 And did the wider sequence of stages within which it is allegedly embedded really exist either?3

Yet without any aggregative terms for big periods of time, then historical accounts risk becoming an undifferentiated list of ‘one damned thing after another’ – with the emphasis on the adjective ‘damned’.

Attitudes among historians often shift between doubt and grand certainties. In the nineteenth century, at least for many in the West, history was seen as an unstoppable ‘March of Progress’.4 And some still cling to that vision today.

Meanwhile, for Marxists, history proceeded not by slow evolution but by dramatic leaps. The inevitable class struggle generated many stormy internal tensions that each time led to a revolutionary breakdown, after which a new stage of history emerged, only to be followed by a further revolutionary breakdown, and the advent of a ‘higher’ stage of history. Thus ‘feudalism’ would be followed by ‘capitalism’, to be followed by ‘communism’.5 But neither ‘Progress’ nor the ‘Marxist dialectic’ has worked out precisely as foretold.

In Western intellectual circles in the 1980s and 1990s, doubt rather than certainty became the new mood-music (although of course, there were always dissentient voices). Above all, theorists of ‘postmodernism’ became influential among many disillusioned left-wingers. This viewpoint extended the stages of history from ‘feudal’ to ‘modern’ to ‘postmodern’. And the postmodern stance stressed the problematic nature of all knowledge about the past.

One central tenet of this attitude was an ‘incredulity towards meta-narratives’, as proclaimed by the French social philosopher Jean-François Lyotard.6 Grand sweeping stories about the march of history were at a discount. Time’s arrow did not point in any specific direction, it seemed. It was not sure where it was going.

Taking scepticism yet further, the French philosopher and literary destructionist, Jacques Derrida, asserted that temporality itself has no independent reality. For him, time is a concept which ‘belongs entirely to metaphysics’. (And, clearly, that formulation was not meant as a compliment). Instead, an a-temporal spatiality prevails throughout the cosmos.7

Postmodernist super-scepticism, however, was closely followed by a justified intellectual recoil. Historians, while these days tending to reject schematic grand narratives, have not gone to the other extreme. They do not accept that the past has no meaning, or that studies of history are purely subjective.8

Paradoxically, the postmodernists’ claim – that an old era of so-called confident ‘modernity’ has been superseded by a new age of sceptical ‘postmodernity’ –  does in itself assert that the course of history can be deciphered. In other words, their critique of meta-narratives did not inhibit them from producing an alternative meta-narrative of their own.

Times have moved on. Some writers boldly assert the ‘end of postmodernism’ and define the new era as ‘Post-Postmodern’.9 Others ask sceptically whether such an era was ever really there at all?10

Belief in the heresy of ‘time denial’ was never espoused by more than a tiny minority of philosophers and physicists. History as a subject of study remains immensely popular and important.

Therefore historians around the world continue these research and debates. They seek long-term interpretations that avoid over-simplification and embrace complexity – but that are, simultaneously, not so complex that no meaning can be extracted from the torrent of detail. There are specific periods of history that have a distinctive identity – but there are also long-term evolutionary trends as well as deep continuities, that extend through millennia. The whole mix is as complex as life. It’s also important and endlessly instructive. As a result, it’s fascinating and sometimes infuriating! Come and research the past (choosing any time-period, long or short) and join the non-stop debates! Time-space: it’s what we all live in!

ENDNOTES:

1 Contributing to PJC’s year of Time-BLOGS (2025). For more, see too P.J. Corfield, Time and the Shape of History (2007); and idem, Time-Space: We Are All in it Together (2025).

2 See N. Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century (1991); and A. Murray, ‘Should the Middle Ages be Abolished?’ in Essays in Medieval Studies, 21 (2004), pp. 1–22.

3 See esp. P.J. Corfield, ‘POST-Medievalism/Modernity/Postmodernity?’ Rethinking History, Vol. 14 (2010), pp. 379-404. Also available via PJC website, www.penelopejcorfield.co.uk/what_is_history?/Pdf20.

4 See J.B. Bury, The Idea of Progress: An Enquiry into its Origin and Growth (1921); C. Lasch, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics (1991); G.A. Almond and others, Progress and its Discontents (2022).

