1 00:00:05,760 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 2 00:00:07,880 --> 00:00:11,119 Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 3 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:13,680 Speaker 1: Time for a vault episode. This is part three of 4 00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:17,360 Speaker 1: our series on the seven day Week. This originally published 5 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:24,720 Speaker 1: March tenth. Here you go. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 6 00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:34,159 Speaker 1: your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to 7 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:36,440 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 8 00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:39,760 Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part three 9 00:00:39,840 --> 00:00:42,880 Speaker 1: of our series about the seven day week. If you 10 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:45,240 Speaker 1: haven't listened to the two previous parts, you should probably 11 00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:47,680 Speaker 1: go do that first. This one will maybe make more 12 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:49,559 Speaker 1: sense if if you do that. But hey, if you 13 00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:52,680 Speaker 1: want to, you know, fly by the proverbial seat of 14 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:54,880 Speaker 1: your pants, let's go for it. Here we are in 15 00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:57,760 Speaker 1: part three. All right, well, you know, to kick things off, 16 00:00:57,800 --> 00:01:00,280 Speaker 1: I thought, as a potential fun aside, I thought we 17 00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:04,160 Speaker 1: might think about weeks on other planets. Um, you know, 18 00:01:04,240 --> 00:01:06,440 Speaker 1: because if we're if we're going to have just a 19 00:01:06,920 --> 00:01:11,000 Speaker 1: planet centric week based on solar days, so one complete 20 00:01:11,080 --> 00:01:13,640 Speaker 1: rotation of said planet, then this is about how it 21 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:15,880 Speaker 1: all breaks down here on Earth. One week is a 22 00:01:15,959 --> 00:01:19,840 Speaker 1: hundred and sixty eight hours twenty four hour days. Seven 23 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:24,520 Speaker 1: of those makes sense simple math um. On Mercury, one 24 00:01:24,600 --> 00:01:28,000 Speaker 1: week is one thousand, four hundred and eight hours or 25 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:31,840 Speaker 1: about fifty eight earth days. So on Mercury that it 26 00:01:31,959 --> 00:01:34,840 Speaker 1: is a hard core t g if mentality, like by 27 00:01:34,840 --> 00:01:36,880 Speaker 1: the time you get to the weekend you are ready 28 00:01:36,920 --> 00:01:40,440 Speaker 1: to party exactly. And it's even worse on Venus. I mean, 29 00:01:40,480 --> 00:01:43,319 Speaker 1: we know Venus is as a hell world. On Venus, 30 00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:49,080 Speaker 1: one week is forty thousand, twenty four hours, or about 31 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:54,080 Speaker 1: one thousand, seven hundred and one earth days. Now, the 32 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:56,920 Speaker 1: really weird thing about Venus would be that I think 33 00:01:56,960 --> 00:01:59,480 Speaker 1: it is the case that on Venus a day is 34 00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:02,840 Speaker 1: actually longer than a year, meaning that it takes the 35 00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:07,000 Speaker 1: planet Venus longer to rotate on its axis than it 36 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:11,160 Speaker 1: does to go entirely around the Sun. Right, Yeah, so 37 00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:14,520 Speaker 1: that would mean that a week on Venus is actually 38 00:02:14,720 --> 00:02:19,040 Speaker 1: more than seven years on Venus. Yeah, and again we're 39 00:02:19,040 --> 00:02:20,440 Speaker 1: just taking the idea that you know, we have a 40 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:24,120 Speaker 1: solar day here on Earth. Well, complete rotation is a 41 00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:26,720 Speaker 1: day on another planet, and therefore seven of those would 42 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:29,480 Speaker 1: make a week on any given planet. All right, now, 43 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:31,440 Speaker 1: you know we already touched on Earth head on out 44 00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:35,320 Speaker 1: to Mars. The red planet has twenty five hour days, 45 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:37,440 Speaker 1: so it's not too far off. We're talking a hundred 46 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:40,160 Speaker 1: and seventy five hour week. But then you go to Jupiter. 47 00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:42,720 Speaker 1: Here you have ten hour days, so we're talking about 48 00:02:42,760 --> 00:02:47,000 Speaker 1: a seventy hour week. Saturn eleven hour days, so that's 49 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:50,960 Speaker 1: pretty easy to calculate seventy seven hour weeks um. And 50 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,040 Speaker 1: then by the time we get to uh Uranus, we're 51 00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:57,000 Speaker 1: talking we're looking at a seventeen hour days, so that's 52 00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:00,320 Speaker 1: a hundred nineteen hour weeks, and on Neptune sixty hour 53 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:03,239 Speaker 1: days a hundred and twelve hour weeks. You know, this 54 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:05,720 Speaker 1: should all I think, drive home, how you know, nonsensical 55 00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:09,079 Speaker 1: In many respects, the concept of a week or even 56 00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:11,560 Speaker 1: a day is when you move off of Earth. Uh 57 00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:14,280 Speaker 1: for instance, just looking at Mars, the lack of a 58 00:03:14,400 --> 00:03:18,359 Speaker 1: quote leisurely orbiting moon, as the Planetary Society puts it, 59 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:22,080 Speaker 1: means that you you don't really have Martian months for example. 60 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:25,680 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so the year on Mars doesn't really divide 61 00:03:25,720 --> 00:03:30,359 Speaker 1: into manageable time units like our months, right, So when 62 00:03:30,440 --> 00:03:32,280 Speaker 1: we come to like determining like what time it is, 63 00:03:32,320 --> 00:03:35,040 Speaker 1: on Mars. Like that's that's ultimately a whole whole old 64 00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:38,720 Speaker 1: different topic unto itself. Scientists defend to devise, uh, you know, 65 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:43,720 Speaker 1: different ways of thinking about time regarding another planet. Um. 66 00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:46,960 Speaker 1: And of course you can imagine how how complicated this 67 00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:49,520 Speaker 1: would become if you had ultimately had some sort of 68 00:03:49,520 --> 00:03:53,280 Speaker 1: colonial system in place on another world. Actually, you know 69 00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:56,040 Speaker 1: what I just realized. I realized I was thinking about 70 00:03:56,080 --> 00:03:58,560 Speaker 1: the speed of the orbits of the moons of Mars 71 00:03:58,760 --> 00:04:02,440 Speaker 1: entirely in the wrong direct action, right, because I was thinking, oh, yeah, 72 00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:04,560 Speaker 1: I've forgotten how long it takes some maybe maybe it 73 00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:07,400 Speaker 1: takes some like months and months on on Earth to 74 00:04:07,440 --> 00:04:11,320 Speaker 1: go around Mars one time, But no phobos orbits Mars 75 00:04:11,360 --> 00:04:14,640 Speaker 1: like once every eight hours or something, Right, it's just 76 00:04:14,840 --> 00:04:20,680 Speaker 1: whizzing around, yeah, not very leisurely. So it's all do 77 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,120 Speaker 1: you know, I guess a reminder to of just you know, 78 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:26,240 Speaker 1: so so many so much of our contemplations of time 79 00:04:26,320 --> 00:04:29,719 Speaker 1: are based on again, as we discussed in the first episode, 80 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:34,680 Speaker 1: the the observable world, the observable cosmos, And you're not 81 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:37,520 Speaker 1: going to have the same a set of stuff in 82 00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:40,359 Speaker 1: place on other worlds, or it's going to mean something different, 83 00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:42,479 Speaker 1: such as how long it seems to take the sun 84 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:46,400 Speaker 1: to rise and then to set. So this, obviously this 85 00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:50,440 Speaker 1: leads to the next logical point is that if you 86 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:54,240 Speaker 1: were to watch the video from the Ring movies and 87 00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:58,520 Speaker 1: therefore invoke the wrath of of of of a strange 88 00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:03,480 Speaker 1: VH tape based ghost, you would, of course have seven 89 00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:07,400 Speaker 1: days left to live. Those seven days would be best 90 00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:12,320 Speaker 1: spent on an off world colony, you know, preferably heading 91 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:14,760 Speaker 1: on over to uh to Venus. I think now, I 92 00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:17,760 Speaker 1: think this came up when we're actually talking about this earlier, 93 00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:20,000 Speaker 1: and Rob, you and I both forgot that. In the 94 00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:24,480 Speaker 1: movie they explain why it takes seven days, because that's like, 95 00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:26,200 Speaker 1: you know, how long the creepy ghost girls in the 96 00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:29,480 Speaker 1: well or whatever. But but but Ye had to remind us, 97 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:32,080 Speaker 1: Seth had to remind us. But we both forgot that. 98 00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:35,279 Speaker 1: And you had the most amazing theory about the origin 99 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:37,800 Speaker 1: of the seven day curse period in the Ring and 100 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:43,080 Speaker 1: it had to do with our childhood memories of Blockbuster video. Yes, Uh, well, 101 00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:46,279 Speaker 1: I I I was thinking, okay, seven seven days? Why 102 00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:50,279 Speaker 1: seven days? Seven is is not an unlucky number in 103 00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:53,719 Speaker 1: Japanese culture. It seems like four would be more fitting 104 00:05:53,720 --> 00:05:55,440 Speaker 1: for that if we were going to go that route. 105 00:05:55,480 --> 00:05:56,800 Speaker 1: So what is it about seven? I was thinking, well, 106 00:05:56,800 --> 00:05:59,440 Speaker 1: maybe it's the seven day rental period, right, and because 107 00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:02,080 Speaker 1: we know that that she likes working through VHS tapes, 108 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:05,799 Speaker 1: so maybe it has to do with the VHS rental cycle. 