Punctuality — buzzword of businessmen and army lieutenants alike. It is the defining feature of the stereotypical German, the mark of the prototypical train conductor and the curse of the typical Stanford student. When I hear punctuality, I think polished pocket watches and shined shoes, long orderly military columns and boardrooms filled to capacity at the striking of the hour. And, while it is generally bad form to make comparisons to fascist dictatorships, I immediately and directly associate punctuality with Italy from 1922 through 1943, during which “the trains ran on time.”

If you haven’t guessed yet, I am not a fan. And while, admittedly, we don’t actually use the word “punctuality” all that often in daily speech, time is everywhere, and we give it quite a high value, especially in this cut-throat academic environment. Deadlines loom, appointments beckon and even time spent with friends must be forced into a rigid and unforgiving schedule.

Punctuality is an ultimate good: it is widely assumed that you cannot be too punctual. Thus, from some some, it has been classified as a “virtue.” But the unfortunate downside of its status as a virtue is that there doesn’t seem to be a valid excuse for its opposite, lateness, any more than there is a valid excuse for evil as opposed to good. Lateness has become hopelessly intertwined with evil and, furthermore, that most hateful of notions, disrespect.

Surely, this is true, to a certain extent. I am being disrespectful by showing up more than a certain number of minutes late to various functions. There really isn’t any arguing here. As such, a rational argument for premeditated lateness would be tantamount to a public endorsement of Satanism.

What I argue, however, is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Lateness is only disrespectful because our culture dictates that it be so. And, I will further argue, we should seriously question where this punctuality fetishism ultimately comes from.

Before the accusations of “entitlement” start rolling in, as they inevitably do when any Stanford student produces any kind of written output, I should note that whole swaths of our country and, indeed, the majority of the world, would agree with me when I say that Americans overvalue the minute as a unit of time. I am not claiming that I should be able to be late because I’m special or anything of the sort. Instead, I am arguing for a generalized paradigm shift in the way we view lateness. This new paradigm would apply just as equally to me as it does to anyone else.

That said, what we as a culture fail to realize is that this temporal obsession is a particularly American vice. In many North African, Latin American and Mediterranean countries, it is common, even accepted, to arrive late to various functions. A wedding dinner scheduled for 9 o’clock will serve dinner at two in the morning.

It was only March of last year that the country of Peru launched an initiative to increase punctuality within its borders. On an appointed day in that month, 28 million people synchronized their watches to twelve noon. The government was attempting to combat the typical notion of hora Peruana, or “Peruvian time,” a phrase typically denoting up to an hour of lateness to every major function. Hora Americana, American time, has come to be the standard in Peru — such lateness is no longer tolerated.

The change was initiated by Peruvian president Alan Garcia, who believed that the “problem” of lateness was hurting national productivity. And in typical fashion, he quoted the adage “time is money” to justify his decision.

But here lies the problem of the decision. At least since the democratic restoration of Peru in 1979, it had been living fine, more or less, without having to worry too much about time, deadlines, punctuality and the like. It had comfortably situated itself within a paradigm that allowed for lateness. But in a rush to fully modernize, as it were, the leadership felt it was necessary to enforce punctuality.

Punctuality is accepted as seemingly synonymous with progress, modernization, industrial output and efficiency. To endorse a system that allowed flexibility when it came to lateness would mean to go backwards in time, to revert to a simpler, more primitive existence. After all, hunter-gatherers don’t have clocks or day planners.

But at the heart of all of this is a culturally-biased perspective. I will not claim, as others have, that some “Protestant work ethic” has fueled the modern shift. Instead, the business world, with its insistence on efficiency above all else, has bled into our daily lives. What has happened to spontaneity, to lateness for the sake of beautiful irregularity? It has been swallowed by the notion that time is money. Punctuality may be good and fine for the train conductor, but I don’t want to conduct my life like a train. I want to be derailed sometimes.

Unironically, Nat turned in this column late. Email him your similar stories of lateness at nat.hillard "at" stanford.edu.