5 See variously T.B. Bottomore, Karl Marx (1956); idem (ed.), Modern Interpretations of Marx (1981); D. Conway, A Farewell to Marx: An Outline and Appraisal of his Theories (1987); J.H. Moore (ed.), Legacies of the Collapse of Marxism (1995); G. Therborn, From Marxism to Post-Marxism? (2010).

6 See J-F. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, transl. by G. Bennington and B. Massumi (1979); M. Drolet (ed.), The Postmodernism Reader: Foundational Texts (2004); and popularisation of these arguments in D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (1989); F. Jameson, Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991); and H. Bertens, The Idea of the Postmodern: A History (1995).

7 See J. Hodge, Derrida on Time (2007); and, as an example of the debates, J.M. Lehmann, Deconstructing Derrida: A Post-Poststructuralist Critique (1993).

8 For a variety of historians’ responses, see R. Evans, In Defence of History (1997); F. Spier, Big History and the Future of Humanity (2010); D. Armitage and J. Guldi, The History Manifesto (2014).

9 For examples, see A. Kirby, ‘The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond’, Philosophy Now, Vol. 58 (2006); J.T. Nealon, Post-Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Just-in-Time Capitalism (2012); B. Kuzniarz, Farewell to Postmodernism: Social Theories of the Late Left (2015); A. Gibbons, ‘Postmodernism is Dead. What Comes Next?’ Times Literary Supplement, 14 June 2017.

10 See e.g. S. Redhead, We Have Never Been Postmodern: Theory at the Speed of Light (2011); R. Kramer, Are we Postmodern Yet? And Were We Ever? (2019).

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Fig.1 Arthur’s Stone (Herefordshire), constructed c. 3,000 BCE Photo © Tony Belton 2016

MONTHLY BLOG 178, THINKING THROUGH TIME AT ARTHUR’S STONE IN HEREFORDSHIRE

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Fig.1 Arthur’s Stone (Herefordshire), constructed c. 3,000 BCE Photo © Tony Belton 2016

Fig.1 Arthur’s Stone (Herefordshire),
constructed c. 3,000 BCE
Photo © Tony Belton 2016

Great rings of giant standing stones, dating from primeval times – such as England’s Stonehenge and Brittany’s Carnac Stones – are wonderful prompts to sweeping thoughts about the length of Time and History.1  Yet small ancient monuments can be just as striking in their own way. On a very pleasant visit to Herefordshire in summer 2016, my partner and I decided, on the spur of the moment, to follow a signpost to view a historic burial tomb, named Arthur’s Stone. It proved to be wonderfully thought-provoking.

Arthur’s Stone (today guarded by English Heritage)2  is set high on a ridge between the Wye and Golden Valleys. The site is magnificent. The Stone burial chamber, which was constructed in c. 3,000 BCE, is somewhat dilapidated but that through-Time quality adds to its authenticity. Its impact is dignified without being grandiose. Interested visitors attend in small numbers rather than in great crowds. Yet the simplicity and venerability of the monument, and the tranquillity of its location, together give the Stone great resonance.

In the first place, it is evidence of serious intent on the part of those who placed the Stone high on the ridge. It may have been installed as an astronomical observation point – a function which is claimed (and debated) in the case of many ancient stone monuments. Certainly, none of these sites were constructed out of the blue. They indicate the existence of societies capable of planning, organising and implementing big communal projects. And they were ingenious makers and users of flint tools. Hence it’s not surprising that in the vicinity of Arthur’s Stone, there’s evidence of prior human labour in the form of numerous even older flint flakes and arrow-heads.

Whether this particular monument was built as a tomb, or instead as some form of storage chamber, is unknown. There are other similar monuments in the region, which are known as the ‘Severn-Cotswold’ group of chambered tombs. And there would have been regular communication links between these sites. Thus, while research has yet to reveal the precise functions of all these carefully-positioned great stones, it is clear that they had a significant role for those who manoeuvred them into their special sites. From the start, they had meaning.

A further intriguing train of thought is prompted by the attempts of later generations to ‘domesticate’ these historical markers by associating them with famous personages.3  So at some stage, long before the thirteenth century CE, this monument, like many other historic stones and relics, became associated in popular legend with the feats of King Arthur. Stories abounded. One reported that he had won a battle there. Another story recounted that he’d met a giant there and triumphantly slain him. Either way, Arthur’s Stone was being given a place in the epic history of the legendary British king. And the name has stuck.