109 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:08,200 Speaker 1: Of course, what this got me wondering about is how 110 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:10,600 Speaker 1: come in the Ring movies nobody ever talks back on 111 00:06:10,640 --> 00:06:12,839 Speaker 1: the phone, you know, so you get the phone calls 112 00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:15,720 Speaker 1: like your cursed seven days. How come nobody ever just 113 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:19,839 Speaker 1: like tries to negotiate. Well, you know, sometimes they have 114 00:06:19,960 --> 00:06:23,159 Speaker 1: to uh participate in a survey after the call for 115 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:27,039 Speaker 1: quality assurance purposes, right, So there is that. In reality, 116 00:06:27,080 --> 00:06:29,479 Speaker 1: I think the Ring videotape would probably give rise to 117 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:33,400 Speaker 1: a subculture of of what what would you call them? 118 00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:36,360 Speaker 1: Like curse baiting scam fighters, you know, like the people 119 00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:38,640 Speaker 1: who played pranks on the people who do the I R. S. 120 00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:43,280 Speaker 1: Scam phone calls, except they're scamming Samara. Yeah. Yeah. Though 121 00:06:43,279 --> 00:06:45,920 Speaker 1: it is interesting when you compare the two because when 122 00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:50,200 Speaker 1: in the fictional situation, we have an evil entity calling 123 00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:52,720 Speaker 1: you and wishing you harm and uh, it's it's very 124 00:06:52,760 --> 00:06:54,280 Speaker 1: much the same thing when you have somebody trying to 125 00:06:54,320 --> 00:06:57,240 Speaker 1: run some sort of a phone scam like it's it's 126 00:06:57,279 --> 00:06:59,840 Speaker 1: almost it's quite unsettling, like to to to be speaking 127 00:06:59,839 --> 00:07:02,599 Speaker 1: to somebody and realize this is someone who wishes to 128 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:05,880 Speaker 1: do me great harm. You've won a free cruise, but 129 00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:09,120 Speaker 1: you first you need to send us some iTunes gift cards. Yeah, yeah, 130 00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:11,720 Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But you know, this also makes 131 00:07:11,720 --> 00:07:15,400 Speaker 1: me think that, Okay, if we have a technological ghost here, 132 00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:19,200 Speaker 1: maybe two potentially well not not actually, but within within 133 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:24,080 Speaker 1: this argument looking to an artificial cycle of time and 134 00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:27,040 Speaker 1: using that as a way to to judge some other act. 135 00:07:27,440 --> 00:07:29,760 Speaker 1: It does make me think about like the back in 136 00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:33,120 Speaker 1: the old days of watching television, Um, there was a 137 00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:36,200 Speaker 1: set TV cycle and I'm not saying it would was 138 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:38,440 Speaker 1: actually to the point where like a heavy, heavy TV 139 00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:40,680 Speaker 1: consumption would make you know what day of the week 140 00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:42,960 Speaker 1: it was based on what was on television. But it 141 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:45,840 Speaker 1: was easy to sort of have that that line of 142 00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:48,720 Speaker 1: thinking in your head, you know, like you know what 143 00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:51,000 Speaker 1: what is supposed to come on on Mondays? You know 144 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:54,040 Speaker 1: what what is the Monday night entertainment versus the Tuesday 145 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:56,600 Speaker 1: night Uh, you know, the movie of the week sort 146 00:07:56,600 --> 00:07:59,280 Speaker 1: of thing. Um you could you could imagine yourself leaning 147 00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:01,560 Speaker 1: into that view the cosmos. And in a sense, it's 148 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:04,480 Speaker 1: kind of like ancient timekeeping. It's based on the observable universe. 149 00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:07,640 Speaker 1: Only your observable universe is what's on the television screen. 150 00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:10,600 Speaker 1: Is USA up all night? Yeah? You know what day 151 00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:13,080 Speaker 1: it is? Then, Now, as delightful as all that that is, 152 00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:17,040 Speaker 1: we do actually have more serious contemplations regarding the seven 153 00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:20,000 Speaker 1: day week to get to here. Oh right, so I 154 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:22,040 Speaker 1: guess in this episode we're probably going to talk some 155 00:08:22,120 --> 00:08:25,200 Speaker 1: more about the history of the seven day week, like 156 00:08:25,240 --> 00:08:28,280 Speaker 1: where it comes from and how it has changed over time. 157 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:31,040 Speaker 1: There is one paper I came across that if you 158 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:35,520 Speaker 1: want a really, really good, detailed, scholarly deep dive on 159 00:08:35,559 --> 00:08:38,720 Speaker 1: this issue, uh, I would recommend This is actually not 160 00:08:38,760 --> 00:08:41,360 Speaker 1: a paper, sorry, This is a book chapter in a 161 00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:47,080 Speaker 1: historical book by the academic publisher Bill called Calendars in 162 00:08:47,120 --> 00:08:49,960 Speaker 1: the Making The Origins of Calendars from the Roman Empire 163 00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:55,320 Speaker 1: to the Later Middle Ages published and this chapter is 164 00:08:55,360 --> 00:08:58,640 Speaker 1: called the seven day Week in the Roman Empire Origins 165 00:08:58,679 --> 00:09:03,200 Speaker 1: standardization into fusion. And this is by Ilaria Boultra Guini 166 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:07,640 Speaker 1: and Sasha Stern and both of these authors are scholars 167 00:09:07,679 --> 00:09:11,160 Speaker 1: of Hebrew and Jewish studies at University College London. This 168 00:09:11,240 --> 00:09:13,360 Speaker 1: is a really good, really detailed chapter, but it is 169 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:16,160 Speaker 1: sort of written for scholars, so it's good if you 170 00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:20,240 Speaker 1: want maximal detail on on the origins of the Western 171 00:09:20,280 --> 00:09:24,480 Speaker 1: seven day week. UH given basically our best picture of 172 00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:27,280 Speaker 1: the evidence within the last year or so. But I 173 00:09:27,320 --> 00:09:29,360 Speaker 1: just thought I would mention a few things from it 174 00:09:29,400 --> 00:09:33,000 Speaker 1: that struck me as as interesting for the lay person. Now, 175 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:35,840 Speaker 1: of course, they acknowledge the same thing that we've mentioned 176 00:09:35,840 --> 00:09:38,960 Speaker 1: several times now, which is that the the deep origins 177 00:09:39,040 --> 00:09:41,720 Speaker 1: of the seven day week are poorly understood because we 178 00:09:41,800 --> 00:09:45,079 Speaker 1: don't have a founding document really of the seven day 179 00:09:45,080 --> 00:09:47,760 Speaker 1: week says here is where the week begins, and you know, 180 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:50,320 Speaker 1: and from here on out everybody will use it for this, 181 00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:53,760 Speaker 1: that and the other. Instead, we have little tidbits of 182 00:09:53,800 --> 00:09:57,600 Speaker 1: evidence from from literary sources here and there in antiquity, 183 00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:01,640 Speaker 1: and occasionally from UH from arcol logical of finds that 184 00:10:01,800 --> 00:10:05,240 Speaker 1: give evidence of people using some kind of seven day 185 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:09,440 Speaker 1: weekly schedule in the ancient Near East. But they these 186 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:12,680 Speaker 1: pieces of evidence are fragmentary and a lot of times 187 00:10:12,679 --> 00:10:16,480 Speaker 1: we don't know exactly what broader cultural conclusions to draw 188 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:21,280 Speaker 1: from them. So, for example, we know that by the 189 00:10:21,320 --> 00:10:25,680 Speaker 1: first few centuries c E. In the Roman Empire, people 190 00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:29,800 Speaker 1: were at some level using seven day weeks, but we 191 00:10:29,840 --> 00:10:33,000 Speaker 1: don't know exactly how far this practice goes back and 192 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:36,520 Speaker 1: what all of the exact inputs on it were. Now, 193 00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:39,319 Speaker 1: in the previous episode, we talked about, uh, this weird 194 00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:42,640 Speaker 1: scenario that has been noted by historians where there were 195 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:47,720 Speaker 1: multiple different kinds of weeks in the first few centuries 196 00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:51,000 Speaker 1: the e of the Roman Empire, UH that had different 197 00:10:51,080 --> 00:10:54,360 Speaker 1: numbers of days in them, which sounds terribly confusing. But so, 198 00:10:54,400 --> 00:10:56,840 Speaker 1: for example, you had this eight day week that seemed 199 00:10:56,880 --> 00:11:00,600 Speaker 1: related to commerce, so it's the eight day mark its cycle. 200 00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:04,719 Speaker 1: But then you also had these seven day periods such 201 00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:08,400 Speaker 1: as the seven day Roman astrological week, in which the 202 00:11:08,480 --> 00:11:12,160 Speaker 1: days were named after gods or planets. And then also 203 00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:15,480 Speaker 1: the seven day cycle of the Jewish Sabbath, which was 204 00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:19,040 Speaker 1: acknowledged uh, certainly by Jews within the Roman Empire, but 205 00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:21,840 Speaker 1: also by by other groups as well. Yeah, so you 206 00:11:21,920 --> 00:11:26,120 Speaker 1: had these had divination and religion playing a role, but 207 00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:29,679 Speaker 1: you also had like the hard realities of commerce and 208 00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:32,400 Speaker 1: the economy. But even you know, but none of these 209 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:36,480 Speaker 1: are are fixed, uh, you know, figures in a given 210 00:11:36,520 --> 00:11:39,600 Speaker 1: world like these are things that will change over time 211 00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:43,000 Speaker 1: and do right. And so there is one point in 212 00:11:43,160 --> 00:11:46,920 Speaker 1: this book chapter where Boltu, Guini and Stern actually disagree 213 00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:49,199 Speaker 1: with something that I think we got from one of 214 00:11:49,240 --> 00:11:52,520 Speaker 1: our other sources, which was the book The Seven Day 215 00:11:52,520 --> 00:11:57,720 Speaker 1: Circle by Avatar Zerubavel, which claimed that the the Jewish 216 00:11:57,720 --> 00:12:00,560 Speaker 1: practice of observing a seven day cy goal with a 217 00:12:00,679 --> 00:12:05,280 Speaker 1: with a day of rest traced back to Mesopotamian practices. 218 00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:08,440 Speaker 1: But the authors of this paper actually say that despite 219 00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:11,280 Speaker 1: what other authors have alleged, there's actually really no very 220 00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:14,920 Speaker 1: good evidence tracing the seven day week back to ancient 221 00:12:14,960 --> 00:12:19,360 Speaker 1: Egyptian or Mesopotamian practices. We we ultimately don't know exactly 222 00:12:19,360 --> 00:12:21,360 Speaker 1: where it comes from. Now this, I wonder if this 223 00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:23,800 Speaker 1: explained some of the hesitancy you see to really nable 224 00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:26,480 Speaker 1: us down in some of the other sources, like for instance, 225 00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:31,960 Speaker 1: Fagin and aveni Um, who I acided in the first episode. 