Time Consciousness and the Role of Dominant Myths

Having been a fan of both Brian Eno (see "Stars: the Consciousness of Cool," below) and Stewart Brand since the '70s, I was surprised to learn that the two had come together in the '90s, collaborating on the project described in Brand's book of the same name: The Clock of the Long Now.

Here we find Eno master of time as well as space. Brand credits Eno with coining "the long now," which, says Eno, extends "our concept of the present in both directions, making the present longer" (29). Then Brand and Eno take the long now into the realm of myth, for The Clock of the Long Now, with its associated 10,000-Year Library,

aims for the mythic depth to become, as Brian Eno puts it, "one of those system-level ideas which sets in motion all sorts of behavior without ever having to be referred to directly again. This is what dominant myths do: they make some sorts of behavior ring with recognition and familiarity and value and a sense of goodness, and thus lay deep templates for social cohesion about what would otherwise be very hard-to-discuss topics." (49)

Or as James P. Carse would say in Finite and Infinite Games:

• “We resonate with myth when it resounds in us.”
• “Myths, told for their own sake, are not stories that have meanings, but stories that give meanings.”
• “Whole civilizations rise from stories—and can rise from nothing else.”

Just imagine what kind of civilization might arise from the myth of a long now...