Hartmut Rosa “Social Acceleration”

Rosa, Hartmut 2003. Social Acceleration: Ethical and Political Consequences of a Desynchronized High-Speed Society. Constellations 10(1): 3–33.

My claim here is that we cannot adequately understand the nature and character of modernity and the logic of its structural and cultural development unless we add the temporal perspective to our analysis. (4)

no analysis of social acceleration is complete unless it takes into account those strange corresponding phenomena of social deceleration and slowdown that have become particularly visible towards the turn of the twenty-first century, with the rise of theories of ‘hyper-acceleration,’ ‘turbo-capitalism,’ and the ‘digital speed-revolution’ on the one hand, and conceptions of ‘polar inertia,’ the ‘end of history,’ the ‘closing of the future,’ and the sclerotic inescapability of the ‘iron cage’ on the other. (5)

1) technological acceleration

The first, most obvious, and most measurable form of acceleration is the speeding up of intentional, goal-directed processes of transport, communication, and production that can be defined as technological acceleration. (6)

2) acceleration of social change

Whereas phenomena of the first category can be described as acceleration processes within society, the phenomena of this second category could be classified as accelerations of society itself. When novelists, scientists, and journalists since the eighteenth century have observed the dynamization of Western culture, society, or history – and sometimes of time itself14 – they were not so much concerned with the spectacular technological advancements as with the (often simultaneous) accelerated processes of social change that rendered social constellations and structures as well as patterns of action and orientation unstable and ephemeral. The underlying idea is that rates of change themselves are changing. (7)

German philosopher Hermann Lübbe claims that Western societies experience what he calls the “contraction of the present” (Gegenwartsschrumpfung) as a consequence of the accelerating rates of cultural and social innovation.17 His measure is as simple as it is instructive: for Lübbe, the past is defined as that which no longer holds/is no longer valid while the future denotes that which does not yet hold/is not yet valid. The present, then, is the time-span for which (to use an idea developed by Reinhart Koselleck) the horizons of experience and expectation coincide. (7)

In other words, social acceleration is defined by an increase in the decay-rates of the reliability of experiences and expectations and by the contraction of the time-spans definable as the ‘present.’ (7)

For the moment I want to suggest that change in these two realms – family and work – has accelerated from an inter-generational pace in early-modern society to a generational pace in ‘classical modernity’ to an intra-generational pace in late modernity. (8)

3) acceleration of the pace of life

But first we must be able to measure the pace of life. 23 In my view, attempts to do so could follow a ‘subjective’ or an ‘objective’ approach, with the most promising route probably being a combination of the two. On the ‘subjective’ side, an acceleration of the speed of life (as against the speed of life itself) is
likely to have effects on individuals’ experience of time: it will cause people to consider time as scarce, to feel hurried and under time pressure and stress. (9)

On the ‘objective’ side, an acceleration of the ‘speed of life’ can be measured in two ways. First, it should lead to a measurable contraction of the time spent on definable episodes or ‘units’ of action like eating, sleeping, going for a walk, playing, talking to one’s family, etc., since ‘acceleration’ implies that we do more things in less time. (9)

The second way to ‘objectively’ explore the acceleration of the pace of life consists in measuring the social tendency to ‘compress’ actions and experiences, i.e., to do and experience more within a given period of time by reducing the pauses and intervals and/or by doing more things simultaneously, like cooking, watching TV, and making a phone call at the same time. (9-10)

Hence, we should apply the term ‘acceleration society’ to a society if, and only if, technological acceleration and the growing scarcity of time (i.e., an acceleration of the ‘pace of life’) occur simultaneously, i.e., if growth rates outgrow acceleration rates. (10)

in a society with accelerated rates of social change in all spheres of life, individuals always feel that they stand on ‘slippery slopes’: taking a prolonged break means becoming old-fashioned, out-dated,  anachronistic in one’s experience and knowledge, in one’s equipment and clothing as well as in one’s orientations and even in one’s language. (11)

the external ‘key-accelerators’ behind the three dimensions of social acceleration:

