When social change outpaces a lifetime, identity has no fixed slot to land in.

Evidence

Therefore, when rates of social change reach an intragenerational pace, our relationships to things and material structures, to people and to ourselves become pressured to take on a similar mutability. There are less and less ready-made social slots into which one might, like finding the right spot for a puzzle piece, “fit.” One could say: when all the solutions to the puzzle of social identity are taken away, all one is left with are puzzling pieces. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 33

Categorization

• XREF: Continues the ongoing chapters’ argument that acceleration erodes stable identity anchors; echoes the identity-as-fixed-slot metaphor common in sociology of late modernity. — connects to: Faster-than-lifetime social change erodes stable identity forms into situational ones — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 32; Collective identities erode rather than vanish, losing their former social and explanatory stability.; Social change outpacing generational horizons shrinks the reliable present. (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Faster-than-lifetime social change erodes stable identity forms into situational ones #corroborates (0.97) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 32
• Social change outpacing generational horizons shrinks the reliable present. #expands (0.75)
• Group identity is malleable and its salience can shift. #expands (0.75)
• Collective identities erode rather than vanish, losing their former social and explanatory stability. #expands (0.72)