Thereafter, the site has seen some real documented drama as well. In the fifteenth century, a knight was killed there in a fatal duel. And in September 1645 the embattled King Charles I dined at the Stone with his Royalist troops. Perhaps he intended the occasion as a symbolic gesture, although it did not confer upon him sufficient pseudo-Arthurian lustre to defeat Cromwell and the Roundheads. Charles I’s fleeting visit thus did not enter local folklore.

Then at some stage (the precise date is unknown), the site became a focal point for locally popular festivities at midsummer. Villagers in the nearby settlements of Dorstone and Bredwardine gathered in the sloping field in front of Arthur’s Stone, where they engaged in uninhibited drinking, dancing and ‘high jinks’  – away from the inquisitorial eye of the local clergy and magistrates. It was obviously fun, because the popular tradition continued well into Victorian times.

As a sober counter-balance, too, the local Baptists began in the nineteenth century to organise an ecumenical religious service there in high summer. Implicitly, they were saluting the Stone’s sacral reputation, whilst simultaneously purging its more recent pagan associations.

On my own visit there, I met by complete chance a charming senior citizen who lived locally.4   She told me of her personal memories, as a child before World War II, when she joined her school-fellows to sing hymns at the services held there each midsummer. It was a stirring occasion for them all.

The special nature of the place was (and is) undoubted. Throughout its five thousand years of existence, Arthur’s Stone has had multiple meanings and uses for the witnessing generations who both live nearby and visit from afar. Its story is protean. Whether the site is used for astronomy, royal burial, knightly duelling, open-air royal dining, unorthodox popular festivities, community religious services, or (today) for tourist visiting, Arthur’s Stone cannot be locked away into a wrongly named ‘pre-history’.

It does not spring from a long-gone era whose name implies that it pre-dates ‘real’ History.5  On the contrary. Arthur’s Stone has always been fully within History, which continues to unfold steadily, as long as Time itself does likewise. The great cosmic story is one that welds together both deep continuities and recurrent change. Local monuments do the same. In other words, Arthur’s Stone silently signals Time’s diachronic power to persist and to update simultaneously. And long may it continue to do so!

ENDNOTES:

1 For more on Time & History, see P.J. Corfield, Time-Space: We Are All in it Together (London, 2025).

2 See https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/arthurs-stone.

3 For further information, see also A. Watkins, ‘Arthur’s Stone’, Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club (1928), pp. 149-51; L.V. Grinsell, Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain (1976); and J. Sant, Stone Spotting in Herefordshire (2000);

4 With reiterated thanks and warm appreciation to Ionwen E. Williams (née Davies).

5 For a further critique of the concept of ‘Prehistory’, see PJC, ‘Primevalism: Saluting a Renamed Prehistory’, in A. Baysal, E.L. Baysal and S. Souvatzi (eds), Problematising Time and History in Pre-History (2019), pp. 265-82.

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MONTHLY BLOG 177, SONGS ABOUT TIME

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Representation of Hickory-Dickory-Dock
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While there are very few good jokes about Great Time, there are songs a-plenty.1 Songs unfold in Time. They mark Time. They muse over its characteristics. My favourite is ‘Time, Time, Time is on my side/ Yes it is!’ as sung by Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. It’s very cheering and reassuring, especially when the hours and minutes seem to be rushing by with headlong speed. Where has my life gone? But I shouldn’t worry. After all, Time is on my side … and I’m trying to enjoy every moment.

But, just as a reminder that songs may have multiple messages, there are always pessimistic versions. A twentieth-century song explains that Time is against Me. And in the seventeenth-century, Andrew Marvell expressed the same point rather more majestically: ‘And at my back, I always hear,/ Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near …’ Those words come from his poem To his Coy Mistress,2 urging her not to waste her time – or his – but to yield to his amorous advances. Who would not succumb, when so eloquently wooed?

Temporal themes in songs range across the entire gamut of human emotions. There is affectionate nostalgia. So Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle (1972) mused: ‘If I could save time in a bottle/ The first thing that I’d like to do/ Is to save every day/ Til eternity passes away/ Just to spend them with you’. There’s also jolly celebration, as in Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’ I’ve had the Time of My Life (1987): ‘Now I’ve had the time of my life/ No, I never felt like this before/ Yes, I swear it’s the truth/ And I owe it all to you’.

