Manifeste pour une politique des rythmes, by Manola Antonioli, Guillaume Drevon, Luc Gwiazdzinski, Vincent Kaufmann et Luca Pattaroni

Manifeste pour une politique des rythmes , by Manola Antonioli, Guillaume Drevon, Luc Gwiazdzinski, Vincent Kaufmann, Luca Pattaroni, EPFL Press, 2021.

It is a widely shared and common observation: time keeps going faster! Never before have we been chasing it so much. The result? We are constantly at risk of stress, exhaustion and even burn-out. This helps to explain the popularity of personal development practices, yoga and tai-chi, and even to-do lists. And the success of books written by philosopher Hartmut Rosa – Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity (Columbia University Press, 2013) and Alienation and Acceleration: Towards a Critical Theory of Late-Modern Temporality (‎NSU Press, 2010) – which uncover the forms of acceleration at work in contemporary societies.

As a reaction to this, another key word has emerged: slowness, even strolling, and their socio-economic corollaries, degrowth, the Slow Food movement, etc. However, acceleration can sometimes be good. It depends on the circumstances, the context and the agenda. According to Hartmut Rosa, the antidote to acceleration that is negatively experienced is not deceleration, but “resonance,” the ability to accept the “unavailability of the world.”

A matter of rhythms

At first glance, the work reviewed here is in a similar vein, but it promotes a different notion, that of “rhythm,” which the authors see as referring to more than music and dance, it being a useful concept for “analysing the mutations of our contemporary worlds, of the new pathologies of modernity”; for helping us overcome binary or even Manichean visions; for “going from the static to the dynamic, [for] blending space and time, measurement and experience.” First though, the authors acknowledge those who have previously analysed individual and/or collective rhythms. This is the first surprise in the book: countless intellectuals, theoreticians, thinkers and researchers have taken the question of rhythm seriously.

A long tradition

Among the philosophers, Plato defines it as “a succession of strong and weak beats ordered arithmetically and all its cyclic and periodic derivatives” (the authors’ words), while closer to us, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari* use their concept of refrain [ritournelle], to explain how each individual, group or nation affirmed its identity and territorial belonging prior to the standardisation of lifestyles brought about by modernity, in particular through the media and the organisation of work. For Roland Barthes*, idiorrhythmy is a quasi-pleonasm, the rhutmos being by definition singular (which explains its political dimension, as the individual draws from this singularity a possible form of resistance to power). Bernard Stiegler meanwhile called out the controlling influence of rhythms imposed by “cultural” or “cognitive” capitalism.

We can also mention works by social scientists: ethnologist André Leroi-Gourhan who, in Gesture and Speech , underlines the way in which human societies domesticated time and space by replacing rhythms that are inherent to the chaos of the natural world. Henri Lefebvre deploys rhythmanalysis, an approach at the crossroads of philosophy, poetry and spatial planning, through which he analyses urban society by putting himself at the heart of the rhythms of life.

Of all the authors referenced in this Manifesto, there is one who is unexpected but who deserves attention: linguist Émile Benveniste*, in Problems in General Linguistics honours the long philosophical and poetic tradition that shaped the very conception of the notion of rhythm. Far from resulting from the simple observation of cadenced rhythms in nature, and being limited to that, it also includes “an idea of flux, of becoming, of an unmeasurable event, even of discontinuity.” Benveniste further emphasises the distinction between rhythm as skhèma (regular succession of strong beats and weak beats, measured and a predictable succession of figures, forms, verses, etc.) and rhythm as rhutmos (a fluid and mobile form that is not in opposition to the former, but deeply influences it and continually adds variation).

A manifesto in every sense of the word

If the book was limited to a literature review, it would still be useful, but as the title indicates, the authors aim to offer much more than a manual or even an essay. Indeed, as a “manifesto,” it purports to warn of a situation that is getting worse: the sense of losing control over our rhythms of life, which, according to them, is due to “globalised capitalism,” to the pressures of consumer society and to working conditions that are enforced on people independently of their desire for greater autonomy.

This reality is not new (in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the working classes were already subject to strong rhythmic pressures in the absence of regulated working time), but it now affects “all social classes.” Everyone is experiencing “the multiplication of 'things to do,' the tyranny of diaries and calendars [...].” This is a harder reality than just “metro, work, sleep” [métro, boulot, dodo] an expression coined in the 1970s. The authors go so far as to speak of “rhythmic pathologies of capitalism,” which can affect individuals as well as collectives, organisations or territories, and which can be recognised by several indicators. The authors therefore recommend a systemic approach (and not just a psychological one), by distinguishing between different forms of “saturation”: functional (congestion), attention based (dizziness), solicitation (exhaustion, stress) and spatial (suffocation). These are all pathological forms that manifest themselves at different scales, from the most intimate to the most macro levels of urban and territorial regulation.