226 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:34,400 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they were more hesitant to to put a 227 00:12:34,440 --> 00:12:37,439 Speaker 1: specific origin on it. Yeah, So it seems like it's 228 00:12:37,559 --> 00:12:41,560 Speaker 1: still very much a topic of of of of studying 229 00:12:41,559 --> 00:12:45,720 Speaker 1: consideration at least. But we do, of course have literary 230 00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:49,280 Speaker 1: evidence from the ancient world of places where some kind 231 00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:51,960 Speaker 1: of seven day weekly cycle or referenced. Of course, the 232 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:55,600 Speaker 1: big one is UH is the Hebrew Bible making reference 233 00:12:55,640 --> 00:12:57,800 Speaker 1: to the Sabbath. So we see the idea of a 234 00:12:57,840 --> 00:13:01,040 Speaker 1: seven day week the days leading up to the Sabbath 235 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:04,760 Speaker 1: day in the Hebrew Bible. Though interestingly UH the authors 236 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:07,080 Speaker 1: of this of this book chapter claim that in the 237 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:11,000 Speaker 1: Hebrew Bible there are actually no events that are said 238 00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:14,000 Speaker 1: to occur on specific days of the week in the 239 00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:18,079 Speaker 1: Hebrew Bible itself. The dated events are dated by other methods, 240 00:13:18,120 --> 00:13:21,560 Speaker 1: such as by by month or by year um. And 241 00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:24,280 Speaker 1: this raises questions like they ask, okay, so it's clear 242 00:13:24,320 --> 00:13:28,240 Speaker 1: that at some point Jews were observing a Sabbath day, 243 00:13:28,280 --> 00:13:30,320 Speaker 1: But they say, for example, we don't know in the 244 00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:35,080 Speaker 1: early periods if Sabbath observance was synchronized across different Jewish 245 00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:38,240 Speaker 1: communities or did like local Jewish communities all have their 246 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:42,160 Speaker 1: own Sabbath cycles. But once we get closer in time 247 00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:45,079 Speaker 1: to the Roman period, we do see Jewish sources making 248 00:13:45,160 --> 00:13:48,800 Speaker 1: specific reference to two things occurring on certain days of 249 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:52,760 Speaker 1: the week, specifically on the Sabbath day. UH. So, for example, 250 00:13:52,840 --> 00:13:55,720 Speaker 1: they referenced the Book of First Maccabee's, which is a 251 00:13:55,760 --> 00:13:59,040 Speaker 1: text from the late second century b c. And this 252 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:02,960 Speaker 1: makes reference to something occurring on the Sabbath day. They 253 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:05,679 Speaker 1: also make reference to the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are 254 00:14:05,679 --> 00:14:09,080 Speaker 1: of course these fascinating documents from Jewish communities dating back 255 00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:13,560 Speaker 1: to the second to first centuries b c. UH, And 256 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:16,400 Speaker 1: they say that the Dead Sea Scrolls in some cases 257 00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:22,120 Speaker 1: make reference to a calendrical system. This was kind of confusing, 258 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:24,040 Speaker 1: but I think the way I understand it is they 259 00:14:24,040 --> 00:14:27,040 Speaker 1: had a year that had a different number of days 260 00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:29,160 Speaker 1: than our year. I think it was three hundred and 261 00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:32,600 Speaker 1: sixty four days, which unlike our year of three hundred 262 00:14:32,600 --> 00:14:36,320 Speaker 1: and sixty five point to five days or whatever. UH. 263 00:14:36,400 --> 00:14:41,080 Speaker 1: That year would divide evenly into fifty two weeks, so 264 00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:43,920 Speaker 1: you get a whole number of weeks within the year, 265 00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:47,360 Speaker 1: and this would be for seven day weeks based around 266 00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:49,920 Speaker 1: the observance of the Sabbath. But then they also point 267 00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:53,520 Speaker 1: out that a a seven day Sabbath week is mentioned 268 00:14:53,560 --> 00:14:57,240 Speaker 1: and observed within the Greek Septuagint, which is the Greek 269 00:14:57,400 --> 00:15:01,160 Speaker 1: version of the Hebrew Bible in in the Salt. But 270 00:15:01,240 --> 00:15:04,480 Speaker 1: one question would be, okay, why the sudden appearance of 271 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:09,160 Speaker 1: these references to things happening on uh days of the 272 00:15:09,160 --> 00:15:13,320 Speaker 1: week in Jewish literature from around the second century b CE. 273 00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:16,880 Speaker 1: What happened around there? So to read from the authors, 274 00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:19,960 Speaker 1: they write quote the second century b c. Invention of 275 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:22,640 Speaker 1: the seven day week is a time reckoning system, even 276 00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:26,200 Speaker 1: if only theoretical or literary, may well have been related 277 00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:29,720 Speaker 1: to the revival and promotion of the observance of the Sabbath, 278 00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:33,640 Speaker 1: which is credited to the Maccabeean rebels of the one sixties, 279 00:15:34,040 --> 00:15:37,000 Speaker 1: but was surely also shared and promoted by other Judean 280 00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:39,600 Speaker 1: groups at the time, such as the communities described in 281 00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:43,720 Speaker 1: the Kumran literature, and this would be the ones associated 282 00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:46,640 Speaker 1: with the Dead Sea scrolls uh and may have percolated 283 00:15:46,760 --> 00:15:50,200 Speaker 1: further onto the diaspora in Egypt, as the papyri above 284 00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:54,160 Speaker 1: mentioned possibly suggest promotion of Sabbath observance in this period, 285 00:15:54,200 --> 00:15:57,320 Speaker 1: may have elicited the conceptualization of the week as a 286 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:00,840 Speaker 1: recurring sequence of seven numbered days, and does a fundamental 287 00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:05,120 Speaker 1: structure of time reckoning and calendars. Uh. So, Again, this 288 00:16:05,200 --> 00:16:07,239 Speaker 1: is one thing where we have to sort of speculate. 289 00:16:07,280 --> 00:16:08,880 Speaker 1: We don't know for sure, but the authors here are 290 00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 1: saying it's possible that we see this sort of weak 291 00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:17,040 Speaker 1: consciousness emerging in Jews of the second century BC as 292 00:16:17,120 --> 00:16:20,560 Speaker 1: part of a religious revival, a sort of gathering of 293 00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:24,200 Speaker 1: enthusiasm for observance of the Sabbath as a as a 294 00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:27,560 Speaker 1: religious practice that of but then, of course this could 295 00:16:27,720 --> 00:16:31,000 Speaker 1: end up having other functions within people's lives. If you're 296 00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:33,880 Speaker 1: observing uh, you know, a week leading up to the 297 00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:37,560 Speaker 1: Sabbath that could serve other scheduling functions if practice for 298 00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:40,120 Speaker 1: long enough. Though of course, they acknowledge that we don't 299 00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:43,320 Speaker 1: know exactly what role these week days played in in 300 00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:47,360 Speaker 1: people's day to day lives early on. Um. But another 301 00:16:47,400 --> 00:16:51,400 Speaker 1: thing that's important to mention is that the early Jewish 302 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:54,600 Speaker 1: uses of days of the week identified a day not 303 00:16:54,760 --> 00:16:57,480 Speaker 1: with a name, and certainly not with our names, because 304 00:16:57,520 --> 00:16:59,680 Speaker 1: of of course, our names of the days of the 305 00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:04,640 Speaker 1: week in English are derived largely from pagan and astrological sources, 306 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:07,520 Speaker 1: which would have had no relevance to the ancient Jews uh. 307 00:17:07,560 --> 00:17:10,880 Speaker 1: And instead they identified days of the week with numbers, 308 00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:14,080 Speaker 1: so this would be something like three in the Sabbath, 309 00:17:14,320 --> 00:17:17,600 Speaker 1: so you would like sort of count from the Sabbath day, 310 00:17:17,640 --> 00:17:20,480 Speaker 1: but then from here. In the subsequent centuries, this way 311 00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:22,960 Speaker 1: of reckoning days of the week appears to show up 312 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,720 Speaker 1: in other types of literature, such as Greek literature of 313 00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:30,920 Speaker 1: the first century CE, but then again mostly in Jewish 314 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:34,240 Speaker 1: or Jewish influence texts, for example, the Books of the 315 00:17:34,240 --> 00:17:37,080 Speaker 1: New Testament. These are books written in Greek, but they're 316 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:42,200 Speaker 1: influenced by by Jewish religious ideas of course, and also 317 00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:45,639 Speaker 1: in the works of Josephas these make references to days 318 00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:48,199 Speaker 1: of the week, and it's a seven day week. So 319 00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:51,360 Speaker 1: for example, the author of the Gospel of Mark uh, 320 00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:54,159 Speaker 1: this is somebody who is writing in Greek sometime in 321 00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:56,960 Speaker 1: the first century cees writing a story of the life 322 00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:59,960 Speaker 1: of Jesus, and the author of the Gospel of Mark 323 00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:04,240 Speaker 1: writes that the crucifixion of Jesus took place on quote preparation, 324 00:18:04,440 --> 00:18:07,879 Speaker 1: which is the day before the Sabbath, and writes that 325 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:11,000 Speaker 1: the resurrection was on the quote first of the week. 326 00:18:11,840 --> 00:18:14,440 Speaker 1: So I think I'm getting those right, but that would 327 00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:16,920 Speaker 1: mean that the the author here is saying that Jesus 328 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,760 Speaker 1: was crucified on a Friday, because it's the day before 329 00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:22,800 Speaker 1: the Sabbath, which is Saturday, and then the resurrection took 330 00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:25,199 Speaker 1: place on a Sunday, which was the first day of 331 00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:27,960 Speaker 1: the week after the Sabbath. So here we've got this 332 00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:31,119 Speaker 1: evidence for the the Sabbath cycle as one of the 333 00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:34,400 Speaker 1: main influences on the emergence of a seven day week 334 00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:37,479 Speaker 1: that that we inherited and used throughout the world today. 