And then there’s happy anticipation, as fervently caught in the pulsing rhythms of Buddy Holly’s Everyday (1957):

Every day, it’s a-gettin’ closer
Goin’ faster than a roller coaster
Love like yours
Will surely come my way.

Time and love – or lack of the same – are absolutely standard themes. Yet, at the same time, there’s also impersonal temporality, that marches on, regardless of human wishes or desires. So The Times They Are A-changin, warns a classic by Bob Dylan (1964). Humans all become in time nothing but Dust in the Wind, agrees Kansas (1977), evoking the sonorous words from Ecclesiastes, 3:20 in The Bible: ‘All are from the dust; and to dust all return’.

Furthermore, numerous songs incorporate the relentlessness of time, with the key words: ‘The clock keeps ticking’. So Dale Marsh (2005) reflects that: ‘This old Earth keeps spinnin’;/ Another day has begun;/ The seasons keep on changin’;/ One more circle round the sun;/ And life goes on’/ And the clock keeps tickin’.

All of which cornucopia of music is underpinned by songs learned in childhood, which are devised to help youngsters learn to ‘tell’ the time. ‘Tick, tock, tick, tock, merrily sings the clock’, runs one, soothingly. Another called The Clock explains helpfully that ‘There’s a neat little clock/ In the schoolroom its stands/ And it points to the time,/ With its two little hands’.  .

Above all, too, there’s the much-loved classic Hickory-Dickory-Dock (first recorded in print, 1744). It reports solemnly that: ‘The mouse ran up the clock;/ The clock struck one;/ The mouse ran down’. And then it proceeds, verse by verse, with many variant wordings, through all the remaining hours on the dial, from two to twelve. It provides a very cheery way for kids to lean not just to count consecutively but also to appreciate that the clock operates with a twelve-hour sequence, as humans measure out time in hours and minutes, counted rhythmically: Tick, tock!

By the way, how children today will learn to tell the time from looking at digital timepieces is a new challenge. But it’s highly likely that traditionally entertaining and instructive songs like ‘Hickory-Dickory-Dock’ will survive in the repertoire.

One last thought: very few of these songs, whether aimed at adults or at kids, venture into the philosophy of time. The group Chicago in 1969 once sang to pose the question (written for them by Robert Lamm): Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is? The song then enquired: ‘Does anyone really care?’ before adding, accurately enough: ‘We’ve all got time enough to die.’ It therefore concluded, with some bravado: ‘I don’t care (about time), Oh no, no’. But that response evaded the big question – actually: ‘What is Time?’

Well, not many philosophers or scientists can answer that succinctly,3 let alone song-lyricists. But the versatile entertainer Billy Porter does offer one haunting song under that title (1997). And it ends with a positive appeal for us all to share joy and love: ‘For all we know/ All we have/ Is time’. Tick tock! Where’s that mouse?

ENDNOTES:

1 For further song references, see P.J. Corfield, Time-Space: We Are All in it Together (London, 2025), p. 245 – Index ‘Songs about Time’.

2 See A. Marvell (1621-78), The Complete Poems, ed. E.S. Donno (1972).

3 For introductions to a complex theme, see G.J. Whitrow, What is Time? (1972); and T. Wyller, What is Time? An Enquiry (2020).

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MONTHLY BLOG 176, CAN WE FIND A GREAT STATUE TO A FEMALE GOD OF TIME?

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Fig.176.1
British Museum statue of Kali,
Hindu goddess of Time & Destruction:
see https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/feminine-power-welcoming-new-goddess-kali-icon
(viewed 28/7/25)

Thinking about Time is as endless and as fascinating a process as is unfolding Time itself.1 And it is a real challenge to depict such a universal cosmic power, Often Temporality is depicted in male form, as in the case of Old Father Time.2 He can be kindly or menacing or both. And he appears on countless weather-vanes, heralding either good weather or bad. Yet it would be good also to have some female input into images of majestic Temporality. So let’s see if we can find a statue to female god of Time.

It turns out that there are various goddesses in a variety of globally different cultures, who are associated with aspects of Time.  Much the most famous and the most dreaded is Kali (also Kalika) in traditional Hinduism.3 She is associated with Time and also with Death and Destruction. She is a dominant force. Hence statues to this deity often portray her with one foot majestically placed upon a prone figure who lies inertly before her. He represents the supreme god, Lord Shiva – and, according to some variants of the story, Kali kills him in her destructive fury – but then realises what she has done and breathes life back into him again. And she calms down, halting her frenzy.

