Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity - New Directions in Critical Theory

Commendation Quotes: Hartmut Rosa has put forward the most developed and most important social theoretical analysis of the acceleration of time from the perspective of critical theory. His theory of social acceleration is of great importance, since it explains how our social lives are speeding up, and extends critical theory into a new and fruitful avenue of inquiry--and maybe even into a new generation of social theorizing and critique. Commendation Quotes: Ours is a high-speed society: we need a proper conceptual and theoretical framework for making sense of it. As Hartmut Rosa shows in this ambitious and wide-ranging work, the concept of social acceleration offers a rich starting point for doing so. Commendation Quotes: Hartmut Rosa, a rising star in the field of German sociology, proposes a new critical theory that explains and explores the narrative of 'run-away-modernity' conceptually, empirically, and normatively. In the second half of the twentieth century, most giants of social thought focused on the reproduction of the social and political order in late capitalism, class society, social systems, and structures of power, but Rosa does the opposite: he reassembles the focus of his theory on the transformation of order. Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.; 8; Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of life, which happens despite the expectation that technological change should increase an individual's free time.; Translated from the German. Table of Contents: Illustrations -- Translator's Introduction: Modernity and Time -- In Place of a Preface -- Introduction -- 1. Temporal Structures in Society -- 2. Two Contemporary Diagnoses of the Times -- 3. A Theory of Social Acceleration: Preliminary Considerations -- Part 1. The Categorial Framework of a Systematic Theory of Social Acceleration -- 1. From the Love of Movement to the Law of Acceleration: Observations of Modernity -- 1. Acceleration and the Culture of Modernity -- 2. Modernization, Acceleration, and Social Theory -- 2. What Is Social Acceleration? -- 1. Preliminary Considerations: Acceleration and Escalation -- 2. Three Dimensions of Social Acceleration -- 3. Five Categories of Inertia -- 4. On the Relation Between Movement and Inertia in Modernity -- Part 2. Mechanisms and Manifestations: A Phenomenology of Social Acceleration -- 3. Technical Acceleration and the Revolutionizing of the Space-Time Regime -- 4. Slipping Slopes: The Acceleration of Social Change and the Increase of Contingency -- 5. The Acceleration of the Pace of Life and Paradoxes in the Experience of Time -- 1. Objective Parameters: The Escalation of the Speed of Action -- 2. Subjective Parameters: Time Pressure and the Experience of Racing Time -- 3. Temporal Structures and Self-Relations -- Part 3. Causes -- 6. The Speeding Up of Society as a Self-Propelling Process: The Circle of Acceleration -- 7. Acceleration and Growth: External Drivers of Social Acceleration -- 1. Time Is Money: The Economic Motor -- 2. The Promise of Acceleration: The Cultural Motor -- 3. The Temporalization of Complexity: The Socio-Structural Motor -- 8. Power, War, and Speed: State and Military as Key Institutional Accelerators -- Part 4. Consequences -- 9. Acceleration, Globalization, Postmodernity -- 10. Situational Identity: Of Drifters and Players -- 1. The Dynamization of the Self in Modernity -- 2. From Substantial A Priori Identity to Stable A Posteriori Identity: The Temporalization of Life -- 3. From Temporally Stable to Situational Identity: The Temporalization of Time -- 11. Situational Politics: Paradoxical Time Horizons Between Desynchronization and Disintegration -- 1. Time in Politics-Politics in Time -- 2. The Temporalization of History in tire Modem Age -- 3. Paradoxical Time Horizons: The Detemporalization of History in Late Modernity -- 12. Acceleration and Rigidity: An Attempt at a Redefinition of Modernity -- Conclusion: Frenetic Standstill? The End of History -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. Biographical Note: Hartmut Rosa is professor of sociology and political science at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universit't Jena. He is the author of "Alienation and Acceleration: Towards a Critical Theory of Late-Modern Temporality" and coeditor, with William E. Scheuerman of, "High-Speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power, and Modernity."Jonathan Trejo-Mathys (1979-2014) was assistant professor of philosophy at Boston College. Publisher Marketing: Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of life, which happens despite the expectation that technological change should increase an individual's free time. According to Rosa, both the structural and cultural aspects of our institutions and practices are marked by the "shrinking of the present," a decreasing time period during which expectations based on past experience reliably match the future. When this phenomenon combines with technological acceleration and the increasing pace of life, time seems to flow ever faster, making our relationships to each other and the world fluid and problematic. It is as if we are standing on "slipping slopes," a steep social terrain that is itself in motion and in turn demands faster lives and technology. As Rosa deftly shows, this self-reinforcing feedback loop fundamentally determines the character of modern life. Review Citations:

Choice 11/01/2013 (EAN 9780231519885, Portable Document Format (PDF))

Choice 11/01/2013 (EAN 9780231148344, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:  Rosa, Hartmut Hartmut Rosa is Professor of Sociology at the University of Jena and Affiliated Professor of Sociology at the New School University.