Efficiency: time is money

If there is anything that warms the American heart, it’s efficiency. Henry Ford was long regarded as a hero for, of all things, inventing the assembly line. The assembly line reduced workers to cogs of machinery and made their jobs unutterably boring, but it produced goods fast.

“Time is money,” we say. Nothing is more American than the supermarket. Food is prepackaged, and shopping is impersonal, but the efficiency of the operation produces lower prices and less shopping time. The food’s lack of tastiness has not created much customer resistance.

Fast-food operations calculate sharply ways of saving a few seconds in the time each customer must wait. The customer will choose the one that can serve his hamburger and Coke in 60, rather than 90, seconds.

We show little forbearance if our time is wasted. A chatty bank teller whose line is moving slowly will cause great dismay. The people waiting in line are not inclined to chat. The important business while waiting is to be ready to move forward instantly when the line does, and to be prepared to dispatch one’s business in the least amount of time possible. If you should reach the head of the bank line before you remember to make out a deposit slip, and the whole line must wait while you do so, you will be looked on with disfavor.

Time waits for no man

According to anthropologist Edward T. Hall, we are a monochronic culture, meaning we operate according to schedules, doing one thing at a time. Sticking to the schedule is more important than the human interruptions to it. When the bell rings, the class is over, no matter how interesting the discussion at that moment.

In a polychronic culture, on the other hand, many things are happening at once. It doesn’t matter if you’re late for an appointment because you’re only going to join the ongoing flow of business, none more pressing than the personal. Even if not much at all is happening, nobody cares. Life is not destination bound as it is with us.

There are Asian countries at least as efficient as the USA, but vast parts of the world cannot conceive of our concept of time. Time is all-important to us. We think of ourselves as people who are going places. Tomorrow is not going to be like today. Tomorrow we’d like to be “a ways” down the road, and speed is going to get us there, not standing around chatting.

Consequently, we have come to see only practical and profitable activity as truly valuable. “How has so Spartan a philosophy descended on an age that hoped to make machines do all the useful work while man enjoyed his leisure?” asked Walter Kerr in his book, The Decline of Pleasure.

A good question. An American often lacks the capacity to enjoy his achievements. We find more satisfaction in acquiring the trappings of the leisure life than in leisure itself. Activity - rather than family or community - gives us our identities, and very few people are able to rest on their laurels. The Puritan values still dominate.

THE NO-STATUS SOCIETY

In a status society, people learn their places and gain some dignity and security from having a place in the social order. Americans, however, are taught not to recognize their places and to constantly assert themselves. This can manifest itself in positive ways - hard work, clever ideas - but also in ongoing dissatisfaction.

As an American is always striving to change his lot, he never fully identifies with any group. We have no expressions such as in China where “the fat pig gets slaughtered,” or in Japan, where “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Here, everybody is trying to stick out, which limits closeness between people. We say, “It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.” According to Alan Roland, author of In Search of Self in India and Japan, in the United States “a militant individualism has been combined with enormous social mobility,” leaving very little group identity.

Roland psychoanalyzed Americans, Indians, and Japanese and discovered that the two Asian cultures had no concept of the strong inner separation from others that is characteristic of Americans. Because our society is so competitive, we feel in the end that we can only rely on ourselves.

This freedom from the group has enabled the American to become “Economic Man” - one directed almost purely by the profit motive, mobile and unencumbered by family or community obligations. It’s a personality type well suited to national development, but one that leads to identity problems for the individual himself.

“Identity is the number one national problem here,” writes Eva Hoffman, the Polish-born author of Lost in Translation.“Many of my American friends feel they don’t have enough of it. They often I eel worthless or they don’t know how they feel.”

But to someone who feels oppressed in another culture, American life can look wonderful. “Americans have a blank check, on which I hey can write anything they want,” concluded one foreigner after ion years here.

DISCONTENT

If you can never be content with your station, you are never satisfied. The idea of equality is an inspiration, but people can be tricked by it. No success is good enough. Not everybody can reach the top, and those who don’t blame themselves.

A status society teaches that every place is worthy; in ours none is. The fear of failure in itself arouses widespread insecurity. Failure in this society is more shameful than poverty in a status society because failure is assumed to be a person’s own fault.

THE STATUS SEEKERS

“I just wanted to find a place where I would be accepted,” said an East German who is happily settled in San Francisco. He is delighted that you don’t have to be a doctor to be treated with respect and that people don’t care who your father is. But the myth of equality should not fool anyone into thinking that America doesn’t have a class system.

What makes our class system different from most is its fluidity; penetration at most levels is possible for nearly anyone with enough money. Equipped with the money, one can acquire the taste, style, and ideas that mark each class and launch a quick ascent of the social ladder.

There do exist a few clubs, societies, and debutante balls which require old money for entry. People whose families were among the early arrivals in America like to have it known, but in point of fact, such lineage doesn’t mean much (politicians prefer to advertise their humble beginnings), and one’s level in society can be - like so many other things in American life - determined by one’s own efforts. (Of course, few people actually do go from the bottom to the top. Most of the jockeying around is for levels in the middle class.) One must speak correct English to progress upward socially, but correct English is not nearly as hard to learn as correct Japanese. There are certain accents that will take you further than others, but few leave a person out of the running altogether.

Money is the key to social position, and it is nearly impossible to be upper class without it (with the possible exception of Southern aristocrats). Thus the seriousness of money. If I make a lot of money, I can drive a Mercedes, buy a big house, and join a country club. I will be accepted, not just because I have the money, but because the money proves that I have performed in society at a high level. If I am truly socially ambitious, and have enough money to give large amounts to prestigious charities, I can hire a promoter who will guide me in an assault on high society.

Foreigners find Americans terribly materialistic, but they often Tail to understand the important symbolic value of money. Money demonstrates success and shows the world that I have lived up to my promise.