Kali is usually presented as young, lithe, active, full of energy. She has four (sometimes more) arms. Her great power can be benign; and in some versions of Hinduism Kali is worshipped as the Divine Mother. Yet at the same time, her energy and fire can destroy. If enraged or opposed, Kali has no inhibitions about unleashing her powers. Yet the implication is that she is targeting evil forces, rather than simply destroying things for the sake of destruction. Kali is therefore not an evil figure in herself, though she can be a vengeful and terrifying one.

There are very many variants to the forms of Kali-worship, some stressing her benevolent powers, others stressing her darker side. That is shown in the second image shown here (see Fig. 176.2). Kali is still distinctly female, lither and active. But she also carries a scythe; is adorned with skulls; holds in one hand a severed head; and protrudes her tongue, in reference to the legendary account of how she defeated a malevolent male demon. His nefarious powers were such that he raised a fresh crop of demons every time his blood dropped onto the ground. Kali counter-attacked by herself lapping up every drop of his spilt blood. It was a clever but also frightening manoeuvre, signalling her unstinting resolve allied with ultimate power.

Fig. 176.2 Cast bronze statue of the Goddess Kali, the Destroyer of Evil Forces & Divine Protector –
Made by the Veronese Design Company (2019):
see https://veronesedesigns.com/.

Well, all thoroughly fascinating and thought-provoking. But is the dynamic power of Kali quite the same as the cosmic universality of Time? Of course, it can be claimed, quite truthfully that Time both creates and destroys. Yet Time unfolds daily, whilst always remaining the same. It thus constitutes not only each and every fleeting moment but, simultaneously, the very long term, verging on eternity.

All that is supremely hard to express visually. It’s too huge, too complicated, too strange, too …. unique! So, just as there are very few good jokes about Time,4 so there are very few successful statuesque images – whether male or female. Indeed, why should a statue of Time have any specific gender identity? Time is male, female, and, equally, sexless.

So my final answer, when people ask if they can see Time for themselves, is to say that we all can – and very easily too. Just look at the cosmos – whether close at hand, or in the far distant galaxies. All of these are the handiwork of Time, which is linked integrally with Time-Space. All humans too, down to the last wrinkle and grey hairs … After all (to repeat my own summary statement) Time is the dynamo; Space (and all within it) its physical manifestation.

ENDNOTES:

1 For further thoughts on the nature of Time, see P.J. Corfield, Time-Space: We Are All in it Together (London, 2025), esp. pp. 93-162.

2 BLOG/175 (July 2025) in PJC 2025 Time-series: www.penelopejcorfield.com/monthly-blogs/175.

3 See variously S. Harshananda, Hindu Gods and Goddesses (1981); A. Mookeriee, Kali: The Feminine Force (1988); F.W. Bunce (ed.), A Dictionary of Buddhist and Hindu Iconography (1997); and S. Mohanty, The Book of Kali (2009).

4 BLOG/171 (March 2025) in PJC 2025 Time-series:www.penelopejcorfield.com/monthly-blogs/171.

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MONTHLY BLOG 175, TIME IN ART: IS THERE ANY ALTERNATIVE TO ‘OLD FATHER TIME’?

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Fig.171.1 ‘Old Father Time’
weathercock

‘Old Father Time’ appears on many weathercocks, as in Fig.1. He is venerable, stooped, and bearded. He carries an hour-glass to track the minutes in its trickling sands, as he walks the long, long, endless line of Time. He also shoulders a scythe, because eventually he brings death to all living creatures.

Sometimes, at midnight festivities on New Year’s Eve, a variant symbolism is used. A venerable old man leaves the room, and a tiny baby is handed in. The change-over symbolises the end of one twelve-month span – and the start of the next. But ‘New Baby Time’ has not won any great cultural resonance, because its youth – like Time itself – is fleeting. Some images of this change-over show the old man as glum, because he is departing (theoretically) for good, whilst the baby is shown as chortling gleefully. But Time, of course, is steadily ageing the baby, day by day. And a year later, the baby will be replaced by a newer, younger model at the following New Year’s Eve.

Generally, the required look for all forms of venerable temporality is stern, if not outright morose. By the way, the former Wychwood Brewery in Witney (Oxfordshire) used to brew a beer named ‘Old Father Time’. Its bottle displayed the head/shoulders of a bushy-bearded elderly man, looking piercingly intent and cradling close to him a young child.2 He is not quite smiling. But he looks benign enough (and I hope that the beer was great).

