Hartmut Rosa - Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World

Hartmut Rosa

Translated by James C. Wagner

polity

First published in German as Resonanz. Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin, 2016

This English edition Polity Press, 2019

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The Logical Song
Words & Music by Richard Davies & Roger Hodgson.
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La Luna
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Wind Of Change
Words & Music by Klaus Meine.
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Mad World
Words & Music by Roland Orzabal.
Copyright 1996 Orzabal Roland Ltd.
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1992-7

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The translation of this work was supported by the DFG Research Group on Post-Growth Societies at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

Nothing on earth and nothing in the empty heavens is to be saved by defending it. [] Nothing can be saved unchanged, nothing that has not passed through the portal of its death. If rescue is the inmost impulse of any mans spirit, there is no hope but unreserved surrender: of that which is to be rescued as well as of the hopeful spirit. [] The question whether metaphysics is still possible at all must reflect the negation of the finite which finiteness requires. Its enigma animates the world intelligible. [] The concept of the intelligible realm would be the concept of something which is not, and yet it is not a pure nonbeing. Under the rules of the sphere whose negation is the intelligible sphere, the intelligible one would have to be rejected without resistance, as imaginary. Nowhere else is truth so fragile. It may deteriorate into the hypostasis of something thought up for no reason, something in which thought means to possess what it has lost; and then again the effort to comprehend it is easy to confuse with things that are. If in our thinking we mistake thoughts for realities [] our thinking is void. [] But reflection is not cut short by the verdict on semblance. Once made conscious, the semblance is no longer the same. What finite beings say about transcendence is the semblance of transcendence; but as Kant well knew, it is a necessary semblance. Hence the incomparable metaphysical relevance of the rescue of semblance, the object of esthetics.

Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics

This book was written over a very long period of more than ten years. It is the end result of a repeatedly renewed search for an answer to the crisis of the present age that I diagnosed in Social Acceleration, and at the same time is also the result of many intense conversations, discussions, and encounters going back many years. It is ultimately a product of dialogue, of an ongoing debate with my friends, students, colleagues, and many other people who have searched and pondered with me. I cannot possibly acknowledge all of them here. There are many more than I can even name, and so I must ask that all these others accept my apologies!

Resonance emerged in the context of the Center for the Study of Post-Growth Societies at the University of Jena, which my colleagues Klaus Drre, Stephan Lessenich, and I founded together. It is my contribution to our mutual effort to conceive of a world beyond the blind compulsions of growth and acceleration. I owe great thanks to both Klaus and Stephan, to all of the colleagues, fellows, and guests of the Center, and of course to the German Research Foundation (DFG) as our financing institution. The Center also made possible the international workshop on the topic of resonance which I convened in May 2014 and from which I greatly profited. For this, I would like to thank all those who participated, among them Axel Honneth, Rahel Jaeggi, Eva Illouz, Hans Jrgen Scheurle, Dietmar Wetzel, Thomas Fuchs, and Charles Taylor. I consider it my great fortune that, over years of work on this project, Charles became a good friend who always inspired me with his enthusiasm and pushed me forward whenever I was seized with doubt. I also gleaned valuable insights from other colleagues and fellows at the Center, particularly Nancy Fraser, Barbara Muraca, Mathijs Peters, Dimitri Mader, and Johanna Sittel. The same can be said of my colleagues in the Department of Sociology at the University of Jena as well as the associates, fellows, and doctoral students of the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt. I would like to acknowledge by name my co-director in Erfurt, Jrg Rpke, together with Jrg Oberthr, Peter Schulz, Anja Gregor, Ulf Bohmann, Sebastian Sevignani, Andr Stiegler, Diana Lindner, Stefanie Brner, Michael Beetz, and Markus Kleinert, as well as Stephan Langenhan, Michael Karpf, Anne Jasmin Bobka, David Reum, Paul Srensen, and Katharina Block. I would further like to thank Ilona Bode for our wonderful collaborations at the Max Weber Center, without which I would scarcely have been able to write this book.

I also owe thanks to the philosopher Michael Groheim, who offered me valuable insights on the phenomenology of resonance, and to Lambert Wiesing our discussions about luxury and resonance yielded not only two books, but also a joint seminar. I was further inspired by my colleagues who helped to launch the interdisciplinary, DFG-supported postgraduate research group on The Model of Romanticism in Jena, and I thank them for their important observations about the close connection between Romanticism and resonance. Finally, I would also like to highlight the German National Academic Foundations 2013 summer academy in La Colle-sur-Loup, where I taught a course on experiences of resonance in literature together with Daniel Fulda. I learned much from the interpretations and suggestions of the participating students, and especially from my intense conversations with Daniel. The same applies to two block seminars in the Thuringian Forest with students of sociology, philosophy, and education from the University of Jena, at which I immensely profited from my collaborative work with Tilo Wesche and Jens Beljean.