Deliberate slowness shifted from poverty marker to privilege luxury

Evidence

The alteration of temporal rationalities of action can thus make what was a sign of poverty and backwardness in the temporal daily life of early modernity and in “classical modernity,” namely, slowness and temporary unavailability, appear to be an expensive time luxury in the late modern world. Imagine, for example, a remote farm in the Black Forest just a century ago: the next village was two hours away on foot, there was no car, no telephone, no television, no Internet connection, and perhaps not yet even any electricity. … In view of all this, a late modern weekend in the Black Forest without car, phone, or Internet connection represents a prime example of an “oasis of deceleration”: it promises time for going on a walk, chopping wood, looking at the stars, etc. The only ones who can manage this (especially on a repeated basis) are those who are not dependent on holding all options open and who can, possibly by letting others work for them, ensure that in the following week they can catch up on the accumulated “time arrears”: one’s e-mail account will be full, the call will be made as well as the visit; if the TV program is really important, one can get the DVD, etc. All this leads to a sharpened scarcity of time resources outside the oasis of deceleration and thus several opportunities will be irrevocably lost. And, even aside from this, someone who stops being available in this way has to reckon with social obligations of justification since the technological possibilities have been incorporated into social expectations: “how come you didn’t visit me, call me, e-mail me?” — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 438

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Immobility and territorial rootedness have inverted from privilege marker to stigma of subordination — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 575; Permanent occupations skewed toward those free to idle, then faded anyway; Postwar class resentment infected economic theory and now drives welfare stigma — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 227 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Rising prosperity and social conscience drive the poor to hide and isolate #expands (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 447
• Postwar class resentment infected economic theory and now drives welfare stigma #qualifies (0.70) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 227