The Thammasat University Library has acquired a new book that should be useful to students who are interested in business, intellectual trends, philosophy, sociology, and related subjects.

In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed is shelved in the General Stacks of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus.

It joins other books in the TU Library collection about different aspects of slowness. 

It argues:

We live in a world of scarce understanding and abundant information. We complain that we never have any free time yet we seek distraction. If work can’t distract us, we distract ourselves. We crave perpetual stimulation and motion. We’re so busy that our free time comes in 20 second bursts, just long enough for us to read the gist and assume we understand. If we are to synthesize learning and understanding we need time to think…Being Slow means never rushing, never striving to save time just for the sake of it. It means remaining calm and unflustered even when circumstances force us to speed up. Some people are happy living at a speed that would send the rest of us to an early grave. Everyone must have the right to choose the pace that makes them happy. The world is a richer place when we make room for different speeds.

TU students will have noticed that some students complete assignments faster than others. In Praise of Slowness suggests that we should accept different speeds, without making judgments about quality of work based on how fast it is achieved.

An international slow movement in culture is studied at The World Institute of Slowness, based in Norway.

Among cultural demonstrations is Slow Art Day, which will next be celebrated in April 2021.

During that day, museums and art galleries across the world host events focused on intentionally experiencing art slowly through slow looking. The movement aims to help people to discover the joy of looking at art, typically through observing a painting or sculpture for 10-15 minutes, often followed by discussion.

Slow cinema is a movie-making style which features long takes, minimalist acting, and slow or still camera movements. Among slow cinema directors are Béla Tarr, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Abbas Kiarostami, Tsai Ming-Liang, Andrei Tarkovsky and Theo Angelopoulos.

As an alternative approach to modern faster styles of reading, such as speed reading, the concept of slow reading has been reintroduced as an educational branch of the slow movement.

The term slow fashion is based on the same principles of the slow food movement, as an alternative to mass-produced clothing.

The slow clothing movement was intended to reject all mass-produced clothing, referring only to clothing made by hand, but has broadened to include many interpretations and is practiced in various ways. Functional and fashion novelty drives consumers to replace their items faster causing an increase of imported goods.

The slow fashion ethos is a unified representation of all the “sustainable”, “eco”, “green”, and “ethical” fashion movements. It encourages education about the garment industry’s connection and impact on the environment and depleting resources, slowing of the supply chain to reduce the number of trends and seasons, to encourage quality production, and return greater value to garments removing the image of disposability of fashion. A key phrase repeatedly heard in reference to slow fashion is “quality over quantity.” This phrase is used to summarise the basic principles of slowing down the rate of clothing consumption by choosing garments that last longer.

Slow food

Opposed to the culture of fast food, the sub-movement known as slow food seeks to encourage the enjoyment of regional produce, traditional foods, which are often grown organically and to enjoy these foods in the company of others. It aims to defend agricultural biodiversity.

The movement claims 83,000 members in 50 countries, which are organised into 800 local chapters. Sometimes operating under a logo of a snail, the collective philosophy is to preserve and support traditional ways of life.

In 2004, representatives from food communities in more than 150 countries met in Turin, Italy, under the umbrella of the Terra Madre (Mother Earth) network.

Slow gaming

Slow gaming is an approach to video games that is meant to be more slow-paced and more focused on challenging the assumptions and feelings of the player than on their skills and reflexes.

Some games that can be considered examples of “slow gaming” include: Firewatch (2016), Heaven’s Vault (2019), Journey (2012), and Wanderlust Travel Stories (2019).

Slow gardening

Slow gardening is a philosophical approach to gardening which encourages participants to savor everything they do, using all the senses, through all seasons, regardless of garden type of style. Slow gardening applies equally to people growing vegetables, herbs, flowers, and fruits, as well as those who tend to their own lawn, or have an intense garden hobby such as topiary, bonsai or plant hybridizing. It actively promotes self-awareness, personal responsibility, and environmental stewardship.

Slow medicine

Slow medicine is a movement calling for change in medical practice which took inspiration from the wider slow food movement. Practitioners of slow medicine have published several different definitions, but the common emphasis is on the word “slow,” meaning to allow the medical practitioner to have sufficient time with the patient. Like for the slow food movement, slow medicine is a call to balance over-emphasis on fast processes which reduce quality.

For some, slow medicine means taking time and not rushing when evaluating a patient. For others, slow medicine is a careful evaluation of medical evidence and a desire not to “overdiagnose” or “overtreat.” The original Slow Medicine society in Italy points to three key words of being “measured,” “respectful” and “equitable,” which focuses on the social and political aspects of medicine. One early practitioner of slow medicine sees the patient in the metaphor of a plant which needs to be nourished and for impediments to be removed in order to allow healing to occur.

Slow Money is a specific non-profit organisation, founded to organise investors and donors to steer new sources of capital to small food enterprises, organic farms, and local food systems. Slow Money takes its name from the Slow Food movement. Slow Money aims to develop the relationship between capital markets and place, including social and soil fertility. Slow Money is supporting the grass-roots mobilisation through network building, convening, publishing, and incubating intermediary strategies and structures of funding.

Slow photography is a term describing a tendency in today’s contemporary photography and visual arts. In response to the spread the snapshot, artists and photographers retake manual techniques and working methods to work slower, manually and in constant dialogue with the physical materials of the images. A broader interpretation of Slow Photography applies to all kinds of image making, including film and digital processes. The “Slow Photography Movement” website, and related social media accounts, was launched in 2018. The effort is a collaboration by several photographers to promote the slowing down of experiencing places, and the making of stronger connections to place. The effort offers an alternative to the quick-hit images that saturate social media, which usually lack in content and story-telling.

Slow scholarship is a response to hasty scholarship and the demands of corporatized neoliberal academic culture, which may compromise the quality and integrity of research, education and well-being. This movement attempts to counter the erosion of humanistic education, analyze the consequences of the culture of speed, and “explores alternatives to the fast-paced, metric-oriented neoliberal university through a slow-moving conversation on ways to slow down and claim time for slow scholarship and collective action.”

Slow Science

The slow science movement’s objective is to enable scientists to take the time to think and read. The prevalent culture of science is publish or perish, where scientists are judged to be better if they publish more papers in less time, and only those who do so are able to maintain their careers. Those who practice and promote slow science suggest that “society should give scientists the time they need.”

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)