335 00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:41,560 Speaker 1: But another major influence seems to be the Roman planetary week. 336 00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:44,639 Speaker 1: This is something we see evidence of in Rome and 337 00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:46,600 Speaker 1: other parts of Italy, not just the city of Rome, 338 00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:49,639 Speaker 1: but Rome and the Italian peninsula. Uh and this is 339 00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:53,160 Speaker 1: well attested by the end of the first century CE. 340 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:57,040 Speaker 1: Now the Roman astrological week again, this is having seven 341 00:18:57,119 --> 00:18:59,920 Speaker 1: days that are named after the planets or the god 342 00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:03,639 Speaker 1: associated with the planets in the in the Roman system 343 00:19:03,680 --> 00:19:07,520 Speaker 1: of astrology or astronomy. Because the quote planets they could observe. Again, 344 00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:09,560 Speaker 1: a couple of these things are not actually planets, but 345 00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:14,119 Speaker 1: they were the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, 346 00:19:14,119 --> 00:19:16,960 Speaker 1: and Saturn. These are the moving objects in the sky 347 00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:19,560 Speaker 1: that you can see without a telescope. And the way 348 00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:22,080 Speaker 1: that the Roman astrological week was different was that it 349 00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:24,960 Speaker 1: was not structured around a day of rest or a 350 00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:29,040 Speaker 1: day of religious observance the way that the Jewish week was. Instead, 351 00:19:29,200 --> 00:19:33,800 Speaker 1: it appears to have served a primarily astrological informative purpose, 352 00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:36,960 Speaker 1: So it was sort of letting people know which planets 353 00:19:36,960 --> 00:19:41,120 Speaker 1: reigned over had influence over which day of the cycle. Uh. 354 00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:43,919 Speaker 1: And once again, this would not have any basis in 355 00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:47,639 Speaker 1: real astronomical observations or patterns. It's not like there's anything 356 00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:51,480 Speaker 1: physical you can say that associates the Sun with Sundays 357 00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:54,119 Speaker 1: or the moon with Mondays. It's just that they just 358 00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:56,159 Speaker 1: happened to pair them up that way. I don't know, 359 00:19:56,240 --> 00:19:59,439 Speaker 1: unless we discover something really interesting that the Romans were 360 00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:02,160 Speaker 1: onto that nobody's figured out since then. Well, I mean, 361 00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:05,240 Speaker 1: if if Monday really was aligned with with the moon, 362 00:20:05,440 --> 00:20:09,400 Speaker 1: we would surely see werewolf transformations on Mondays. And I've 363 00:20:09,520 --> 00:20:11,600 Speaker 1: never heard of that being a thing, so clearly it 364 00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:14,919 Speaker 1: doesn't check out. No, I'd say the vast majority of 365 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:19,000 Speaker 1: a wu's occur on Fridays and Saturdays, unless one is 366 00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:22,760 Speaker 1: a real uh work based I don't know. Maybe maybe 367 00:20:22,760 --> 00:20:25,600 Speaker 1: you're hollen when Monday comes along. That's a good point, 368 00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:27,879 Speaker 1: of course, you've been working all weekend anyway, so I 369 00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:30,480 Speaker 1: don't know send news to the emperor that the that 370 00:20:30,520 --> 00:20:34,080 Speaker 1: the city has been sacked by verk beasts. But anyway, 371 00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:36,800 Speaker 1: so their paper goes into great detail, but just in 372 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:40,440 Speaker 1: a very quick summary, it seems we see increasing numbers 373 00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:43,760 Speaker 1: of references to use of a seven day week of 374 00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:46,560 Speaker 1: some kind throughout the Roman Empire in the first couple 375 00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:49,560 Speaker 1: of centuries c. And again this would be based on 376 00:20:49,880 --> 00:20:52,199 Speaker 1: the Christian seven day week that is derived from the 377 00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:56,400 Speaker 1: Sabbath week, but then also using this Roman astrological seven 378 00:20:56,480 --> 00:20:59,119 Speaker 1: day week as a basis uh, sort of the fading 379 00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:01,720 Speaker 1: away of the signific against of the eight day market week. 380 00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:05,760 Speaker 1: And then in UH in the fourth century CE, you 381 00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:09,240 Speaker 1: get some real moves, such as by a decree by 382 00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:13,600 Speaker 1: Constantine that makes Sunday sort of the official sacred day 383 00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:17,480 Speaker 1: of the empire. Of course, Constantine was the first Christian 384 00:21:17,480 --> 00:21:20,840 Speaker 1: emperor of Rome. Uh. And so yeah, you see a 385 00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:24,800 Speaker 1: big push towards standardization of the use of a seven 386 00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:28,640 Speaker 1: day week. And it's in this relationship to the Christian 387 00:21:28,720 --> 00:21:31,720 Speaker 1: significance of Sunday as the Lord's Day or the day 388 00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:34,840 Speaker 1: of worship uh and UH and this being sort of 389 00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:37,600 Speaker 1: standardized throughout the Roman Empire, especially in the third and 390 00:21:37,640 --> 00:21:40,520 Speaker 1: fourth centuries CE. And this is the point where we 391 00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:42,840 Speaker 1: can really start to say, Okay, here's the week that 392 00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:46,600 Speaker 1: we inherited, and we can situate it well within history. 393 00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:50,000 Speaker 1: So if your time machine has like Mondays, Wednesdays and 394 00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,720 Speaker 1: Tuesdays on and so forth, UH, this might be as 395 00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:55,119 Speaker 1: far back as you can really go this period with 396 00:21:55,160 --> 00:22:00,240 Speaker 1: perfect accuracy. Also, you should probably reconsider the intra face 397 00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:04,119 Speaker 1: for your time machine was depending on these these days. 398 00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:14,720 Speaker 1: I just want to go five thousand Mondays back. Now. 399 00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:16,840 Speaker 1: I mentioned in the first part of this series that 400 00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:20,320 Speaker 1: one of the sources I've been reading, uh for for 401 00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:23,560 Speaker 1: history of the seven day week was a U. C. 402 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:28,000 Speaker 1: Berkeley historian named David Hankin, who has written a book 403 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,480 Speaker 1: called The Week, A History of the Unnatural Rhythms that 404 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:34,359 Speaker 1: made us who we are. And so there have been 405 00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:38,800 Speaker 1: several articles out and interviews with Hanken about this book 406 00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:41,800 Speaker 1: that I've drawn from here. One of the things I 407 00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:44,960 Speaker 1: read was this Eon magazine article by Hankin where he 408 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,960 Speaker 1: tries to talk about some of the reasons that the 409 00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:54,000 Speaker 1: week became especially salient in his view in the nineteenth century, 410 00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:56,760 Speaker 1: that there was something that happened roughly in the eighteen 411 00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:00,639 Speaker 1: hundreds in the West that made the week suddenly a 412 00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:05,560 Speaker 1: much more useful and important calendar unit than it had 413 00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:09,399 Speaker 1: been in centuries before. Because before that, of course, people 414 00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,200 Speaker 1: observed the week, you know, so in medieval Europe there 415 00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:14,439 Speaker 1: was a week, but it might be more important for 416 00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:16,840 Speaker 1: like tracking how long until the day you go to 417 00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:21,600 Speaker 1: church or something. And one reason that that the week 418 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:25,480 Speaker 1: became more salient in the eighteen hundreds was the increasing 419 00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:29,919 Speaker 1: proportion of society that made a living by wage labor, 420 00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:33,119 Speaker 1: so working you know, some number of hours per week 421 00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,040 Speaker 1: for some you know, a factory owner or in some 422 00:23:36,119 --> 00:23:39,040 Speaker 1: kind of shop, instead of just people working on farms 423 00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:41,480 Speaker 1: and things. And of course at this time it would 424 00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:45,320 Speaker 1: have been common for wage laborers to work on Saturdays, 425 00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,639 Speaker 1: but with Saturday representing the most common end of the 426 00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:53,000 Speaker 1: seven day weekly cycle and the regular pay day, so 427 00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:55,560 Speaker 1: if you have a day of the seven day cycle 428 00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,200 Speaker 1: where the majority of people who are getting a paycheck 429 00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:01,280 Speaker 1: are receiving that check, that's going to kind of change 430 00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:05,760 Speaker 1: patterns of buying and consumption throughout the economy. So whatever 431 00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:08,760 Speaker 1: people wanted to spend their paycheck on Saturday night might 432 00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:11,600 Speaker 1: be a likely time for it. But by the early 433 00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:15,760 Speaker 1: twentieth century there had been an increased push among wage 434 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:19,960 Speaker 1: laborers to have to have two day weekends instead of 435 00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:23,800 Speaker 1: just Sunday off, and so especially in the nineteen thirties 436 00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:27,520 Speaker 1: under under FDR, labor unions managed to make gains to 437 00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:29,960 Speaker 1: sort of pressure it to to become the norm in 438 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,960 Speaker 1: the United States for full time workers to have a 439 00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,720 Speaker 1: two day weekend, so you get Saturday and Sunday off. 440 00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,000 Speaker 1: This was formalized, I think when the US passed the 441 00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:42,880 Speaker 1: Fair Labor Standards Act in in ninety eight, which made 442 00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:45,280 Speaker 1: a forty hour work week with a two day weekend 443 00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,280 Speaker 1: the norm and the majority of American jobs. It's easy. 444 00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:50,480 Speaker 1: This is another one of those examples that where it's 445 00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:52,199 Speaker 1: easy to take it for granted and just think of 446 00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:57,000 Speaker 1: like the weekend as a part of life itself. Uh, 447 00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,400 Speaker 1: just imagining like you know, people living in in injuries 448 00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,440 Speaker 1: past and then doing then doing something on the weekend. 