On Societies, Standards, Time and Energy

As often happens when I travel, especially in less familiar destinations and, typically on my own, I make various cultural observations that lead to potential research ideas.

The following two reflections were gleaned during my couple weeks of travel in Albania, a very new country for me. I’d love your thoughts and any feedback (as usual, including disagreements and doubts) on the following.

A

First one is less philosophical and more economic. I noticed that in several countries (we can call them ‘developing’, though i am not too fond of this sloppy broad term, so open for alternatives) you often find that advertisements or, especially, shop signs, mention other countries as indication of superior quality or standard. Few examples: in Albania, it either German Standard or American Standard; in Israel, when I was growing up, it was common to see American standard or quality used and in Philippines I saw the term Japanese standard used. It is often used in the context of house hold structures such as bathrooms or kitchens.

What’s interesting is to identify when such ‘standard indicators’ disappear or fade-away and which factors relate to this process. For example, in today’s Israel, it is much rarer to find a store sing saying ‘American Standard’. An obvious hypothesis would tie the fading-away of these labels to the improved economic conditions in a country. But i think there may be more than that involved; that is, a sort of national maturity or self-confidence in one’s products and their quality where it is not beneficial anymore to indicate a foreign higher standard to reassure consumers.

I started toying with the idea and musing on how can one assess the changes in using such labels; a type of archival method, maybe? Ideally… one would be able to track changes in shops’ fronts but this is tricky. Next best may be newspapers/media based study. What do you think?

B

The second musing is deeper and more philosophical in nature. I observe that nations and societies prioritise actions and decisions whether to engage in certain work and service-related actions along two dimensions that are, often (though maybe not necessarily) competing with each other.

One dimension is that of time: how long does it take to do something? Efficiency is measured by the time it takes to accomplish something, such as getting from point A to point B. In societies where time units have a high value people are ready to pay for (or, in their minds, invest in) means and actions that would shorten the time they spend. An example from travel is taking a taxi that costs 12 times more than a local bus in order to save 20-30 minutes.

The second dimension I’d term ‘energy’ and it refers to how much energy, human or artificial (e.g., fuel) is needed to accomplish a certain action. In societies that prioritise energy over time people will be ready to spend more time rather than spending energy, if they don’t see the situation justifying that. Another example from y personal travel experiences is of taxi drivers who stand, maybe 20 of them, in a line and wait for customers but ask for a relatively high price, which they are not ready to negotiate. Often, walking 10 minutes will bring you to a place where taxi drivers WILL take you for a lower price, so i am not referring to a situation where it wouldn’t be economic for those drivers to compromise on the price. Thus, they rather stay waiting for an hour than take a customer for a lower price, which indicates to me that time is less critical for them than energy.

Here too, I see a broad correlation (with various deviations, i am sure) between how industrialised and ‘developed’, in capitalist terms, the economy is and how much people would pay to save time. For me, an interesting aspect that fits my travel philosophy, is to try and get into the local rhythm, which in a place like Albania means often taking local transport and being patient and accepting about buses not coming, going or stopping where you wish them to.

What do you think, how well do these dimensions fit your own observations and experiences?