The Benedictine Ethic and the Modern Spirit of Scheduling: on Schedules and Social Organization*

This paper examines the role of schedules in social life. It first explains why both the schedule and the clock were introduced to the West through the Benedictine monasteries. Then it brings into focus the main principle underlying the schedule, namely temporal regularity, which involves the standardization of the temporal locations of events and activities and of their rates of recurrence, as well as the rigidification of their durations and sequential structures. Following a discussion of the constraints as well as the conveniences involved in using the schedule, it also examines two other implications of its introduction to the West–an abstract conception and a utilitarian philosophy of time. It ends with a discussion of the role of the schedule in enhancing both mechanical and organic solidarity.