Spring is gradually springing. This is the time of year when no two days are the same...sometimes its warm and lovely out and you can feel the sunshine on your face, and some days it is bitter cold like the worst of winter. The days have gotten longer--largely due to a change in the clock known as "Daylight Savings Time".
Most countries in the world do not do a Daylight Savings season, so I probably ought to explain what it is. Essentially, the goal was to make the productive period of the day longer for farmers and workers--if the light period shifted from early in the morning to later in the evening, the reasoning went, farmers could spend longer in the Spring planting and the Fall harvest, people who worked second and graveyard shifts in factories would have daylight to live by, and the light time of the 24-hour cycle would fall exactly when--so it was thought--people would be most productive.
Nowadays, now that commerce is global and communications are global and done at lightning speed--the smallest business in India or China or wherever can do business all over the world--Daylight Savings Time seems a bit silly.
So I'll explain why we don't change things here in America with a little story. In the late 1960s and 1970s, there was a push to convert America to the metric system that pretty much the entire rest of the world uses--ie miles to kilometers, pounds to kilos and so on. Although the effort was sponsored by the government, people absolutely *refused*. When that happens, we say, "There is no political will to do this." There was no political will to switch America to the metric system, and there is no political will to end Daylight Savings time, which is really an anachronism.
Why is there no political will? This is an important point of American culture: Part of American culture is the notion of "American Exceptionalism"---the notion that America is somehow special among nations. We won't change Daylight Savings time because we are America, and we do things our way, and we are special.
What do *I* think? All nations are different and different opportunities exist in all nations. For a certain kind of person seeking a certain kind of opportunity, America *can* be exceptional. Is Amercia special within the world? I need to travel more to figure that out. But I won't get on an airplane.
Anyone h9o wants to know why I won't get on an airplane--or just wants to get a FREE ESL/accent reduction consult ad a FREE trial lesson can call me @ (732) 807-5424 or check out my American Idiom of The Day Twitter pagge, or David Berlin's ESL and Accent Reduction Training website or my YouTube channel which has instructional videos on ESL and accent reduction. You can also check out some of the ESL/accent reduction podcasts by me I've linked to on the right hand side of this blog. Okay? Okay Call me today!
