{"id":46107,"date":"2019-06-21T00:59:11","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T00:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/"},"modified":"2019-06-21T00:59:11","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T00:59:11","slug":"this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"This Island in Norway May Scrap the Entire Concept of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was just a matter of time before someone challenged, uh, the entire concept of human-made time.<\/p>\n

A campaign on the Norwegian island of Sommar\u00f8y argues that structuring the small fishing village\u2019s society around clocks is irrelevant. This is because Sommar\u00f8y sits north of the Arctic Circle, where the sun doesn\u2019t set for 69 days in the summer, and it doesn\u2019t rise for 69 days in the winter. The phenomena are known as polar day and polar night, respectively.<\/p>\n

The campaign, called Time-Free Zone, wants to scrap the town\u2019s reliance on civil time, a type of time measurement based on dividing the sun\u2019s movement across the sky into 24-hour periods. In other words, the kind of time our household clocks or wristwatches use.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll over the world, people are characterized by stress and depression,\u201d the Time-Free Zone\u2019s campaign leader, Kjell Ove Hveding, told a Norwegian broadcaster, according to the Independent<\/em><\/u><\/a>. \u201cIn many cases, this can be linked to the feeling of being trapped, and here the clock plays a role. We will be a time-free zone where everyone can live their lives to the fullest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hveding clarified that even if the campaign succeeds, people will still go to work or to school. Government offices will continue to operate, too. The only difference is, particularly during the polar nights and days, residents would feel freer to go about their daily activities without worrying about the rigid expectations that stem from civil time. <\/p>\n

For instance, businesses could remain open for as long as they wish during the summer months. In the winter, schools could schedule classes according to what\u2019s practical rather than how a clock\u2019s ticks are divided.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to provide full flexibility, 24\/7,\u201d he continued. \u201cIf you want to cut the lawn at 4 AM, then you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Time-Free Zone argues that it\u2019s high time to eliminate Sommar\u00f8y\u2019s clocks (at least during the polar day and night periods), the campaign\u2019s goals are largely symbolic. In reality, the residents of the small fishing village already mow their lawns at 4 AM in the summer, or they play soccer in \u201cthe middle of the night, which city folk might call \u20182 AM,\u2019\u201d Hveding said.<\/p>\n

There could be another, more capitalistic element to the campaign\u2019s cheeky platform. Besides fishing, the town\u2019s economy revolves around another industry: tourism.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the tourism industry, it is great that Sommar\u00f8y wants to be a time-free zone,\u201d travel agent Chris Hudson told NRK<\/em><\/u><\/a> [Note: The NRK article was published in Norwegian, and the quote here is a translation]<\/em>. \u201cIf this is a stunt, in a positive sense, it helps to build sustainable tourism\u201d in the region. After all, who doesn\u2019t want to get a tan at midnight?<\/p>\n

Scrapping the idea of time may sound cool to nihilists or perpetual procrastinators such as myself, but could any community \u2014 regardless of its proximity to the Arctic Circle \u2014 realistically abandon civil time? In that regard, the Time-Free Zone campaign may need to take a time-out, suggested Truls Egiul Wyller, a philosophy professor who specializes in cultural conceptions of time.<\/p>\n

Wyller noted that the modern world\u2019s obsessive obedience to civil time is a relatively new occurrence in human history. Other cultures in the past (and some still, to this day) didn\u2019t use clocks to dictate when they woke up, went to sleep, or ate.<\/p>\n

Eradicating civil time \u201cmeans that one has to cut a lot of the connections to the global, outside world that lives in clock-time,\u201d Wyller told NRK<\/em><\/u><\/a>. \u201cI’m not going to say it’s impossible to pull an island out of the global clock, but it sounds very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real question, though, is if Time-Free Zone gets its way, when will tokers in Sommar\u00f8y know when it\u2019s 4:20? I guess only time will tell.<\/p>\n

Follow Randy Robinson on<\/em> Twitter<\/em><\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the island of Sommar\u00f8y pulls this off, when will residents know if it\u2019s 4:20?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3035],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Island in Norway May Scrap the Entire Concept of Time - Merry Jane<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Island in Norway May Scrap the Entire Concept of Time - Merry Jane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If the island of Sommar\u00f8y pulls this off, when will residents know if it\u2019s 4:20?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Merry Jane\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-21T00:59:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/1561078775120_meltingclocks__SQUARE.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1118\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"MJ Staff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"MJ Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"MJ Staff\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b90d5b22bd5e702cf8cbd8e406675f7b\"},\"headline\":\"This Island in Norway May Scrap the Entire Concept of Time\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-06-21T00:59:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-21T00:59:11+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/\"},\"wordCount\":660,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/1561078775120_meltingclocks__SQUARE.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"CULTURE\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-island-in-norway-may-scrap-the-entire-concept-of-time\/\",\"name\":\"This Island in Norway May Scrap the Entire Concept of Time - 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