Grabbing the attention of the SSH

Before approaching public authorities, the authors suggest that this diagnosis needs the attention of social sciences and humanities (SSH). The SSH promote a dichotomous vision of reality by continuously approaching it through the lens of dualities: hyperconnection/disconnection, speed/slowness, city/countryside, choice/constraint, work/leisure... What makes this problematic is that these dualities tend to crystallise in the form of concepts that are sometimes irrelevant. The authors give an example: “human density” is measured according to the number of residents per surface unit, yet residence does not necessarily imply actual presence on the territory. Everyone lives according to different rhythms, such that during a day, a week or a season, the number of people actually present in a given neighbourhood or city varies. Basing human density indices on the number of inhabitants and jobs per unit area would not fundamentally change the parameters of the problem, since “work-related trips represent less than 30% of a given population’s weekday trips” (p. 102). In short, the available data only indicate the places where people sleep. A similar problem arises with the notion of “spatial segregation”: “We can easily imagine a city that is highly segregated in terms of homes, but in which its inhabitants are very mobile in their daily life within their urban area, including among the disadvantaged social categories, and are therefore used to rubbing shoulders and intermingling between population categories.” (p. 102). It all depends, as we said before, on the specific rhythms of each household.

The concept of rhythm therefore challenges the SSH to go beyond these dichotomies, to move (as our authors put it) from a “disjunctive thought” (“or... or”: or speed or slowness, for example) to a “conjunctive thought” (“and… and”: and the individual and the common, for example). In their plural, entangled and ambivalent nature, rhythms invite us to reflect on the notion of intertwining. “The concept of rhythm is likely to offer a new interpretation of social and spatial phenomena by connecting approaches that are often perceived as opposed and positioned as irreconcilable” (p. 118). No wonder that statistical surveys carried out by the SSH are no longer adapted to contemporary rhythms, because they are most often based on data relating only to the days that are considered normal. In doing so, they overlook manifestations of heterorhythmia – i.e. irregular and non-repetitive movement. Such approaches therefore are limited. A case in point is Time Geography, which renewed the study of daily life by approaching it from the standpoint of space and time, from the spatio-temporal localisation of daily activities. But while “space-time-budgets” (by Swedish geographer Torsten Hägerstrand) capture how people organise and map out their daily trips, they do not explain how these movements are experienced, much less the rhythms that underlie them.

While machine learning and big data (collected from mobile devices) open up new avenues for the detailed analysis of human behaviour, these data say little about people’s characteristics or intentions. They favour a metric approach over an experiential approach to rhythmology.

The notion of rhythms challenges the SSH by being not just transdisciplinary, but “indisciplinary,” encouraging us to decompartmentalise the sciences. The authors themselves are an example of this: a multidisciplinary panel, comprised of a philosopher, a geographer and three sociologists from different fields of research. They have previously worked together (Saturations. Individus, collectifs organisations et territoires à l’épreuve, Elya, 2019).

For a public policy of rhythms: choreopolitics

This subject is not only a challenge to the SSH but to public authorities. Public policy cannot dictate what a “good” rhythm is. Rather, it should “offer a framework for different rhythms and living environments to meet, by working on how speed differentials can be accommodated and allowed to coexist.” It should strive to “bring coherence” but also enable “the confrontation between differences that need to be cultivated, including – and perhaps above all – in how they can potentially be troubling or even agnostic” (p. 141).

The authors go so far as to advocate for “choreopolitics,” emphasising the need to think about our rhythms collectively and from the standpoint of the body. “Choreopolitics” can be broken down into three principles:

• idiorrhythmy, or the rhythm that is specific to each person;
• eurhythmy which, as opposed to idiorrhythmy, “promotes the development of rhythms likely to favour the creation of commonalities […]” without however trying to erase tension, dissonance, etc. (the authors identify eurhythmy with the choreography of Pina Bausch and the jazz of John Coltrane);
• finally, transition (which implies reconciling the rhythms of consumption and production with those of nature and the renewal of resources). Here, the authors follow the work of English geographer Gordon Walker* in Energy and Rhythm, which we also reviewed (to access this review, click here).

