The same acceleration that enabled modern autonomy now undermines it.

Evidence

For almost two centuries modern society has appeared to be in principle capable of autonomously giving itself the shape it desires and allowing individuals to do the same with their lives—but for the last two or three decades this appearance has faded and given way to a widespread sense that “utopian energies” are exhausted, that we have reached the “end of history” or posthistoire, and that the modern promise of personal and collective autonomy cannot be redeemed. According to Rosa, both these phenomena can be explained by the multidimensional acceleration of social processes and events that has been bound up with the modernization process from the very beginning. During the period of “classical” modernity, the temporal structures that resulted from the interaction of this principle with the initial conditions of early modern societies gave rise to a window of opportunity for that quintessentially modern promise of self-determination on both the individual and collective levels. Yet the further operation of the complex self-reinforcing syndrome of factors driving social acceleration now seems to have closed that window. The increases in speed that made classical modernity possible, with prospects at once both liberating and frightening, now both render it obsolete and threaten to break it apart at the seams and leave us in a paradoxical, characteristically late modern condition of frenetic standstill. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 23

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘frenetic standstill’ as the signature paradoxical late-modern condition that structures Rosa’s whole diagnosis.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: The secular promise of eternal life now drives endless experiential acceleration. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 31; Social acceleration erodes the institutions that once stabilized chosen identities. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 32; Technical progress may become incompatible with industrialization’s own institutions. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 183 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Social acceleration erodes the institutions that once stabilized chosen identities. #expands (0.80) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 32
• Autonomy is threatened by capitalism’s mutual implication of life and technology #exemplifies (0.80) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 566
• Social acceleration is the irreducible master principle of modernization #expands (0.75) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 762
• Technical progress may become incompatible with industrialization’s own institutions. #expands (0.72) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 183