449 00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,359 Speaker 1: You know, it's just without thinking too closely about it, 450 00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:08,720 Speaker 1: you can easily fall into that trap of just thinking 451 00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:10,959 Speaker 1: that that's this is just the pattern of life, this 452 00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:13,520 Speaker 1: is just how it works. No, the weekend the two 453 00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:15,679 Speaker 1: day weekend is fairly new, and it's something that had 454 00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:19,639 Speaker 1: to be fought for. Yeah. Hankin actually identifies a number 455 00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:23,160 Speaker 1: of different influences that may have led to the increased 456 00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:27,600 Speaker 1: salience of the week in the nineteenth century. One of 457 00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:31,760 Speaker 1: them is the trend towards what he calls stock taking, 458 00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:35,480 Speaker 1: I think is sort of accounting of one's affairs and 459 00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,000 Speaker 1: and one's life. I guess this could be for business 460 00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:41,640 Speaker 1: or personal reasons with the use of the seven day 461 00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:44,119 Speaker 1: week in the nineteenth century, and this would be aided 462 00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:49,280 Speaker 1: by actually the proliferation of mass market diary books with 463 00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:53,680 Speaker 1: pages already formatted to reflect the days of the week, 464 00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:58,639 Speaker 1: so like sort of the diary would arrive in your hands, 465 00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,520 Speaker 1: not just with blank page is, but with sort of 466 00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:03,760 Speaker 1: spaces for you to fill in what was going on 467 00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,680 Speaker 1: each week or for the days of the week. And 468 00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:09,880 Speaker 1: that earlier almanacs or diary books would have tended to 469 00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:14,600 Speaker 1: to favor different kind of clindrical organizations. I never would 470 00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:17,320 Speaker 1: have imagined that, but that was very interesting to me 471 00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:21,159 Speaker 1: that like changes in just like printing of diary books 472 00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:24,200 Speaker 1: could could play a role here. Yeah, yeah, it's it's 473 00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:28,120 Speaker 1: interesting to think about again, just how these um at 474 00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:34,760 Speaker 1: times even physical structures of physical layouts based on the week, 475 00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:37,919 Speaker 1: the form of the week, these uh, these end up 476 00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:39,639 Speaker 1: influencing the way we think about our lives, how we 477 00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,439 Speaker 1: organize our lives, etcetera. So yeah, that's that's you can 478 00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,760 Speaker 1: imagine how almanacs and diary books would have a huge 479 00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,320 Speaker 1: impact because here it is, here is the week. Now 480 00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,960 Speaker 1: fill in the week as you need to. He also 481 00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:54,360 Speaker 1: points to schools as possibly playing a role in cementing 482 00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:59,280 Speaker 1: weekly routines uh to the printing another printed product, and 483 00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:02,919 Speaker 1: not just die arey books, but domestic manuals that would 484 00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:05,120 Speaker 1: just say, you know, here's a good way to run 485 00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:09,080 Speaker 1: a household, and it would specify certain tasks that you 486 00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:11,480 Speaker 1: would do on certain days of the week. So it 487 00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,360 Speaker 1: might say, you know, Mondays are good for washing and 488 00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:19,879 Speaker 1: Tuesdays for ironing. Now that's a lot of ironing. Well, 489 00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:21,720 Speaker 1: you don't have to fill the whole day with ironing. 490 00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:27,240 Speaker 1: But ultimately, Hankin identifies as as maybe the main contributor 491 00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,560 Speaker 1: to the increasing importance of the week as an organizing 492 00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:36,600 Speaker 1: principle for life what he calls commercial entertainment, voluntary association, 493 00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:41,480 Speaker 1: and print culture because he says that for increasingly urban 494 00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:46,280 Speaker 1: populations people moving more towards city life and wage labor, 495 00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,159 Speaker 1: it turned out that cycles of weeks were actually a 496 00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:54,400 Speaker 1: useful way to schedule a busy, voluntary life. For example, 497 00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,119 Speaker 1: if you're planning to see friends on a regular basis, 498 00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:58,879 Speaker 1: you could just know that, you know, we get together 499 00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:02,160 Speaker 1: every Thursday, which would allow for the meeting to happen 500 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,160 Speaker 1: on schedule without everybody checking to see if they had 501 00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:09,239 Speaker 1: conflicting plans. And I he can argues that there's an 502 00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:12,040 Speaker 1: interesting explanation for this. He says it was quote the 503 00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:17,159 Speaker 1: impersonal character of urban life unquote that gave rise to 504 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,000 Speaker 1: the week as a primary scheduling device, because the week 505 00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:25,240 Speaker 1: allowed people to quote coordinate recurring activities with others, including 506 00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:28,439 Speaker 1: those they might not yet know. And I think this 507 00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,359 Speaker 1: would be opposed to in in more rural life, the 508 00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:36,480 Speaker 1: idea that socialization tends to be more kind of continuous 509 00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:41,360 Speaker 1: and spontaneous rather than you know, scheduled recurring activities in 510 00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:45,720 Speaker 1: an otherwise busy schedule. Yeah. Yeah, though, it is kind 511 00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:50,000 Speaker 1: of funny how it sounds like it would be easier 512 00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:51,680 Speaker 1: just to say, okay, well we're going to always do 513 00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,760 Speaker 1: this on Thursday. Thursday is the day for this um. 514 00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:56,840 Speaker 1: But I I know that that many of you out 515 00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,480 Speaker 1: there probably have experience with with with this suation where 516 00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:03,719 Speaker 1: you set that weekly expectation and then what happens when 517 00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,680 Speaker 1: you get to Monday or Tuesday of that week. Someone's like, wake, actually, 518 00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,200 Speaker 1: can we do it on Wednesday this week instead? I 519 00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:11,600 Speaker 1: have a thing, what if we did it on Friday? No, 520 00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,120 Speaker 1: Thursday is the day we decided that's why we have 521 00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:17,400 Speaker 1: this week? And how many of those are caused by 522 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,680 Speaker 1: either people working outside of work hours or people just 523 00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:24,480 Speaker 1: not wanting to go out and not wanting to admit it. Well, 524 00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:26,600 Speaker 1: I mean it's in my opinion opinion, it's you know, 525 00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:27,800 Speaker 1: it's fine if you don't want to go out, it's 526 00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:29,400 Speaker 1: fine even if you want to work instead, But then 527 00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:33,400 Speaker 1: don't don't bump around the the the the the recurring 528 00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,840 Speaker 1: schedule just because because you've decided to work a little 529 00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:41,360 Speaker 1: extra that day. I don't know, I'm uh like, like 530 00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:42,640 Speaker 1: I said, this is I think one of those things 531 00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:44,880 Speaker 1: where I like the principle of it, but it seems 532 00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:49,480 Speaker 1: to break down somewhat, uh in my experience. But we know, 533 00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:52,600 Speaker 1: of course that eventually the week becomes salient for basically 534 00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:56,200 Speaker 1: everybody in America because it's not just like city dwellers 535 00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,200 Speaker 1: who's whose weeks are filled with lots of different kinds 536 00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:03,640 Speaker 1: of scheduled at activities, uh that that know about the week. Eventually, 537 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,240 Speaker 1: it seems like the week is something that's on everybody's mind. 538 00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,720 Speaker 1: And uh, he mentions this. I want to read from 539 00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:12,640 Speaker 1: a paragraph here, Hinkin writes. Quote, for those who lived 540 00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:16,760 Speaker 1: in small towns and on farms, fewer activities distinguished one 541 00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,160 Speaker 1: week day from the next. But even they would anticipate 542 00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,520 Speaker 1: the arrival of the weekly mail, apportion the reading of 543 00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,040 Speaker 1: the newspaper they received every seven days, or follow the 544 00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:29,840 Speaker 1: schedules of a train or stage coach that passed through 545 00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:33,560 Speaker 1: regularly on specific week days. As a result, generations of 546 00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,480 Speaker 1: Americans became disciplined to the rhythms of the week that 547 00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,000 Speaker 1: it impinged only lightly on the lives of their ancestors. 