Too Fast?! Why We Are Prisoners of the Short Term
Publisher
:
Albin Michel
Parution date
:
EAN
:
9782226206145
Number of pages
:
198
Description
Would you like to be driving at night in a car whose headlights provide less light as you increase speed? This is the metaphor that Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber uses to warn of the dangers of living in the short term. Our horizons have shrunk in almost every aspect of society, but the pace at which we live keeps accelerating. We need to pay attention to the probability of faults in the road ahead
We now live in the short term in every segment of our lives: politics, finance, the inner workings of companies, and the environment. Relationships between people are also increasingly short-termed and shortsighted. Why should we care? The danger is that when we do too many things in too short a time, when we are not pressed by time but by the numbers of things we have to do, we lose sight of our destination.
In the past decade, new technologies have increased the pace even more, and now we are starting to experience the first crashes. The recent subprime financial crisis is just one example of the fragility of the system. The Icelandic volcano explosion is another, and has made it clear that whatever our technological advances, we are at a complete loss when we are forced to slow down.
Servan-Schreiber is not purporting to have the solutions; what he wants to do is raise consciousness, especially about environmental problems that cannot be solved with short-term views. With Too Fast?! he helps the reader take a long term view of the world and see what we need to do in order to face the future at our own individual pace. We are in that car—we cannot get out—but at least if we are conscious of our path, we can spend more time thinking about the consequences of our short-term actions and perhaps develop our own strategies to avoid the worst.
Author
Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber : Writer, journalist, and publishing magnate Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber has been the director and founder of the most successful news publications in France and abroad, and is a board member of the international organization Human Rights Watch. He has written eleven books including his well-received first study of time, The Art of Time: Gain New Mastery over Your Life and the Power to Live Your Time Instead of Simply Spending It, published in 1989 in English by Da Capo Press.
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