“The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time” Optimization and the Dissolution of Temporal Boundaries in Accelerated Modernity

Abstract

Given the cultural dynamic of acceleration in present-day modernity, restricting one’s attention to the macro-level of faster social change or everyday experiences of increasing tempo is no longer an adequate response. To understand the impact of the temporal and optimization imperatives bound up with these phenomena, it is imperative to extend one’s purview to encompass their intersubjective and intergenerational consequences. Another major concern is to achieve a finer conceptual and empirical grasp of the nature of the translation between societal demands and individual coping strategies. The discussion is illustrated by three case studies from a major empirical investigation on “Aporias of Perfectionism in Accelerated Modernity”.