1. The Universal Underneath the Multiple:
Social Acceleration as the Key to Understanding Modernity
Hartmut Rosa, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Time and Modernity-Conference, Oslo, June 19th, 2007

2. I Is there one Modernity? Three possible objections:
Social Acceleration: Key to Understanding Modernity Hartmut Rosa, University of Jena
I Is there one Modernity?
Three possible objections:
- four different processes
- ruptures, breaks and phases
- cultural diversity: ‚multiple modernities‘
 Claim: Social Acceleration is Modernity‘s ‚Universal‘

3. II. Sociological Theory and the Four Processes of Modernization
Social Acceleration: Key to Understanding Modernity Hartmut Rosa, Universität Jena
II. Sociological Theory and the Four Processes of Modernization
Differenciation
(Paradox: Disintegration)
(Durkheim, Luhmann)
Rationalization
(Paradox: ‚iron cage’)
(Weber, Habermas)
Structure
Culture
Personality
Stance towards Nature
Individualization
(Paradox: ‚mass culture’)
(Simmel, Beck, Schulze)
Domestication
(Paradox: ‚Ecolog. Disaster’)
(Marx, Adorno/Horkheimer)

4. Social Acceleration: Key to Understanding Modernity Hartmut Rosa, Universität Jena
Claim 1:
- These four process converge in the principle of acceleration/dynamization as the ‚linking‘ element
- The cultural experience of Modernity is the Experience of Social Acceleration – as witnessed by poets and social theorists alike
 Needed: A social theory of acceleration –
What is accelerating?

5. Dimensions of Acceleration
Hartmut Rosa
University of Jena
A) Economic Mo-tor: Time=Money
Dimensions / Motors of Social Acceleration
1. Technological
Acceleration
Dimensions of Acceleration
3. Acceleration of the „Pace of Life“
2. Acceleration of Social Change
C) Cultural Motor:
Promise of Acceleration
B) Structural Motor: Functional Differentiation

6. Social Acceleration: Key to Understanding Modernity Hartmut Rosa, Jena University
Why does it matter? Technological Acceleration and the Transformation of our „Weltbezüge“
Space
Social Relations
Material World
Time
Acc. of Transport
Acc. of Communication
Acc. of Production

7. Definition: Acceleration of Social Change = Contraction of the present
Social Acceleration: Key to Understanding Modernity Hartmut Rosa, Universität Jena
III. Progressive Acceleration and Cultural Discontinuity: The three phases of modernity
Definition: Acceleration of Social Change = Contraction of the present
The Past = all that which no longer holds/is valid
The Future = all that which not yet is valid/holds
The Present: Period of stability for which horizons of experience/expectation overlap; period of calculability
Present in government: Bush-Administration (Past: Clinton, Future: Obama)
Present in TV: Simpsons (<> Waltons and…)
Present in your job, in your family, in your place, friends

8. Progressive Acceleration and Cultural Discontinuity
Social Acceleration: Key to Understanding Modernity Hartmut Rosa, Universität Jena
Progressive Acceleration and Cultural Discontinuity
Claim 2: There is something like a “collective cultural present”: basic cultural assumptions and structural properties (forms of knowledge, social practice, association)
Claim 3: There are critical thresholds as the acceleration of change/contraction of the present progresses (like solid, liquid, gas…)
 These thresholds can be expected to be linked to the pace of generational exchange
Intergenerational Pace of change: “Present” > years (span of communicative consciousness)
Generational Pace of Change: Present = years: For every generation – a new world: Inter-generational dynamics – stable conditions for “planning a life-course”, generational horizon of calculability; Generations as bearers of innovation
Intra-Generational Pace of Change: Present < 20 years

9. Hartmut Rosa, Jena University
Speed of change
Inter-generational
Generational
Intra-Generational
Period
Pre-/early Modernity
“High” Modernity
Late modernity
Indicators: family- + occupa-tional structures
Inter-generational stability (family as an economic unit)
Individualization of work and family, religion + politics;
Succesions of jobs and intimate part-ners: ’Serial monogamy’
“timeless time”, yet: tem-poralized time; sequen-ce, rhythm + duration of events contingent on course of time
Congruence of hori-zons of experience and expectation; cyclical time
Separation of past, present + future:
linear time
Perception of Time
Temporalization of life: progressively evolving life-course; stable, self-determined indivi-dual identities
De-temporalized life: contingent +reversible life-course, episodic addition replaces narratives of growth, ‘situationalist’ identities
Conception of individual life/ identity
situativ-static perception of life: day-to-day challen-ges + trans-individual identities
Temporalized his-tory: intelligible, directed process prone to pol. shap-ing: temporal index of politics: progres-sive / conservative
Democratic
The “End of History”, de-temporalized h.; non-directed, frantic change; ‘situationalist politics’ no longer historical pace-maker, progressive politics = ‘deceleratory’
post-democratic
Static history: Historical time as a ‘container’ for ‘hi-stories’,
pre-democratic
(nothing to shape in substance or time)
Conception of
History and Politics

10. IV. Cultural Diversity: The Universal and the Multiple
Social Acceleration: Key to Understanding Modernity Hartmut Rosa, Universität Jena
IV. Cultural Diversity: The Universal and the Multiple
1) Modernity – The Singular
- Modernization always signifies social acceleration – in all three of its core-dimensions
- The “Cycle of Acceleration” appears to be invariant
- Motors A) and B) are universal, too
 What about the cultural motor and the perception of inertia?
2) Modernity – The Plural
Social Acceleration as a Logic and Direction of Change transforms all structural and cultural arrangements, but it does not necessarily nullify existing (cultural) differences
Cultural Differences as a Function of Social Kinetics Phase 1: Convergence of Process and Project of Modernity Phase 3: Divergence of Process and Project of Modernity

11. THE END!
Thanks for Listening!