Hartmut Rosa

Agora

Hartmut Rosa

b. 1965

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Modern societies keep speeding up, which alienates us from the world – a good life needs “resonance”, a responsive relationship with people, nature and things that we cannot control.

Placement

Sociology & Social Theory · Western Europe · Society & History, Existence & Self, Ethics

Sociologist and critical theorist in Jena and Erfurt: modern society must keep accelerating to stay stable, which alienates us; the good life is “resonance” – a responsive relation to a world we cannot control.

Key ideas

Social acceleration
Resonance
Uncontrollability (Unverfügbarkeit)

Teachers: Axel Honneth

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Influence

Influenced by 4

Karl Marx

influenced by
Rosa tied social acceleration to capitalism’s compulsion to grow and recast alienation as a mute, indifferent relation to the world (Alienation and Acceleration, 2010). H. Rosa, Beschleunigung (2005); Alienation and Acceleration (2010); Resonanz (2016); SEP “Alienation”
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Max Weber

influenced by
Rosa drew on Weber’s Protestant ethic, with its condemnation of wasted time, to trace how the modern compulsion to use time efficiently drives social acceleration (Beschleunigung, 2005). H. Rosa, Beschleunigung. Die Veränderung der Zeitstrukturen in der Moderne (2005); M. Weber, Die protestantische Ethik (1904–05)
Evidence: AI draft
Max Weber › 1864–1920
Charles Taylor

influenced by
Rosa wrote his dissertation on Taylor (Identität und kulturelle Praxis, 1998) and built on Taylor’s strong evaluations and dialogical self in his theory of resonance (Resonanz, 2016). H. Rosa, Identität und kulturelle Praxis. Politische Philosophie nach Charles Taylor (1998); Resonanz. Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung (2016)
Evidence: AI draft
Charles Taylor › b. 1931
Axel Honneth studied with

studied with
Rosa’s doctorate at the Humboldt University in Berlin (1997), a study of Charles Taylor’s political philosophy (Identität und kulturelle Praxis, 1998), was supervised by Herfried Münkler and Axel Honneth. H. Rosa, CV (Max-Weber-Kolleg, Universität Erfurt)
Evidence: AI draft
Axel Honneth › b. 1949

Works

2016Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World
Modern societies stabilise themselves only through constant growth and acceleration; a good life depends on “resonance” – responsive relations to people, things and nature that cannot be produced at will.

Position

Rosa argues that modern society is defined by acceleration in three dimensions – technological acceleration, the acceleration of social change and the acceleration of the pace of life – which drive one another in a self-reinforcing cycle. Because modern society can stabilise itself only by growing, accelerating and innovating, people must run ever faster merely to stay in place, and the result is a new form of alienation: a world that has become silent, cold and indifferent to us. In “Resonanz” he describes the opposite of alienation. Resonance is a relationship in which we are touched by something – a person, a piece of music, a landscape, a task – respond to it with our own voice and are transformed by it, without being able to control it. A good life is measured not by the resources we command but by the quality of our relationships to the world. “Unverfügbarkeit” adds that the modern drive to make the world available, calculable and controllable destroys the very resonance it seeks.

Life & context

Hartmut Rosa (born 1965 in Lörrach) studied political science, philosophy and German in Freiburg and at the London School of Economics. He took his doctorate at the Humboldt University of Berlin in 1997 with a study of Charles Taylor, supervised by Herfried Münkler and Axel Honneth, and qualified as a professor in Jena in 2004 with his work on social acceleration. Since 2005 he has been professor of general and theoretical sociology at the University of Jena, and since 2013 also director of the Max-Weber-Kolleg in Erfurt; he has long been associated with the New School in New York. He received the Leibniz Prize in 2023, and his books have been translated into many languages.