THE PITFALL OF INSTANT GRATIFICATION
A discernible social trend of the last fifty years in America—and probably in most parts of the industrialized world—has been the change in time horizons. Our incremental measures of time have moved from seasons to microseconds. The trip that took George Washington days by wheeled coach from New York to Philadelphia is now hardly a trip. James Madison is said to have remarked that he hadn’t heard from his ambassador to Spain in over two years, and if he didn’t hear from him within the next six months he, the President, would surely contact him to find out what was going on.
The need for relatively instant gratification is a shortcoming of our society. We may no longer have the will to set the cornerstone of ...
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