548 00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:42,880 Speaker 1: So I think this is an interesting argument that it's like, 549 00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:45,400 Speaker 1: even if you're not living in a city and juggling 550 00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,200 Speaker 1: a lot of uh, you know, scheduled activities on a 551 00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:51,600 Speaker 1: recurring basis, you know, maybe you're just like working on 552 00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:55,800 Speaker 1: a farm in the rural world. Eventually the highly scheduled 553 00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,520 Speaker 1: nature of city life sort of stretches out through through 554 00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:05,080 Speaker 1: media and through transportation infrastructure and and communications through mail 555 00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,240 Speaker 1: and stuff into the rest of the country. Now, one 556 00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:10,560 Speaker 1: thing I was wondering about is okay, though that what 557 00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:14,920 Speaker 1: what is the direct evidence that people tended to become 558 00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,680 Speaker 1: more conscious of weeks and week days, what day of 559 00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:20,360 Speaker 1: the week it was instead of say, what day of 560 00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,600 Speaker 1: the month it was in the nineteenth century. So to 561 00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,440 Speaker 1: mention a few examples of this, he says that there 562 00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,440 Speaker 1: is a change in trends that we can see left 563 00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:34,080 Speaker 1: in what are called blank book diaries of the period. So, 564 00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:36,960 Speaker 1: as we mentioned a minute ago, some diaries would of 565 00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,960 Speaker 1: course have a pre printed organizing principle for your entries, 566 00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,120 Speaker 1: but some diaries would just be blank pages. And he 567 00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,200 Speaker 1: says that in these diaries, if you examine them, you 568 00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:49,960 Speaker 1: can see a natural shift in the first half of 569 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:54,280 Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds towards a preference for identifying which day 570 00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:56,840 Speaker 1: of the week it was at the top of each entry, 571 00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,960 Speaker 1: and suddenly a greater tendency to make error in identifying 572 00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:03,640 Speaker 1: what date of the month it was instead of what 573 00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,520 Speaker 1: day of the week it was and checking against my 574 00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,080 Speaker 1: own experience. I feel like I'm still in this this 575 00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:12,800 Speaker 1: new weekday mindset because you know, or I guess I 576 00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:17,040 Speaker 1: would say that weekday consciousness dominates date consciousness in my thinking. 577 00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:19,480 Speaker 1: I pretty much always know what day of the week 578 00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,360 Speaker 1: it is, but I always have to look up the 579 00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:24,600 Speaker 1: new miracle date unless it's Halloween or something. Yeah. Yeah, 580 00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:28,920 Speaker 1: it's very very much dealing with a publication schedule, I 581 00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:30,880 Speaker 1: think makes you think like this for sure, though I 582 00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:32,640 Speaker 1: guess it would be different if you're if you had 583 00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:36,960 Speaker 1: a publication to say, only came out on of every month, 584 00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:41,040 Speaker 1: or you know, bi monthly publication or something. But but 585 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:44,680 Speaker 1: other pieces of evidence for the increasing weekday consciousness. He says, 586 00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,480 Speaker 1: also in this period in the eighteen hundreds, if you 587 00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:52,080 Speaker 1: examine the records of witness testimony during trials, UH, you 588 00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,640 Speaker 1: will see a trend toward people having a stronger memory 589 00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:58,680 Speaker 1: for what day of the week something happened rather than 590 00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:03,760 Speaker 1: the date UH, and frequently citing recurring weekly routines as 591 00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,840 Speaker 1: sort of the anchor memory that made them sure of 592 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:10,240 Speaker 1: which day what they're what they're saying the witnessed happened on. 593 00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,520 Speaker 1: So I don't know maybe it was a Thursday, because 594 00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,200 Speaker 1: that is when the mail wagon arrives. And he also 595 00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,280 Speaker 1: says across this period, letters begin to show a greater 596 00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:23,040 Speaker 1: preference for organizing recent memories by weeks instead of other 597 00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,040 Speaker 1: time scales. So if you just you know, read large 598 00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:28,720 Speaker 1: amounts of correspondence people talking about what's going on in 599 00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:33,240 Speaker 1: their lives, they're they're more inclined to start saying, here's 600 00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:37,600 Speaker 1: what happened last week or the week before that. Also, interestingly, 601 00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:41,800 Speaker 1: Hancin talks about a few different examples of various powers 602 00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:45,480 Speaker 1: and institutions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 603 00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,640 Speaker 1: trying to replace the seven day week with something else, 604 00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:54,280 Speaker 1: and noting that that these attempts failed in places where 605 00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,760 Speaker 1: the week was already the norm. Some business interests in 606 00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,240 Speaker 1: the West in the late nineteenth century wanted to get 607 00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:03,960 Speaker 1: rid of the seven day week because it caused problems 608 00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,120 Speaker 1: in book keeping. You might think, well, what would those 609 00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:10,080 Speaker 1: problems be? But uh so, think about it this way. 610 00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:14,200 Speaker 1: The year does not subdivide cleanly into a whole number 611 00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:18,760 Speaker 1: of weeks, So you have inconsistent numbers of weeks lining 612 00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,680 Speaker 1: up into time units that are used for bookkeeping. In 613 00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:25,719 Speaker 1: businesses like months or quarters or years, and this can 614 00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:29,759 Speaker 1: cause confusion. For example, if you're trying to compare some 615 00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:33,719 Speaker 1: performance metric between two months, but the metric you're looking 616 00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:37,279 Speaker 1: at is calculated on Fridays, and then maybe you've got 617 00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,920 Speaker 1: a month that has five Fridays, but the next month 618 00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,719 Speaker 1: only has four, so you start having trouble comparing things 619 00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:47,920 Speaker 1: evenly across these calendar units. Oh, that reminds me of 620 00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:50,120 Speaker 1: at one point, we were owned by a company that 621 00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:53,239 Speaker 1: did I guess we gotta like a pay We got 622 00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:56,480 Speaker 1: our paycheck every couple of weeks, and so occasionally you 623 00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:58,520 Speaker 1: would have that one magic month where you got three 624 00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:01,879 Speaker 1: paychecks in a given month, and that one wouldn't have 625 00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,800 Speaker 1: anything taken out of it for for benefits and so forth. 626 00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:10,680 Speaker 1: That's the vague memory I have of it. Anyway, chit Ching, No, 627 00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,080 Speaker 1: it's funny. You can actually google this. They're like people 628 00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:15,279 Speaker 1: who do whole web pages that are just like, here 629 00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,960 Speaker 1: are the months in two that have five Fridays. I'll 630 00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,240 Speaker 1: get five paychecks. I mean, if you get a paycheck 631 00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:31,080 Speaker 1: every week, thank thank now. He also notes that in 632 00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:35,440 Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, I think this was in nine, the 633 00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:39,720 Speaker 1: USSR tried to change the calendar, also to to change 634 00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,640 Speaker 1: the number of days in a week and how weekends worked. 