Temporal synchronization, not stubborn resistance, is what undermines power’s plans

Evidence

In cases of greater interdependency of societal processes which have different individual time rhythms, a power-holder, when deciding a programme, is usually not also in a position to control the synchronization of this with other processes. A succession of events can be predicted, linear sequences can be reproduced, but in more complex cases the fact that other essential elements to the process are simultaneously present defies any programme and constantly forces delays. In this way time becomes a disruptive factor, an intangible resistance. It is not the toughness of the material, or stubborn mentalities, which makes it impossible, but the clock and the calendar. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 753

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Giddens’s structuration — time-space distanciation — and to how Stevens’s deference to a programme of service ignores synchronizing demands outside Darlington Hall. — connects to: Faster processes get braked by slower ones at synchronization points — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 277; One-sided social acceleration threatens to desynchronize systems from each other. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 113; the MOC “The Violence That Builds: How Modern Order Is Forged, Not Broken, by Force”