1) the economic motor

the functioning of the capitalist system rests on the accelerating circulation of goods and capital in a growth-oriented society. Thus the logic of capitalism connects growth with acceleration in the need to increase production (growth) as well productivity (which can be defined in terms of time as output per unit time). (12)

2) the cultural motor

The idea of the fulfilled life no longer supposes a ‘higher life’ waiting for us after death, but rather consists in realizing as many options as possible from the vast possibilities the world has to offer. To taste life in all its heights and depths and in its full complexity becomes a central aspiration of modern man. (13)

Now, on this cultural logic, if we keep increasing the speed of life, we could eventually live a multiplicity of lives within a single lifetime by taking up all the options that would define them. Acceleration serves as a strategy to erase the difference between the time of the world and the time of our life. The eudaimonistic promise of modern acceleration thus appears to be a functional equivalent to religious ideas of eternity or ‘eternal life,’and the acceleration of ‘the pace of life’ represents the modern answer to the problem of finitude and death. (13)

our share of the world, the proportion of realized world options to potentially realizable ones, decreases (contrary to the original promise of acceleration) no matter how much we increase the ‘pace of life.’ And this is the cultural explanation for the paradoxical phenomenon of simultaneous technological acceleration and increasing time scarcity. (14)

3) the structural motor

in the context of Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, social change is accelerated by modern society’s basic structural principle of functional differentiation. In a society that is not primarily segregated in hierarchical classes but rather structured along the lines of functional ‘systems,’ like politics, science, art, the economy, law, etc., complexity increases immensely. As a result, the future opens up to almost unlimited contingency and society experiences time in the form of perpetual change and acceleration.36 Now, increasing complexity and contingency create an abundance of options and possibilities. Since these cannot be handled simultaneously, Luhmann argues that complexity in modern societies is ‘temporalized’ in order to enable the sequential processing of a higher number of options and relations than could be processed simultaneously. The ensuing needs for synchronization and selection of increasing (future) options can in turn only be satisfied if the processing itself is accelerated. Thus, we find a surprising structural duplication or ‘reflection’ of the cultural dilemma outlined in the preceding paragraph (or vice versa). (14)

before we can adequately determine the sense in which we can speak of the acceleration of Western societies, we need to understand the status, function, and structure of those phenomena that escape dynamization or even represent forms of slow-down and deceleration. Analytically, we can distinguish five different forms of deceleration and inertia, which cut across the spheres of acceleration identified so far: (15)

1. First, there are natural and anthropological speed limits. Some things cannot be accelerated in principle. Among these are most physical processes, like the speed of perception and processing in our brains and bodies, or the time it takes for most natural resources to reproduce. (15)
2. Furthermore, there are territorial as well as social and cultural ‘niches’ that have not yet been touched by the dynamics of modernization and acceleration. They have simply been (totally or partially) exempted from acceleration processes, although they are accessible to them in principle. (15)
3. There are also phenomena of slow-down as an unintended consequence of acceleration and dynamization. This frequently entails dysfunctional and pathological forms of deceleration; the best known version of the former is the traffic jam, whereas recent scientific findings identify the latter in some forms of psycho-pathological depression that are understood as individual (deceleratory) reactions to overstretched pressures of acceleration. (15)
4. Contrary to the unintentional forms of slow-down there are intentional forms of (social) deceleration which include ideological movements against modern acceleration and its effects. (15)
   1. On the one hand, there are limited or temporary forms of deceleration which aim at preserving the capacity to function and further accelerate within acceleratory systems. On the individual level, we find such accelerating forms of deceleration where people take ‘time out’ in monasteries or take part in yoga courses which promise ‘a rest from the race’ – for the purpose of allowing a more successful participation in acceleratory social systems afterwards. Similarly, there is a huge self-help literature suggesting a deliberate slow-down in work or learning in order to increase the volume of overall work or learning in a given period of time, or recommending pauses in order to increase energy and creativity.40 On the social and political level, too, ‘moratoria’ are sometimes suggested to solve technological, political, legal, environmental, or social obstacles that stand in the way of modernization. (15-16)
   1. On the other hand, there are diverse, often fundamentalist, anti-modernist social movements for (radical) deceleration. This is hardly surprising given the fact that acceleration appears to be one of the fundamental principles of modernity. (16)
5. Finally, we find the perception that in late-modern society, despite widespread acceleration and flexibilization which create the appearance of total contingency, hyper-optionality, and unlimited openness, ‘real’ change is in fact no longer possible […] (16)

