Modernity counts as an acceleration society only if movement forces outweigh inertia forces

Evidence

Taken as a whole, then, these preliminary considerations make clear that the various acceleration phenomena can in fact be grasped with a unified concept, although they show at the same time that there is no direct logical or causal connection between the three designated domains of acceleration. So what results is a new desideratum for research, namely, to answer the question regarding the more complex empirical links between the partial dimensions of social acceleration: what drives forward the process or, better, the processes of acceleration, and what structural and/or cultural linkages can be found between the quantitative logic of escalation (Steigerung) and the acceleration dynamic of modernity? … The verdict that modern society is an acceleration society can only be justified if it can be shown that in modernity the forces of movement systematically outweigh the forces of inertia. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 244

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sets the falsifiable criterion for the book’s central thesis: the acceleration-society verdict hinges on showing movement beats inertia, not merely that acceleration exists.
• XREF: The movement-versus-inertia criterion resonates with the trust literature’s system-reproduction claims and with silence/noise chapters about which forces dominate a system.