Timenergy is existential, i.e. not reducible to physics, chemistry, etc.
Why it matters that we understand timenergy as an existential structure that conditions human experience
Timenergy is not just the words time and energy mashed together. It points to something that comes before these words take on their separate meanings. Like space-time in physics, timenergy is relative, but not in the same way.
Timenergy is also absolute in its determination of value. Timenergy is the resource of all resources. Like oil, food, or gold, timenergy makes the world go ‘round. But without timenergy, oil, food, and gold have no value.
What do all these things have in common besides scarcity? Oil can power machines that “fast-forward” time by compensating for our own finite energy. Food replenishes our finite energy. Gold, as one of the more precious and pure scarce resources, is not only valuable because it is rare. Gold, as well as any money that gets used as a representation of value, only has value insofar as it is able to get other people to do things for us, i.e. to commit their timenergy to its transfusion into labor power put on call via the market.
The inherent value of every commodity humans hold dear gets its allure from the fact that timenergy is finite. To say it is finite is to say that we do not have unlimited amounts of timenergy at our disposal. We want to do a lot of things, but those things cannot be done without timenergy. If we do not have timenergy, then our purposes are frustrated and, without proper outlets for inspiration, we burnout.
It is not just self-help, positive psychology, and the self-esteem movements that have failed to think timenergy. All hitherto existing philosophers have also failed to think timenergy. They may think time, vitality, or will power, but they did not think the inherent relation of time to energy, i.e. the fact that time is worthless without energy, and that energy without the kind of time that can be routinely and reliably sacrificed is also worthless.
Though all hitherto existing political movements, organizations, and dogmatic worldviews have failed to center the importance of timenergy, they all presuppose it. They all expect us to continue working our lives away, having nothing left to show except for energy-without-usefully-repeatable-time or time-without-energy. This is because every ruling class throughout history has needed our timenergy so that they could have their own.
Today we will set the record straight. Timenergy is put under erasure by a system that structures our horizons of possibility. To even begin to understand the implications of such a statement though will require some other conceptual distinctions, history lessons, and ultimately something we lack today more than ever: nuance, context, and a thoroughgoing critical re-consideration of our society’s basic assumptions.
The assumptions we need to critically suspend and interrogate are the very meaning of world, self, and culture, going as deep as an understanding of school that cannot be fathomed without the classical interdependent meanings of “freedom” and “slavery.”
For ours is a world where, instead of securing freedom for all, we have instead universalized slavery for all. To even begin calling into question the power regimes (capitalist and socialist alike) that presuppose lives spent in “full employment” (full-time labor), we have to first rethink freedom.
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Author bio:
David McKerracher (M.A.) is the organizer for, and founder of, Theory Underground, a teaching, research, and publishing platform by and for dropout workers with earbuds and burnt out post-grads who want to understand The Situation as a means towards figuring out the conditions of possibility for The Good Life. McKerracher’s background is in critical theory, political philosophy, existentialism and phenomenology. All of McKerracher's work revolves around a single question: What is the Good Life? McKerracher's questioning into the conditions of possibility for living The Good Life led him to an M.A. thesis on “Timenergy, the existential basis of labor power.” This work draws heavily from Marx and Heidegger. McKerracher developed this concept further in his first book called Waypoint: Timenergy, Critical Media Theory, and Social Change, and his second book simply titled Timenergy: Why You Have No Time or Energy. Because “Timenergy Theory” requires a more robust theory of libidinal economy and ideology, McKerracher has spent the last few years learning Žižekian and Lacanian theory of ideology from his compatriot Michael Downs. Instead of pursuing a doctorate, McKerracher founded Theory Underground, a vehicle for cultivating the kind of research and conversation necessary to take timenergy theory to where it needs to go, the long-term goal of which is to pave a way forward for humanity to maintain the conditions of a robust cultural plurality, harness automation-for-all, and ultimately, explore the universe.