After all, there is no reason why ‘Old Father Time’ should not smile occasionally, as he trudges through the millennia of cosmic existence. A not-quite-identical figure appeared in classical Chinese cosmology. He represented not Time itself but the power of survival through time. He was the god Shou-lao, whose name means ‘Old Longevity’.

As Fig 2 shows, he is seen as a rubicund and imposing male figure.3 He has a high-domed forehead; he is dressed in flowing robes; he smiles cheerily; and he holds in one hand a peach, which symbolises Long Life (or even, according to some translations, Immortality) and, in the other, a gourd containing the so-called Elixir of Life. Interestingly, Shou-lao was/is not a god who was worshipped in temples. He was/is a household divinity – and, not surprisingly, a popular one.

175.2 Chinese god Shou-lao ‘Old Longevity’,
in eighteenth-century figurinefrom the Qing dynasty
© Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, 2025

Classical Greek mythology also had an eminent and antique male embodiment of Time. He was Chronos. He appears as tall, winged, imposing, sombre – and sometimes but not invariably carrying a scythe. But there was a youthful option as well. He was Kairos, a mythical god – not just of the fleeting moment, but of the ‘right’ or critical moment.4 That refers to the key moment when someone is poised between decision and action: This is it! Let’s go for it! So this god is depicted with four wings, two at his heels as well as on his shoulders. And he carries a pair of scales as he balances the pros and cons of a given course of action. Kairos is physically poised and ready! And his message: Strike while the iron is hot! Don’t miss your moment!

175.3 Image of Kairos, the god of action at the right or critical moment, in classical Greek mythology:
© (2025) stone bas-relief of Kairos following model by Lysippus, second century BCE, in Turin Museum of Greco-Roman Art.

Other than that, artworks depicting Time frequently resort to images of time-pieces, such as clocks or hour-glasses. Or to images of skulls – or, sometimes, to images of clocks and skulls together,

Characteristically, however, painters prefer less abstract and more immediate subject for their artistry. And their customers and patrons also prefer images that are more cheering than perpetual reminders of death and the passing of Time. These big themes have triggered a huge mythology;5 but such themes seem to be best expressed in stories rather than in visual images.

I personally do very much enjoy the image of Kairos. And the potent reminder that there is a right (as well as a wrong) moment for action. Nonetheless, I must admit that I also yearn to see a female embodiment of Time. Not as a fighting Amazon: too bellicose. Not as a matronly Earth-Mother: too cosy and predictable. But as something much more creative and unusual and worthy of the great cosmic power of Time … Any suggestions, anyone?

ENDNOTES:

1 Another BLOG in my 2025 Time series, to mark publication of PJC, Time-Space: We Are All in it Together (Austin Macauley: London, 2025).

2 https://untappd.com/b/wychwood-brewery-old-father-time/1971408 (viewed 30 June 2025).

3 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/47916 (viewed 30 June 2025).

4 See B.M.P.T. Baert, ‘Kairos: The Right Moment or Occasion’, (2020), posted in website of the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study, https://www.ias.edu/ideas/baert-kairos (viewed 30 June 2025).

5 See e.g. L.D. Deutsch, Mythologies of Time and Timelessness (2019); S. Nandakumar, Myths of Time (2022).

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MONTHLY BLOG 174, HOW DOES INCREASING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT FUTURE TIMES IMPACT UPON THE ART OF PROPHECY?1

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How does Increasing Knowledge about Future Times impact upon The Art Of Prophecy?

Copyright © Pinterest 2025

Humans learn from the past – and, sometimes, they gain immediate and urgent knowledge in the present too. But they cannot learn directly from the future that has not yet unfolded. That reality has not, however, prevented people from trying hard to look ahead. They can forecast; they can predict; they can prophecy; they can forewarn; and, yes, they can also calculate.2

The future, after all, is far from completely unknowable in broad outline. Thus, as long as the current cosmos survives, it will contain deep continuities (the basic principles of science will continue to hold) as well as gradual changes (animal species will continue their slow evolution), alongside drastic upheavals (volcanoes will erupt; earthquakes shake the ground; tsunamis sweep across seas and land; avalanches crash downhill; violent hurricanes and tornadoes spread devastation).

