Letting Time Go

Let's talk about Edward T. Hall, why White People can't dance, and panhandling!

Why does panhandling seem wrong to so many of us? I'm going to go out on a limb here and propose that it feels wrong for the same reason that moving more than the feet to music feels wrong to straight White men over fifty: our parents never taught us to do things like that.

My parents said there's a time and place for everything, and they were very specific. Edward T. Hall, a cultural anthropologist, came up with a pair of words to describe the results of these kinds of teachings. He identifies two broad categories of styles of cultures, the monochronic and polychronic, arising from two ways of relating to time. White American/Northern European cultures express monochronic styles. The rest of the world, pre-MacDonalds, have generally been polychronic.

Monochronic styles require one-thing-at-a-time. Polychronic styles allow and expect lots-of-things-at-once. In monochronic cultures there's only one time. Your watch has your time. In polychronic cultures they may not even have a word for time. Talking about when something will or should happen may be wildly inappropriate.

How can this affect our panhandling behavior? (Note: By panhandling behavior we are talking not just about panhandlers but also panhandlees!) Let's say you're White, your name is Chris, you're walking to work, and as you pass the MacDonalds another White Person holds up a cardboard sign saying "Hungry/homeless, please help" and sticks out a Styrofoam cup. What might you think, Chris?

Well if you're like me, Chris, you think, "Hey, this is my walking time!" You think, "I didn't come out here to give my money away. I do that at the appropriately designated times. I give to United Way at the office. I pay my taxes every April." You think, "This person isn't supposed to get money now. They haven't just completed work. That's the time you're supposed to get money. Don't they know that?"

It's just like when White People first saw Chuck Berry dancing on a stage. "You can't move that body part like that now! You have to wait until you're in bed alone with a woman!" So over the years it has been necessary for African-American musicians to slowly, step by step, introduce White People to more and more movement, a project that began with the Twist and gradually proceeded through the Funky Chicken, Disco, culminating to date in whatever it is that Britney Spears does.

Now let's imagine someone from an unspecified polychronic culture. Still walking to work, let's say his name is Rongo Diego Yoko M!fumi, and another representative of his same culture appears, panhandling. Same sign, same Styrofoam cup. What does Rongo think?

The answer can vary from one polychronic culture to another -- Mr. Hall's categories are very broad -- but here are some possibilities: "Sure why not? My money came from everyone and so it belongs to everyone." Or, "I'm sure that if this fine person had money, and I needed some, he/she would help me. People have always helped me." "Maybe we could go have a coffee and sandwiches somewhere and talk. I can go to work tomorrow." "I feel like dancing." "Whoa, look at all those stiff White People staring at us."

To Chris, we work and THEN we deserve pay. To Rongo, we can always be deserving. "Work? Sure we do that. We give, we take, we work, we rest. What's the problem?"

Do you know for a fact that the panhandler HASN'T worked? What if the panhandler worked years for an exploitative employer who paid him less than what his work was worth? Now you have extra change in your pocket. Could that mean you've been paid too much lately? You could help to even things out. Or you could hurry to work, letting the universe run by itself, like a clock that never has to be wound, even though there are people stuck in it.