Work · Sociology & Social Theory
Resonance: 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.
Introduction
Hartmut Rosa, a sociologist at Jena, had described modern societies in Beschleunigung (2005) as driven by ever-increasing social acceleration. Resonanz (2016), a book of more than 800 pages, offers the positive counterpart: a theory of the good life in terms of our relationship to the world. Resonance is a two-way relation in which a subject is touched by something, responds to it and is transformed, without being able to control the outcome; its opposite is alienation, a relation of indifference or repulsion. Rosa distinguishes horizontal axes of resonance (family, friendship, politics), diagonal ones (work, objects, school) and vertical ones (nature, art, religion, history). The book found a large readership beyond the academy.
Sources: Wikidata
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