More specifically, too, various scientific experts can make detailed predictions. For example, astronomers predict the return into view from Planet Earth of some (though not all) interplanetary comets. Thus Halley’s Comet, which humans could last see in 1986, is predicted to become visible again in mid-2061, given that its orbit brings it relatively close to Earth approximately every 75-77 years.3 And, as for forecasting near-at-hand solar and lunar eclipses, well, astronomers can do that without even breaking sweat.

Deep-Space scientists also track the approach of asteroids. With their help, Earthlings will, hopefully, get good notice before the advent of the next big strike and can take preventive action. In that way, they can avoid the fate of the dinosaurs, when an asteroid strike 66 million years ago hit the Yucatan Peninsula – immediately annihilating many dinosaurs and then fatally devastating their habitats.4

Demographers meanwhile can calculate changes in the mean expectation of life among humans – with detailed breakdowns for people living in different regions of the globe. They also confirm that, while in healthy, well-fed societies, very many people today are living into ripe old age, there is a biological limit. A number of people been validated as living past the age of 110 years; but only one to date has survived past the age of 120. (She was Jeanne Calment of France, who died at the age of 122 years and 164 days).5 Certainly impressive. However, at the same time, demographers agree that it is unlikely that human lifespans will rise at all significantly beyond that boundary – even with the latest technological aids. We are mortals, with a distinctly finite lifespan.

Added to those examples, there are other fields where good, reliable data from the past can help people to make informed predictions about the future. In economics, analysts can make predictions about what will be the likely impact of (say) tax cuts; or tariff wars. Similarly, doctors make informed assessments of the progress of a patient’s illness. Meteorologists study past weather patterns in order to issue daily weather forecasts. Some bold scientists predict how developing technology will impact upon people’s future lives one hundred years hence.6 And so forth.

These forecasts are not always right, down to the very last detail. Sometimes, indeed – though not very often – informed predictions can turn out to be completely wrong. Yet together all these assessments and calculations mean that the future is not completely unknown territory. People can make their own judgements on these forecasts, and plan accordingly.

Prophets therefore risk getting crowded out of the field. The men and women, who gaze intently into the future to make predictions, are not projecting their thoughts onto a blank canvas. Future times are studded with scientifically predicted events. A prophet’s audience today will not gape with wonder, as an equivalent audience might have done two thousand years ago – or even more so two million years ago. Prophecy today is at a discount.

Take future sporting events. People like to know or guess who will triumph. But today there’s no need to call upon the services of a prophet or soothsayer. There are racing tipsters galore; as well as countless sporting commentators who give informed advice.

Or take passing examinations. It would be nice to know the result in advance. But it’s not hard to realise that the best way to do well is to revise seriously, rather than to run round the corner to consult a prophet. (And for those examination candidates who don’t grasp that truth, there are plenty of earnest tutors to tell them – repeatedly).

And then there’s success in matters of the heart. It can be exciting to be told by an exotic lady, gazing into a crystal ball, that you are about to be courted by a tall, dark and handsome stranger. Yet it’s also well to recall that there are many permutations to courtship. The handsome stranger might be a passionate lover … or a deceitful love-rat … or a wily financial scammer with eyes for nothing but your money. Love by all means – but keep your wits about you!

So what about the really big deal: prophecies about the end of the world … or at least the end of Planet Earth? These have by no means disappeared.7 Currently one Christian theologian predicts the end of Planet Earth in 2026, as the result of a collision with a giant asteroid. However, another theologian, this time an Islamist, declares that the end will not come before 2129.8 But these days such announcements do not command mass attention.

By contrast, there was in the early 1840s an extensive (though not universal) panic about the imminent End among sundry Christian communities in Britain and the USA. It was triggered by a prophetic warning from the American William Miller, a charismatic Baptist preacher. He used not only sermons but also posters and newsletters to announce that Christ’s Second Coming was due between March 1843 and March 1844. Nothing then happened. So Miller switched the date to 22 October 1844. Such specificity had impact. Numerous families in the USA sold up their homes and businesses, retreating to the mountains and stocking up with food to survive the coming Apocalypse.

