Nested social systems change at speeds their internal structures cannot match

Evidence

Fritz Reheis’s best seller, The Creativity of Slowness (Die Kreativität der Langsamkeit), presents us with a critique of the social demands of acceleration in modern society from a psychological and ecological perspective. Reheis builds his analysis of the temporal structures of late capitalist society, which are, in his view, dysfunctional, on the systems-theoretical model of three nested basic systems. The environment or nature forms the comprehensive system for all social processes and is fundamental for the second level, the system culture/society, which in turn is prior to the physical and psychological system of the individual. Alterations at one level always affect both the other systems, though naturally the rates of change and the characteristic tempos (Eigenzeiten) of the respective systems differ: individuals can transform themselves or adapt faster than societies, and nature requires still longer periods of time to reproduce its resources or regenerate itself. The explicitly Marx-inspired “ecological-materialist” central thesis is then that unfettered capitalism (as the core element of the modern culture/society) disrespects the natural rhythms and tempos of all three systems because of an inherent compulsion to accelerate rooted in the law of profit. This desynchronizes and overtaxes the other systems’ capacities to adapt and learn both separately and in their mutual relationships, and that in turn leads to dysfunctional phenomena within and between all three systems. But Reheis’s analysis of the dynamic of acceleration itself does not go beyond Marx if he sees it as rooted in the evolutionary logic of capital. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 212

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Eigenzeiten and the nested three-system model as a distinct framework for thinking about desynchronization.
• XREF: connects to: Faster-than-lifetime social change erodes stable identity forms into situational ones — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 32; Social relations crystallize into fixed external forms that cannot keep pace with inner life — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 778; A theory of social acceleration must unify heterogeneous phenomena across unrelated social domains — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 225 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Social relations crystallize into fixed external forms that cannot keep pace with inner life #corroborates (0.82) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 778
• Faster-than-lifetime social change erodes stable identity forms into situational ones #corroborates (0.78) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 32
• A theory of social acceleration must unify heterogeneous phenomena across unrelated social domains #qualifies (0.72) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 225