Hello everyone, welcome to the Mindscape Podcast. I'm your host Sean Carroll and here on Mindscape

We often talk about the value of time in different contexts

We've talked about the physics of time the philosophy of time the psychology of time the neuroscience of time the biology of time

What else is there really what about the politics of time now? Of course part of you is going to say I mean

There's some connection between time and politics because there's a connection between time and everything right time is everywhere

But the question is is it an interesting connection should we be thinking specifically about the role of time in our political lives

And today's guest Elizabeth Cohen makes the case that yes

Not only should we think about time and politics, but we have been under theorizing it

There are a lot of questions we should be asking about exactly this question

She's written a book called the political value of time citizenship duration and democratic justice and once you start thinking of it

The relationship between politics and time becomes clear in many different ways for example just defining what you mean

By a democratic nation right there is of course the date when the nation starts here in the United States

We pretend it is July 4th

1776 but that's not really when the Constitution started and you know

Maybe it wasn't even the date the Declaration of Independence was signed

But anyway, we give a symbolic date then and then what do you do about people who

Move to the country after that happens?

Who gets to be in the country and who gets to be out?

And then once the country is older and that's all in the past you can start asking who gets to vote right?

Of course we talk about citizenship when it comes to voting

But we also talk about age you need to have existed a certain number of years in order to have the right to vote

We think that you need a certain amount of time here on earth to develop the wisdom and the values that will then

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