Kultura teraźniejszości w ujęciu globalnym i lokalnym

The author characterizes the spread of nowist culture as a global phenomenon consisting in the compression of the time frame and the emergence of an extended present absorbing the past and the future into the compact time of global society. These results of the impact of technological development, the spread of communication technologies, new media, consumption culture, the market, and advertising have a negative influence on the life of the individual, the permanency of culture, and the transmission of knowledge. The author claims that we must therefore discover anew the value of permanency. Local factors have a modifying influence on global processes. In Polish society these are historically conditioned elements of the presentist culture (the communist heritage, the domination of peasant culture, the weakness of urban culture, Catholic culture) and the effects of the systemic transformation. When time was discovered to be an economically measurable value, its place came to be occupied by work. People higher on the economic ladder are characterized by a deficit of time, in contrast to lower income groups, who rather suffer from an excess of time. The author emphasizes that time could become a source of social inequalities in nowist culture.