The temporal structures of a society shape our sense of being in the world

Evidence

In this book I will show that the manner of our being-in-the-world depends to a great degree on the temporal structures (Zeitstrukturen) of the society in which we live. The question how we want to live is equivalent to the question how we want to spend our time, but the qualities of “our” time, its horizons and structures, its tempo and its rhythm, are not (or only to a very limited degree) at our disposal. Temporal structures have a collective nature and a social character. They continuously confront acting individuals as a solid fact. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 65

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the central concept of Zeitstrukturen — collective, social temporal structures experienced as external facts.
• XREF: Connects to the lived-experience idea in A Midwife’s Tale and the constructed-time theme in Zamyatin’s We. — connects to: Modernity’s own self-observation forces time structures to become sociology’s central object — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 123; Temporal structures lie at the center of ethics — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 149; How we live is equivalent to how we spend our time. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 47 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Social structure determines whether a society experiences time cyclically or linearly #exemplifies (0.95) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 84
• Social and cultural structures overdetermine our natural human constitution. #expands (0.85)
• Capitalism’s temporal and material conditions shape societies’ shared imagined futures #exemplifies (0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 158
• Social change does not follow a single instrumental motive because people inhabit multiple temporalities #corroborates (0.80) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1064
• Social power arises from hierarchies interacting with rhythms and composed wholes #expands (0.80) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 368
• Modernism privileges temporal experience while postmodernism subordinates time to space #exemplifies (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 367
• The world’s sequential structure of appearing and disappearing constitutes the form of time. #expands (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 884