Modernization involves multiple accelerations, says the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa in his 2010 book,
Acceleration and Alienation. Advanced technology speeds up movement and communication, and the rate of technological change increases with Moore’s-Law regularity. Social change happens faster, as fashions and fads come and go. Daily life picks up pace.
Acceleration dashes the hopes of modernity. Many modern practices can’t run on technology’s schedule, and this de-synchronization leaves us politically dislocated and psychically disoriented. Modernity, for example, promises participatory government. Real democracy takes time, especially in modern pluralist societies without rooted norms and conventions. Ironically, Rosa says, “the same processes that accelerate social, cultural, and economic changes, slow down democratic will-formation and decision-making.” Politics cannot govern social change because it can’t keep up with the technology that drives social change.