Modern transport shifts orientation from space to time

Evidence

The driver locates himself not by using the passing landscape, but rather the abstract symbols on the side of the road or even on the display of his GPS device. In this sense, the fundamental modern experience of the “annihilation of space” has a real basis. Finally, whoever flies completely breaks loose from the topographical space of life and the surface of the earth. For him, space is only an abstract, empty distance measured by the duration of the flight. Instead of struggling to overcome the difficulties of space, the modern traveler fights against the clock because he has to make connecting flights and keep appointments. Here too we see the priority of space as an orienting dimension turned into a priority of time, at least as concerns the planning of action and the appearance of hindrances. Quite often space becomes in a literal sense a function of time: where someone is depends on what time it is, whereas the converse no longer holds. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 309

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: By 1838 Europeans already conceived of space as a function of travel time — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 307; Maps transformed village-centered sacred space into abstract conquerable space — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 305; Crossing into human time transforms fragmented space into coherent place. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 2015 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Three mechanisms drive modernity’s dynamism and process of time-space distanciation #expands (0.82) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 131
• Pan-movements arose from shrinking geographic distances that made continental thinking urgent #expands (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2426
• Crossing into human time transforms fragmented space into coherent place. #complicates (0.78) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 2015
• The time-zone grid ignores geography and embodies imperial control #corroborates (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 850