635 00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:45,160 Speaker 1: I think the new system they put together was that 636 00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:49,440 Speaker 1: there would be seventy two weeks of five days each 637 00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:51,719 Speaker 1: in every year, and this would add up to like 638 00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,640 Speaker 1: three and sixty days. And then it would also have 639 00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:59,120 Speaker 1: these weird interruptions supplementing it, so you would have holidays 640 00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:01,600 Speaker 1: which didn't fall on a day of the week, but 641 00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:06,080 Speaker 1: instead interrupted the weekly cycle. So uh, not that they 642 00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,920 Speaker 1: celebrated Halloween, but if you use Halloween as an example, 643 00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,200 Speaker 1: imagine Halloween wasn't on any day of the week, but 644 00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:17,720 Speaker 1: you could have a schedule that went like Friday, Saturday, Halloween, Sunday, Monday. 645 00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:22,480 Speaker 1: The alleged benefit of this was that it would eliminate 646 00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,799 Speaker 1: the inefficiency of factories sitting dormant on the weekends, so 647 00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:29,799 Speaker 1: you know, because of your workers would always be on 648 00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:33,840 Speaker 1: duty to work the machines that day. But it apparently 649 00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:37,480 Speaker 1: proved unpopular and inconvenient because people didn't always have the 650 00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:40,160 Speaker 1: same day off as their friends or family, and it 651 00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,640 Speaker 1: had some other downsides, like, like you know, there are 652 00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,799 Speaker 1: reasons it can sometimes be useful for production to have 653 00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:51,320 Speaker 1: offline periods, right, like say, there's certain maintenance procedures that 654 00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:56,080 Speaker 1: need to take place. Uh, sometimes the machines need to stop. Right. 655 00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:58,399 Speaker 1: So the Soviet Union actually went through a couple of 656 00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:02,759 Speaker 1: different attempts at different reckonings of weeks. But I think 657 00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:05,520 Speaker 1: by like nineteen forty they just went back to the 658 00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:08,799 Speaker 1: regular seven day week. But so it's interesting that at 659 00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,000 Speaker 1: various points both capitalism and communism tried to kill the 660 00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:14,600 Speaker 1: seven day week and they both failed. Yeah, I mean, 661 00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,400 Speaker 1: once that that order is in place, once you've everything 662 00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:24,240 Speaker 1: in your life has has become attuned to this artificial structure, Uh, 663 00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:27,600 Speaker 1: it becomes resistant to change because again, think of all 664 00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:30,320 Speaker 1: the elements that have gone into it that we've discussed. 665 00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:34,520 Speaker 1: You know, they're they're religious, they're they're they're supernatural, they're 666 00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:39,680 Speaker 1: also related to, uh to at times actual frequencies in 667 00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:42,480 Speaker 1: the market. And then it just becomes the frequency of 668 00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,040 Speaker 1: your life. Uh. So to imagine, you know, trying to 669 00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:48,280 Speaker 1: shift away from that un you can imagine the resistance 670 00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,960 Speaker 1: that would take place, um either outward or certainly inward. 671 00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:54,360 Speaker 1: Like what if we were to suddenly switch now like 672 00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,560 Speaker 1: this was the decree that came down. Now we're gonna 673 00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:01,719 Speaker 1: have three sixty five one day weeks. Uh. That's that's 674 00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:04,839 Speaker 1: that's how we're doing it. That's useful, That would would 675 00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:07,640 Speaker 1: be useful even if there was some strong argument to 676 00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,239 Speaker 1: be made for like you'd have imagine like having to 677 00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:14,319 Speaker 1: think about your life and time in that manner. Well, 678 00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:16,359 Speaker 1: even if you try to put together a system that's 679 00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,799 Speaker 1: not absurd in that way, but would try to be 680 00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:21,640 Speaker 1: an improvement on our system, such as one that's been 681 00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,960 Speaker 1: proposed a number of times is um changing the calendar 682 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:28,480 Speaker 1: to have fixed weeks within the year, so that the 683 00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:31,360 Speaker 1: same date in the year would always correlate with the 684 00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:34,160 Speaker 1: same fixed day of the week. So for example, maybe 685 00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:36,680 Speaker 1: January one would always be a Sunday, the second is 686 00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,759 Speaker 1: always a Monday, and it just goes on like that. 687 00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:42,680 Speaker 1: Of course, the problem is again that the number of 688 00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,560 Speaker 1: days in a year does not cleanly divide into seven. 689 00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:48,000 Speaker 1: So the proposed fixed to this is to have a 690 00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:49,440 Speaker 1: couple of days at the end of the year that 691 00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:52,160 Speaker 1: would be so called blank days. These are like neutral 692 00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:54,640 Speaker 1: days that are no day of the week, and then 693 00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:56,680 Speaker 1: it and then it starts over again at the beginning 694 00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,120 Speaker 1: of the year with the with the fixed calendar Can 695 00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,520 Speaker 1: you imagine that though? Can you imagine it living your 696 00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:04,520 Speaker 1: life on a day that is that is not a 697 00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:07,360 Speaker 1: day of the week. It's yeah, it would feel like, 698 00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:09,200 Speaker 1: how am I supposed to think about that? What is 699 00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:11,000 Speaker 1: life like on a blank day? It's probably it's like 700 00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:13,120 Speaker 1: the purge or something. You would wake up to the 701 00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,800 Speaker 1: sounds of the whole world screaming at once. Yeah. But anyway, 702 00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:19,200 Speaker 1: I was reading about this proposal in an interview with 703 00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,799 Speaker 1: David Hankin in an article in The Atlantic um and 704 00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:25,319 Speaker 1: he gives a reasoning why he thinks this has never 705 00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:29,280 Speaker 1: taken hold. For one thing, it would break religious weekly cycles, 706 00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:32,080 Speaker 1: which Christians, Muslims and Jews tend to see as a 707 00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:35,759 Speaker 1: matter of tradition. These these weeks are, in their view, 708 00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:39,040 Speaker 1: an unbroken series going back into antiquity, and that it 709 00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:43,200 Speaker 1: has some religious value. Uh. And so, of course, like 710 00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:46,400 Speaker 1: trying to change the calendar could be could be taken 711 00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,680 Speaker 1: as a as an affront to the religious traditions of 712 00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:53,560 Speaker 1: the main religions in the Western world. And speaking of 713 00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:56,840 Speaker 1: that article in the Atlantic, there's one thing that the 714 00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:01,719 Speaker 1: author asks David Hankin, did the increasing consciousness of the 715 00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,319 Speaker 1: weekly calendar as opposed to the day of the month 716 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,080 Speaker 1: or whatever in the nineteenth century, did it make people 717 00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:11,640 Speaker 1: feel different? Did it make time feel different to people 718 00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:14,880 Speaker 1: when they started thinking about it more in terms of weeks? 719 00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:17,960 Speaker 1: And Hankins as well. It's really hard to prove this, 720 00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:20,720 Speaker 1: but he has a he has a sense that yes, 721 00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:24,600 Speaker 1: he thinks that increasing consciousness of the seven day time 722 00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:28,000 Speaker 1: period did have an effect on people's perception of time, 723 00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,880 Speaker 1: and that effect was that it made people feel like 724 00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:35,160 Speaker 1: time was going by faster. So to read his quote, 725 00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:37,680 Speaker 1: I do think that when we are more attuned to 726 00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:40,560 Speaker 1: the cycle, because it's shorter than a month, it feels 727 00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,759 Speaker 1: like time moves much more quickly. When our Mondays are 728 00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,799 Speaker 1: different from our Tuesdays and our Wednesdays, it does kind 729 00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:49,320 Speaker 1: of feel like, all of a sudden, it's Monday again. 