Temporal structures mediate between individual life-plans and systemic requirements.
Evidence
Thus, second, from a social-theoretical point of view the insight into the identityand agency-constituting nature of a relationship to the good, when conjoined with a sociological perspective on the similarly constitutive nature of time horizons and time structures, promises to shed new light on an age-old question in critical social thought, one that has astonished and vexed it since the days of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Marx, namely, the way the systemic or functional requirements of a social formation often seem to almost effortlessly find their complementary reflections in the beliefs, desires, moral sentiments, dispostions, and practices of social subjects. Since time horizons and time structures, alongside their centrality to agency and self-understanding, are also deeply shaped by social structures and cultural ideas that are not at the disposal of any given individual or group but instead confront them as social facts, “temporal structures form the central site for the coordination and integration of individual life-plans and ‘systemic’ requirements, and, further, insofar as ethical and political questions basically concern how we want to spend our time, they are also the place where social-scientific structural analyses and ethical-philosophical inquiries can and must be tied together.” … Considerations like these have led Rosa more recently to make the even stronger claim that “the ultimate, though mostly unspoken, and also often unconscious object of sociology is the question of the good life, or more precisely: the analysis of the social conditions under which a successful life is possible.” — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 46
Because the solid facticity of time and its nonetheless social nature are therefore indissolubly intertwined, temporal structures form the central site for the coordination and integration of individual life plans and “systemic” requirements. And, furthermore, insofar as ethical and political questions basically concern how we want to spend our time, they are also the place where social-scientific structural analyses and ethical-philosophical inquiries can and must be tied together. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 82
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the temporal-structural approach’s core thesis: time structures are the coordination site connecting individual agency to systemic requirements.
- QUESTION: The claim that sociology’s ultimate object is the good life is provocative — worth chasing how the author unpacks it later.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 46; Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 82
- XREF: connects to: Temporal structures lie at the center of ethics — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 149; Time structures are the key link between macro-systemic and micro-actor perspectives in social theory. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 81; Individual action requires continuously re-aligning everyday, lifetime, and epochal time horizons — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 93 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Time structures are the key link between macro-systemic and micro-actor perspectives in social theory.
#corroborates(0.85) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 81 - Individual action requires continuously re-aligning everyday, lifetime, and epochal time horizons
#expands(0.78) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 93 - Institutional tempo and actors’ temporal orientations can diverge and desynchronize.
#qualifies(0.72) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 113 - Life’s present continuously stretches into the future rather than aiming at fixed goals
#corroborates(0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 807