Social theory lacks any systematic theory of acceleration unlike other modernization tendencies

Evidence

This could explain the almost total absence of a theory of acceleration in contemporary social theory. While overflowing debates have been and are conducted about the other basic tendencies of modernization—about the definition and interpretation of processes of rationalization, differentiation, individualization, and domestication (i.e., the development and institutionalization of instrumental reason)—with respect to acceleration one only finds a cluster of individual studies oriented to the manifestations and effects of dynamization regarding particular phenomena in the media, in the labor market, in new information technologies, in the economy, etc., as well as treatments in the genres of popular science and cultural history91 that do not allow a systematic location and definition of this tendency within the context of a cultural and structural analysis of the modernization process. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 209

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why would a foundational modernization tendency go nearly unseen by theory? Rosa’s whole project answers this.
• XREF: connects to: Even systems theory lacks adequate concepts to analyze cross-system temporal mismatch. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 201; A theory of social acceleration must unify heterogeneous phenomena across unrelated social domains — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 225; Prior scholars each studied one acceleration realm without integrating them — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 229 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• A theory of social acceleration must unify heterogeneous phenomena across unrelated social domains #qualifies (0.75) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 225