730 00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:53,120 Speaker 1: You can see in nineteenth century diary entries that more 731 00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:56,319 Speaker 1: and more often people describe this feeling by referring to 732 00:40:56,400 --> 00:41:00,239 Speaker 1: how another week has come and gone. Which is funny 733 00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:02,279 Speaker 1: because as soon as I read that phrase, another week 734 00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:04,640 Speaker 1: has come and go on, that sounds like something extracted 735 00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:10,319 Speaker 1: directly from like a Victorian letter or something. But but yeah, 736 00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:12,279 Speaker 1: that's interesting. I wonder what you think about that if 737 00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:16,520 Speaker 1: you organize more of your life along the schedule of 738 00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,560 Speaker 1: the seven day week, does it feel like your life 739 00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:23,000 Speaker 1: is happening faster than if you don't. I don't know. 740 00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:26,160 Speaker 1: You know, it's because you also hear people saying the 741 00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:29,839 Speaker 1: same thing about months and years, where they'll say things like, oh, man, 742 00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:32,279 Speaker 1: March just flew by, didn't it It just seemed like 743 00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:34,839 Speaker 1: it was no time at all? Or is it really 744 00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:39,160 Speaker 1: Christmas again? It's we just did Christmas, now it's Christmas again. Um. 745 00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:44,640 Speaker 1: So I'm I'm not not sure if I mean, I 746 00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:47,919 Speaker 1: believe the author here, but um. But on the other hand, 747 00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:50,000 Speaker 1: I don't know if it completely matches up with with 748 00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:52,960 Speaker 1: my experience and my experience of hearing other people talk 749 00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,600 Speaker 1: about the passage of time. I guess we're so conscious 750 00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:57,920 Speaker 1: of weeks we don't really have anything to compare it to. 751 00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:01,279 Speaker 1: We like, we can't remember what the passage of time 752 00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:03,200 Speaker 1: felt like in the part of our lives where we 753 00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:08,560 Speaker 1: didn't experience weeks. Yeah, I would say when you think 754 00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:10,560 Speaker 1: outside of cat like, if you're going to actually think 755 00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:16,080 Speaker 1: about things that are not cleanly divided by by by 756 00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:18,319 Speaker 1: months and weeks and days, you know, I might think 757 00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:20,760 Speaker 1: about the seasons, and sometimes that gets a little harder 758 00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:22,600 Speaker 1: to think about, Like if you think about, well, when 759 00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:26,160 Speaker 1: did when did winter actually begin for me and this 760 00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:28,439 Speaker 1: part in this part of the world in which I live, 761 00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:30,640 Speaker 1: and when does it seem like it is going to end? 762 00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:32,080 Speaker 1: Or when did it end? And then when did it 763 00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:35,200 Speaker 1: start again? And so forth. Good, we seem to have 764 00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:40,440 Speaker 1: a certain fluctuation here in Atlanta. But I guess when 765 00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,480 Speaker 1: I start thinking about that, maybe it becomes a little murkier. 766 00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,400 Speaker 1: But you know, you begin to feel like it feels 767 00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,000 Speaker 1: like it's always been winter. Well, of course we get 768 00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:52,279 Speaker 1: the standard time perception paradox, right that has come up 769 00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:54,760 Speaker 1: on the show many times before, which is that in general, 770 00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:57,680 Speaker 1: things that feel like they're going on for a long 771 00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:00,640 Speaker 1: time in the moment vanished to a point in memory, 772 00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:03,320 Speaker 1: and things that feel like they're gone in a flash 773 00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,439 Speaker 1: in the moment tend to expand in memory. A big 774 00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:10,200 Speaker 1: example seasonally that I think about is um summers. When 775 00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:12,440 Speaker 1: I was a kid, You know, summers off from school. 776 00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:14,719 Speaker 1: It's like, when you're in it, it feels like the 777 00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:16,960 Speaker 1: summer is over in an instant, you just have to 778 00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:19,319 Speaker 1: go right back to school. But in my memory, the 779 00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:23,279 Speaker 1: summers seem infinite. Yeah they yeah, they really did. Yeah, 780 00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:27,800 Speaker 1: there's and granted school school summers have have gotten shorter, 781 00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:31,919 Speaker 1: but the way they felt versus the way they seem 782 00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:33,920 Speaker 1: now like, it's it's more than can be accounted for 783 00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,239 Speaker 1: just by h adding or subtracting even whole month of 784 00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,600 Speaker 1: the days. It reminds me of that that short story, 785 00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:45,160 Speaker 1: though the woman had been inspired. Kubrick's Ai movie had 786 00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:48,440 Speaker 1: the title super Toys Last All Summer Long, which I 787 00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:51,000 Speaker 1: always really like that title because you know it it 788 00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:54,839 Speaker 1: implies the summers of childhood and like you said, they're 789 00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:58,000 Speaker 1: kind of infinite nature. Well, and to come back to weeks, 790 00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:02,399 Speaker 1: I think one way in which the summer experience when 791 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,560 Speaker 1: I was a kid was different was that, of course, 792 00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:06,920 Speaker 1: during the school year, I'm highly aware of what day 793 00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:09,040 Speaker 1: of the week it was, and then the summer weeks 794 00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:12,960 Speaker 1: didn't matter anymore. That's another thing, because that, yeah, I 795 00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:16,239 Speaker 1: do remember more of a wide open summer situation when 796 00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,239 Speaker 1: I was a kid, but as a parent, like we're 797 00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:21,480 Speaker 1: more like, nope, this this this week, we're doing this camp, 798 00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:25,400 Speaker 1: and it definitely has a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, situations. 799 00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:27,120 Speaker 1: Some of those days are pool days, some of those 800 00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:29,719 Speaker 1: days are pizza party days. It's all, it's all in 801 00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:31,600 Speaker 1: the schedule. You know. There was one more thing I 802 00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:34,839 Speaker 1: was thinking about getting into that is a a proposed 803 00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:39,200 Speaker 1: neurological basis for UH for the seven day a week. 804 00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:42,320 Speaker 1: But but maybe I'm gonna save that for our listener 805 00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:44,960 Speaker 1: Mail episode on the following Monday, because we got a 806 00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,560 Speaker 1: good message from a listener about it. Excellent. Well, on 807 00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,719 Speaker 1: that note, if you have thoughts on this topic that 808 00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,920 Speaker 1: we've covered these last three episodes the seven day Week, UH, 809 00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:57,400 Speaker 1: keep them coming right in. We'd love to hear from you. 810 00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:00,319 Speaker 1: Everybody has some sort of connection to this. How do 811 00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:02,160 Speaker 1: these How do the day's feel to you? How does 812 00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:05,720 Speaker 1: the passage of the week feel to you? Um, anything 813 00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,560 Speaker 1: we've discussed in these episodes is open game, So right in, 814 00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,200 Speaker 1: we'd we'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, 815 00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:13,480 Speaker 1: if you would like to check out other episodes of 816 00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:15,200 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind, well, this is how our 817 00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:18,080 Speaker 1: week tends to go on Monday, we do listener Mail 818 00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,319 Speaker 1: on Tuesday, a core episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind. 819 00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,720 Speaker 1: On Wednesday, a short form artifact or monster fact episode. 820 00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:27,000 Speaker 1: On Thursday, another episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Friday, 821 00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:29,040 Speaker 1: we do Weird How Cinema. That's our time to set 822 00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:32,040 Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns and just talk about a strange film. 823 00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:34,920 Speaker 1: And then on Saturday we have a rerun. We have 824 00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:38,239 Speaker 1: a Vault episode, followed by Sunday, which of course is 825 00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:40,600 Speaker 1: the day we rest, the day we on our soul 826 00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:45,200 Speaker 1: invict Us. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio 827 00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,680 Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get 828 00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:51,239 Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or 829 00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:53,440 Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or 830 00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,320 Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact 831 00:45:56,360 --> 00:46:06,520 Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow Your Mind Doctor. Stuff to Blow 832 00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:09,080 Speaker 1: Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more 833 00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:11,680 Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, 834 00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:27,200 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.