Individual withdrawal from acceleration carries prohibitive obsolescence costs
Evidence
Although the widespread representations and fantasies of radical slowdown in this milieu have strong currency on the plane of ideas, that is, in lectures, conferences, and publications, they only seldom reach the structure-relevant plane of action. This can be accounted for in part by the fact that the price of individual slowdown in postindustrial societies is very high: whoever withdraws herself from the pressure of an accelerated tempo (for instance by joining a sect, taking over an ecofarm, or plunging into a time-forgetful drug culture) risks missing the boat and finding no chance for readmission. When after several years she is ready to return to mainstream society, her resources are hopelessly obsolete. … Many of our everyday needs for deceleration are so selective that they contain their own negation: we wish, for instance, that we would finally have time for ourselves, for family, for hobbies, etc., and precisely in order to achieve this we simultaneously desire and demand that everyone else hurry up: the cashier in the supermarket, the official in the tax ministry, etc. Even the traffic light should turn green and the tramcar go faster. Therefore selective deceleration in complex and networked societies is only possible to a very limited degree. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 282
Categorization
- QUESTION: The claim that deceleration movements never reach structural relevance empirically — is slow food the counterexample that invalidates it?
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
- XREF: connects to: Individually opting out of acceleration causes social desynchronization costs — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 437; Individual and selective deceleration fails because those who slow down pay steep penalties — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 282
Broader Connections
- Individually opting out of acceleration causes social desynchronization costs
#expands(0.85) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 437