The African paradigm of time. Attitude towards time among the peoples dwelling to the south of Sahara

Abstract

This article attempts a philosophical anthropological and ethnopsychological analysis of the algorithms of time perception among the African peoples dwelling to the south of Sahara, considering time both in its role as an objective condition of their existence and a fundamental element of traditional consciousness, and from the viewpoint of their attitudes toward it which can be observed in the structure of their individual and group daily activity. The author argues that while the Western mentality tends to lean towards a rational understanding of the place of man in the world (both nature and society) which undergoes change with time, the “Eastern” mentality is rather inclined to grasp the reflection of an evolving local nature and society within the particular person's mind and body in an altogether sensual manner, “switching off” the social time as it is known in the Western culture. All this casts doubt on the idea, implicitly transmitted by both academic humanities and mass culture, of the universality of Eurocentric intellectual stereotypes which permeate Modern Age philosophy with its predominant attention to man's instrumental and logical communication with the natural and social environment under the strict temporal normalization of all life activities. In the 'natural' civilizations of the East, on the contrary, mass mentality is much more influenced by the internal psychological unity of the temporally perpetual traditional society in the face of the external world, both natural and social. Such unity carries an enormous potential of social passionarity.