My claim rests on the supposition that none of these forms of deceleration amounts to a genuine and structurally equal counter-trend to modern acceleration. The phenomena listed under categories (1) and (2) merely denote the (retreating) limits of social acceleration; they are not counter-powers at all. The decelerations of category (3) are effects of acceleration and as such derivative of, and secondary to, it. Category (4a) identifies phenomena which, on closer examination, turn out to be either elements of acceleration processes or enabling conditions of (further) acceleration. The intentional resistance to the speeding up of life and the ideology of deceleration (4b) is clearly a reaction to pressures of and for acceleration; as was pointed out above, all of the main tendencies of modernity have met considerable resistance, but so far all forms of resistance have turned out to be rather short-lived and unsuccessful.
Thus, the only form of deceleration that seems not to be derivative or residual is category (5). This dimension seems to be an inherent, complementary feature of modern acceleration itself; it is the paradoxical flipside characteristic of all the defining forces of modernity (individualization, differentiation, rationalization, domestication, and acceleration). (17)

The acceleration of rates of social change to an intra– rather than intergenerational pace is mirrored in a language which avoids identity predicates and uses temporary markers instead. People speak of working (for the time being) as a baker rather than being a baker, living with Mary rather than being Mary’s husband, going to the Methodist Church rather than being a Methodist, voting Republican rather than being a Republican, and so on. This use of language indicates that the awareness of contingency has increased even where the actual rates of change have not yet done so: things (jobs, spouses, religious and political commitments, etc.) could be otherwise, they could change at any time because of either my own or other people’s decisions. (19)

‘Classical’ modern identities were consequently long-term projects supposed to evolve like a Bildungsroman. In late modernity, however, this pattern no longer holds: neither work- nor family-life can be foreseen or planned for a lifetime. (19)

Instead, people develop a new perspective that has been oddly termed the “temporalization of time”: time-spans and the sequence and duration of activities or commitments are no longer planned ahead but left to evolve.50 Such a ‘temporalization of time,’ however, is equivalent to the de-temporalization of life: life is no longer planned along a line that stretches from the past into the future; instead, decisions are taken from ‘time to time’ according to situational and contextual needs and desires. (19)

politics, too, has become ‘situationalist’: it confines itself to reacting to pressures instead of developing progressive visions of its own. Very often, political decisions no longer aspire to actively steer (acceleratory) social developments, but are defensive and deceleratory. It seems that just as it has become virtually impossible to individually plan one’s life in the sense of a ‘life-project,’ it has become politically impossible to plan and shape society over time; the time of political projects, it seems, is also over. (21-22)

For Armin Nassehi, a German author in the systems theoretic tradition, this loss of political autonomy (corresponding to the loss of individual autonomy discussed above) is an inevitable consequence of the temporal structures of modern society: “The present . . . loses its capacity for planning and shaping. As the present of action it is always oriented towards the future, but it cannot shape this future because of the dynamics, risks, and vast amount of simultaneity within the present, which it cannot control at all. Early modernity promised the capacity to shape and control world and time and to initiate and historically legitimate future progress. But in late modernity, time itself has come to destroy the potential for any form of social or substantial control, influence, or steering.” (22)

politics not only becomes ‘situationalist’ and loses its sense of direction; it also tends to shift the decision-making process towards other, faster arenas: the legal system (juridification), or the economy and individual responsibility (privatization and deregulation). Thus, precisely at a point in history where the human power to steer and control its own fate seems to reach an unprecedented technological zenith (foremost, of course, in the shape of genetic engineering), society’s political capacity to do so reaches its nadir. (24)