Abstract
Anyone worried that the tradition of “grand theory” in the social sciences has been faltering of late can take heart from reading Harmut Rosa’s Social Acceleration. The subtitle promises a “new theory of modernity,” and the book sets out (with considerable brio) to provide just that.
Admittedly, Rosa’s capable translator—the late Jonathan Trejo-Mathys—has taken certain liberties. The book was originally published in German in 2005, under a title that without literary license would have to be translated as Acceleration: The Modification of Time-structures in the Modern Age. The English title does a better job at articulating the central ambition of the work, which really is to offer a new theory of modernity, aimed primarily at displacing those that might loosely be thought of as belonging to the Weberian tradition (first and foremost, the ones put forward by Talcott Parsons and Jürgen Habermas).
Setting aside for the moment whether the end result is persuasive, there can be no question that Rosa accomplishes what he sets out to do, which is to offer a new and completely different way of thinking about modernity (as well as a basis for distinguishing what he calls “classical” from “late” modernity). The book is an extremely well-structured exercise in theory development. Rosa presents his claims with admirable clarity, draws a series of perspicuous distinctions, lays out the burdens of proof of his theory quite explicitly, and illustrates the central structural connections with a series of helpful diagrams. And while his presentation is occasionally opaque, one has the sense that it is never intentionally so.
It is worth noting, as well, that the book is packed full of what would best be described as simply “cleverness,” which occasionally distracts from the argument but never fails to entertain. Whether it be simple word coinage (such as “utempia” as an alternative ideal to “utopia”), or surprising reformulations of classic claims (such as his observation that questions about “the good life” are really questions about how we should spend our time), Rosa manages to throw off enough interesting asides to keep a dozen graduate students occupied for at least a decade.
As for the core theory presented in the book, Rosa organizes his discussion around what he calls a “self-propelling circular process” (23) of acceleration that underlies the central forms of social change in our society. He begins by taking aim at the conventional theory of modernization, which regards it as a process of rationalization with respect to culture, differentiation with respect to social structure, individualization with respect to personality, and finally domestication (or instrumental control) with respect to nature. The driving force of these changes is, in the Weberian tradition, taken to be some more diffuse sort of rationalization process.
Rosa, by contrast, chooses to “interpret those four modernization processes as (unintended) consequences of social acceleration” and claims that acceleration is the “principle that connects and drives” (61) these four types of development. Acceleration itself is given only a vague definition, (“an increase in quantity per unit of time” [65]), because Rosa wants to distinguish three very distinct forms, namely, technical acceleration, acceleration of social change, and acceleration of the pace of life.
I will discuss this tripartite distinction below; for the moment I would just like to draw attention to the burden of proof that Rosa’s theory assumes. Modernization theory, stripped of all its self-congratulatory elements, is fundamentally an attempt to explain three things: first, why societies (understood broadly, to include culture, institutions and personality structures) change; second, why this change seems to exhibit some sort of directionality (rather than being a random walk); and finally, why there seems to be at least family resemblance in the way that different human societies have been changing.
Marx, of course, created the template for these sorts of theories, by declaring class conflict to be the central engine of historical change, then developing a set of concepts (such as “mode of production,” “base and superstructure”) that could be used to show how seemingly disparate phenomena could all be understood as consequences of the underlying process that was “driving” these forms of change. This is the most intellectually exciting form of “grand theory,” because it promises to provide a key that will unlock all the doors.
It is important to recognize, however, that the explanations provided by this type of theory are potentially regressive. There is no doubt conceptual gain in showing that changes in p, q and r are all “driven” by changes in x, but one still has to explain why x changes. So while it is interesting to be told that rationalization, differentiation, individualization and instrumentalization are all driven by processes of social acceleration, this tends to make the fundamental question—Why is there acceleration in the first place?—more consequential. Furthermore, because rationalization, differentiation, individualization and domestication are all the explananda in this account, they cannot figure in the explanans when it comes to understanding acceleration. There may of course be feedback loops among these processes—which Rosa does posit—but still, one needs to say what gets the ball rolling in the first place.
To see the theoretical challenge that this presents, it is useful to consider how Habermas handles the problem. In his view, rationalization processes are essentially the unfolding, or playing out, of basic structural features of language, which are present in all forms of propositionally differentiated speech from the outset. Agents initially fail to realize the “rationality potential” that is inherent in speech simply because there is no pressing need for it. Language, however, plays an essential role in action-coordination, and so as more complex forms of sociality develop—driven largely by pragmatic concerns—individuals come to rely more and more on linguistically achieved consensus in order to organize and regulate their interactions. This in turn forces them to realize more and more of the rationality potential in language that is already present in nuce.
It is not so difficult to see how this could be thought to provide an account of what rationalization is and why it happens.
With Rosa’s view, things are less straightforward. He begins by providing a very useful distinction between three different forms of acceleration (mentioned above). Technical acceleration refers not just to the increased pace of technological change, but more abstractly, to the acceleration of all goal-directed processes (most importantly, transportation, communication and production). The acceleration of social change, by contrast, refers to an increase in the rate of change in the social environment that provides the background for individual action. (Rosa’s official definition is quite technical, but the general idea is that institutions and culture change more quickly.) Finally, the acceleration of the pace of life refers to the way that interactions between individuals become denser, thanks to “a shortening or condensation of episodes of action” (78).
One might expect Rosa to be non-committal about the relationship between these different processes, but instead he is admirably forthright. Technical acceleration, in his view, produces an acceleration of social change, which produces an increase in the tempo of life. In an attempt to relieve the pressures created by the increased tempo and the “time shortage” it creates, people in turn press for technological innovation, which then renews the cycle. At each of the points, acceleration is assisted by distinct mechanisms, or “motors,” which intensify the process of change—the “economic motor,” the “cultural motor,” and the “socio-structural” motor.
Once it is up and running, it is easy to see how everything works. But what sets it off? What creates the initial impulse to accelerate (that could provide a non-regressive end to the chain of explanation)? Obviously there is nothing inherent in time that makes it go faster. What Rosa winds up saying, when one strips it down, is that technological change provides the initial accelerative impulse. And while this is not one-way determinism (since acceleration of the pace of life in turn prompts subsequent technological change), it is worth noting that, in having to go outside of strictly temporal phenomena, Rosa has not escaped the “rationality” story quite as completely as he might be inclined to believe. After all, what prompts the initial technological change?
It is also worth noting that, with respect to the final feedback loop (between acceleration of the pace of life and technological change), Rosa posits a collective action problem as central to the dynamic (157). When people find themselves subject to a time squeeze, they look for faster devices (faster computers, faster transportation, etc.) to get ahead of the curve. But when everyone else adopts the same new devices, it merely accelerates the pace of life further, leaving no one better off than they were before. One wonders, however, whether this tendency to get stuck in collective action problems is entirely outside the dynamic of modernization. This is an issue that the rationality story has much to say about, but Rosa nothing at all.
Finally, in terms of useful extensions of the theory, it should be noted that Rosa says very little about individual psychology (apart from some rather dubious speculation about clinical depression as a “pathology of time” [248]). There is, however, a significant literature in cognitive science on fast and slow thinking processes, and the impact that time pressure can have on cognition (much of it conveniently summarized in Daniel Kahneman’s recent book, Thinking Fast and Slow). It would be interesting to see how Rosa integrates these ideas into his reflections. Since rationality is the quintessentially slow thinking process, this could provide additional arguments in support of the idea that chronos is more fundamental than logos when it comes to understanding the central dynamic of change in our society.