hartmut rosa

The world is increasingly governed by spreadsheets, protocols and algorithms. In schools, hospitals and government departments, people are becoming entangled in systems that make everything measurable and controllable. Where there was once scope to act on the basis of experience or improvisation, all that remains now is the correct execution of a task. This is problematic, according to sociologist Hartmut Rosa. For this logic is penetrating ever deeper into how we live and understand ourselves. How do we reclaim our humanity? And what happens when we relearn how to deal with what cannot be planned, measured or controlled?

Hartmut Rosa is a leading sociologist and political scientist, known for works including Alienation and Acceleration (2010) and The Uncontrollability of the World (2018). In Germany, he is known as the ‘slow-living guru’, due to his incisive analyses of the breakneck pace of development in our times and the alienation and restlessness this causes in modern people. The World as a Constellation is due to be published this autumn: a penetrating and timely book on control, freedom and trust.