Practical Boundaries of a Radical Critique of Modernity (A Critical Attempt at Resonance Theory)

This article is an attempt at a critical understanding of one of the major and most influential contemporary versions of critique theory ‒ the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa’s theory of acceleration and resonance. He claims to ground a new critical sociology that would include everything: diagnosis of contemporary times, critical theory of modernity and a theoretical alternative to modern society. What are the theoretical limitations and deficits of a critical theory that focuses on society as a whole, on modernity as a social formation? How can one think of and theorize sociologically on a social formation that is an alternative to modernity? And what are the chances that a diagnostic social critique which grounds its normativity ethically may participate in the development of an alternative sociality? These are some of the main questions in the perspective of which I analyze this major critical project.