ABSTRACT
I wake up this morning to be told on the news that a culture that forces people to get up early and start work at 9 is a form of ‘torture’. I hit the snooze button and wonder if an appeal to human rights could save me from having to give my 9 a.m. lecture. Unchangeable bodily rhythms and the idea that we’re better suited to 10 or 11 o’clock starts seem very important, but even if the hypothesis is correct, have our lives thus far really been ‘torture’? Sleep deprivation is a wellknown method of cruel and unusual punishment, but anyone who has endured it might be rightly dubious of classifying an early start in this way. It’s good for headlines though.
