SZ: Mr Göttlich, what do you prefer to wait for?
Andreas Göttlich: Of course I’d rather wait for things that I can look forward to than negative events. For example, I like to wait in the run-up to parties with friends or family, but I don’t like to wait if the waiting could have been avoided with better planning, such as when shopping shortly after work at the full checkout. Also, I find waiting less uncomfortable when I can roughly estimate how long I’ll have to wait and know I’m not waiting in vain. I’m probably just a normal waiter there. Most people feel that way.
Many people experience waiting as exhausting and nerve-wracking. Why actually?
You can try to explain it anthropologically: let’s think about our childhood. We know that waiting was already difficult for us back then. Scientific experiments have also confirmed this. The best known is Walter Mischel’s marshmallow experiment. It shows that young children find it difficult to put off fulfilling a current desire in favor of later gain. The children are given a piece of candy that they can eat immediately. Or they wait a few minutes without touching the candy and then get a second one. It turns out that we humans with our basic psychological equipment are not good wardens. So we have to learn how to wait. It’s a kind of cultural technique. After all, it is part of our socialization that we have to wait for things.
What difference does our culture make?
The fact that we live under constant pressure of time is something specifically late modern. While waiting, we are exposed to processes that we cannot influence. Otherwise we wouldn’t be waiting. And that doesn’t correspond to our self-image of a self-determined life, a very modern ethos of life. In this respect, waiting also contradicts the ideas of a good life that we as modern, Western people have.
dr Andreas Göttlich is a sociologist at the University of Konstanz. There he heads the DFG research project “Waiting. Research into an Everyday Social Phenomenon” and the research project “Waiting. A Basic Theory” funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.
(Photo: oh)
How do other cultures deal with waiting?
In certain respects, waiting does not differ at all between cultures. I was in South America and Japan for my research project. There, however, I did notice differences to our way of waiting, but of course there are also differences within these regions. For example, the urban-rural divide is present in all countries or cultures, and so are differences between genders and generations. You can distinguish between different cultures of waiting, but you have to keep in mind that there are also differences within the cultures.
What are these cultures of waiting?
About 40 years ago, the ethnologist Edward T. Hall distinguished between two time cultures. The monochronic culture always pursues only one story line. In polychronic cultures like Latin or Central America, people tend to do several things at the same time. This has the effect of waiting that monochronic people tend to falter because they cannot switch to other tasks or activities. Polychrons simply continue one of the other actions. His theory is a bit crude, but it has a kernel of truth.
Do you have one thing in common that waiting always needs a goal?
I would say so, even if some theorists deny it. Somehow waiting assumes that you have at least a vague idea of a goal you are waiting for. But it can also be the case that you only realize afterwards that a phase in life that you didn’t initially perceive as a waiting period was actually a waiting period.
“We have to cultivate the way we deal with waiting.”
And if this phase is the whole life? Isn’t life just waiting for death?
There is the view that the waiting time of everyday life is ultimately only understandable against the background that we anticipate our own death. The awareness of this scarcity of time, which is imposed on us with one’s own death, is something that defines human beings. But I wouldn’t say that we have it all the time in everyday life. This is an interpretative pattern that is plausible from a distance.
Does it make sense to avoid waiting?
Waiting is part of social life. Modernism has been variously described as a project designed to abolish waiting times. Everything should run more efficiently, ideally without any waiting times. But that’s not possible. On the contrary: we have to deal with waiting. Because there is much to suggest that modernity and its mass culture actually require more waiting times. Think airports, waiting rooms, queues.
How do these places become good waiting rooms?
I was in Buenos Aires and saw people waiting at bus stops. These are often just signs on the side of the road and therefore the worst possible waiting rooms. Rooms are good when they offer comfort. Banal elements such as temperature, light, a sense of openness and noise play a role. Weather protection and a distraction from waiting will help. Also, waiting rooms are good when they offer some protection from social control. Think of the doctor’s waiting room. Actually a good waiting room. Nevertheless, it is often very uncomfortable there. You are too exposed to social control, to the looks of others. At airports, I’ve noticed that people often wait at empty terminals where they don’t even depart. There they can avoid the control situation and devote themselves better to their own thoughts.
Is this how you get rid of the boring boredom of waiting?
Boredom occurs when time is perceived as empty because it seems unused. When we are forced to wait and don’t think we can do anything else, we are particularly vulnerable. But you can almost always keep yourself busy. For example, you can consciously use the time for reflection or self-contemplation.