What followed, however, was termed ‘the Great Disappointment’. Christ did not re-appear. Most followers were disillusioned. Yet a small number of true believers founded the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which is now a flourishing international community. Its members consider that, even if one specific prediction was wrong, the core prophecy remains true – meaning that it is still vital to be spiritually prepared.9

Since then, no End-of-World prophecy has had anything like that impact. As already noted, such forecasts still continue. Yet today they remain culturally niche, not mainstream. Immediately, there is the climate crisis which threatens the life of humans (and of numerous other species) on Planet Earth, rather than the survival of the entire cosmos. That should be enough to concentrate attention in the here-and-now. As for the very long term, there’s still a lot of Time to unfold. Scientists calculate that locally our sun has at least 5 billion years to continue shining.10 So if End-Time prophets don’t want to disillusion their followers, they should choose a cosmic end-date in the suitably far distant future. Meanwhile, today’s Earthlings already have a big planet-sized problem to resolve together.

ENDNOTES:

1 Another BLOG in my 2025 series, to mark publication of PJC, Time-Space: We Are All in it Together (Austin Macauley: London, 2025).

2 With thanks to Martina Cali and all the lively and thoughtful participants at the Antwerp Conference on Time on 15 November 2024, and especially to the organiser Jeroen Puttevils.

3 P. Lancaster-Brown, Halley and his Comet (1985); D.K. Yeomans, Comets: A Chronological History, of Observation, Science, Myth and Folklore (1991).

4 See variously A. Milne, Fate of the Dinosaurs: New Perspectives in Evolution and Extinction (1991); D. Preston, ‘The Day the Dinosaurs Died’, in The New Yorker (2019): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died.

5 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_people (viewed 24 May 2025).

6 M. Kaku. Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (2011).

7 See e.g. S. Browne, The Other Side and Back: A Psychic’s Guide to Our World and Beyond (1999); idem, Prophecy: What the Future Holds for You (2004); and idem, End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies about the End of the World (2008).

8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events (viewed 25 May 2025).

9 E.R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930 (1978); R.L. Numbers and J.M. Butler (eds), The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the Nineteenth Century (1993); and D.L. Rowe, God’s Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World (2008).

10 G. Gamow. The Birth and Death of the Sun (1940; revised 1952).

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MONTHLY BLOG 173, IS THERE A MESSAGE TO BE LEARNED FROM THE MANY SAYINGS ABOUT TIME??

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‘Time and tide wait for no man’. ‘Time flies’. ‘Lost time is never found again’. ‘Time is of the essence’. ‘Every second counts’. ‘Do not put off to tomorrow what you can do today.’ ‘You may delay, but Time will not’ …

Wait a moment! Is there some message here? Sayings about Time abound; and they are mostly designed to make everyone aware that Time is fleeting by, moment by inexorable moment. Shakespeare (who else?) had a good phrase for it. Ever-speeding temporality is characterised as ‘cormorant, devouring Time’.

No use answering with rival dicta, such as ‘Time drags’; ‘Time crawls’; ‘Time lasts for ever’. Such alternative views don’t cut the mustard in Time-conscious urbanised societies, where clocks, watches and digital time-pieces abound and where life is closely timetabled.

Over very many generations, human have worked at measuring the passage of Time – and at communicating the result to the surrounding population. Clocks chime; church-bells ring; alarms go off noisily.

Many are the wise pronouncements that also confirm the immense value of fleeting temporality. ‘Time is the most valuable resource, given to everyone’. It is simultaneously a ‘grand Instructor’; the ‘greatest innovator’; the ‘greatest physician’. No surprise that it is also ‘precious’. Moreover, it can also act as an ‘avenger’ and a ‘reaper’. It has god-like powers.

Therefore there are numerous sayings that advise people to use their time well. ‘Take Time by the forelock’, runs one ancient adage. ‘Better three hours too soon than a minute too late’ (Shakespeare again). ‘Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have – and only you can determine how it will be spent.  Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you!’ Classically, too: ‘Time is money’. Manage it wisely. Indeed, ‘until we can manage Time, we can manage nothing else’. And some quotations are pessimistic. ‘Time is what we want most but use worst!’

So can we get a grip on this elusive, powerful and at times chameleon-like cosmic phenomenon? It’s a great challenge, renewed daily. And the outcome? Well, another saying gives the best answer:‘Only Time will tell’.

ENDNOTES:
1 Another BLOG in my 2025 series, to mark publication of  PJC, Time-Space: We Are All in it Together (Austin Macauley: London, 2025).

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