How can these theories be put into practice?

These principles are theoretically ambitious and it is difficult to see how to implement them in practice. This is something the authors are clearly aware of, given that in the second part of the book they strive to give concrete examples. The principle of idiorrhythmy can, for instance, be the basis of measures promoting individual downtime, by reducing working time or extending parental leave. The principle of eurhythmy can be implemented through arrangements that facilitate a plurality of rhythms in the way we travel (citing the example of “bicycle highways,” to encourage spaces that foster encounters and friction – between soft modes, including walking and scooters – and that are “likely to slow down and intensify daily life”). Finally, transition is found in the promotion of agricultural production methods and consumption practices that respect nature’s rhythms. In short, “the art of the politics of rhythm consists in welcoming at once momentum and deceleration, speed and slowness, to find the right rhythms, those that heal and emancipate while opening up to the common” (p. 50).

The least we can say is that these concrete solutions are known... We are sceptical about the sweeping formulas used by the authors when naming the causes of the rhythmic pathologies: whether it is “neoliberal capitalism” or “the West” and the methods by which they develop.

It is difficult to understand where such sweeping formulas come from, when in many other respects the book is original and useful. It is likely owing to the authors’ fervent belief in the need to let everyone live at their own pace, without abandoning the possibility of creating commonality, or the duty to meet the requirements of the ecological transition and sustainable development.

This triple ambition leads the authors to think of rhythm through the double lens of time and space. This becomes particularly obvious when they discuss work rhythms. They claim there is no point in reducing working hours if it means being confined to unsuitable spaces. We need “to have alternatives in terms of living spaces and places of experimentation,” such as third places which are flourishing.

But if rhythm is a matter of time and space, this is because it is fundamentally concerned with showing care or even hospitality, which are virtues that require appropriate time and space. This subject matter has a particular relevance in the context of the ongoing pandemic. This is a strength of the book, as this crisis occurred while the book was being written. The authors were able to add a postscript in which they analyse the health crisis through the lens of rhythm. Even if this remains essentially descriptive, we can see that the response to the crisis challenged public authorities to adapt over time, attaching a new rhythm to their actions.

An artistic addition

The very design of the book also deserves attention: each of the four chapters has, as a preamble, a series of illustrations by photographer Christian Lutz, associated with a list of words repeated at regular intervals. It is Benveniste’s conception of rhythm that is clear here, restoring the double meaning of the word “manifesto”: a political definition (as in the Manifesto of the Communist Party , for example) and an artistic meaning (as in the Surrealist Manifesto). The artist’s perspective is very useful in producing a necessary addition that helps us to correctly understand a politics of rhythms, closest to the way in which we live them, or even invent them on a daily basis.

Bibliography

Roland Barthes, Comment vivre ensemble. Cours et séminaires au Collège de France (1976-1977) [How we live together. Courses and seminars at the Collège de France (1976-1977)], Le Seuil, 2015.

Émile Benveniste, Problèmes de linguistique générale [Problems in General Linguistics], Gallimard, coll. "Tel", 1966.

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Mille plateaux [A Thousand Plateaus], Les Éditions de minuit, 1980.

Corinne Gaudart, Serge Volkoff, Le travail pressé. Pour une écologie des temps du travail [Work in a hurry. For an ecology of working time], Les Petits Matins, 2022.

Henri Lefebvre, Éléments de rythmanalyse [Elements of rhythmanalysis], Syllepse, 1992.

André Leroi-Gourhan, Le geste et la parole [Gesture and Speech], 2 vol., Albin Michel, 1964. See in particular tome II, Memory and rhythms, chap. 13.

Hartmut Rosa, Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity , Columbia University Press, 2013.

Hartmut Rosa, Alienation and Acceleration: Towards a Critical Theory of Late-Modern Temporality , NSU Press, 2010.

Bernard Stiegler, De la misère symbolique 1. L’époque hyperindustrielle, 2. La catastrophe du sensible [Symbolic Misery, Volume 1: The Hyperindustrial, Volume 2: The Catastrophe of the Sensible], Galilée, 2004 and 2005.

Gordon Walker, Energy and rhythm. Rythmanalysis for a Low Carbon Future , Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.

Movement

Movement is the crossing of space by people, objects, capital, ideas and other information. It is either oriented, and therefore occurs between an origin and one or more destinations, or it is more akin to the idea of simply wandering, with no real origin or destination.

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