Speed is modernity’s secular stand-in for eternal life

Evidence

And, indeed, a further “promising” aspect of the notion of acceleration can be discovered that endures as a constitutive element of modern culture independent of the complex of ideas and norms we call the Protestant ethic. Following the “culturalistic” arguments of Hans Blumenberg, Marianne Gronemeyer, and others, one can assume that the authentic, hidden, but culturally powerful “salvific promise” of social acceleration is that it seems to offer a secular functional equivalent for the idea of “eternal life” and can therefore be understood as modernity’s answer to that great and unavoidable cultural problem of human finitude, death. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 490

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Living infinitely fast would defeat death as annihilator of options — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 501; The secular promise of eternal life now drives endless experiential acceleration. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 31; Modernity defines itself partly through its relation to religion (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• The pursuit of immortality drove major scientific and technological advances #corroborates (0.85) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 391
• Proclaiming history’s end functions ideologically by eternalizing the present moment #expands (0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 720
• Modern faith in rationality has itself become a secular theology #expands (0.78) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 966
• Modernity defines itself partly through its relation to religion #complicates (0.75)
• Modern time conception treats the present as continually moving #expands (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 116
• The future is understood both as coming time and as lasting posterity #expands (0.75)
• Baudelaire defined modernity as half transient and half eternal #qualifies (0.72) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 105