MetaTOC stay on top of your field, easily

A secular acceleration: Theological foundations of the sociological concept "social acceleration"

Time & Society

Published online on

Abstract

The term "shortening of time" is related to the Judeo-Christian tradition that announces the end of time as the moment when God, for the sake of the elect, shortens the duration of days and hours, because without this shortening no one would survive (This means that only a God's will could ended Time. The Christian perspective believes that the last days will be chaotic, and God will preclude History, ending time, to save a few men of goodwill.). While in this sense salvation is associated with divine intervention, the thesis of acceleration would reverse the above formula, making human beings responsible for the narrowing of time. But if the shortening of time in the Apocalypse is aimed at the salvation of the World: Where does acceleration, a secular idea of the shortening of time, aim? What is it that justifies the increase in the speed of completing tasks that previously took considerable time, which are today performed in just a few hours? How can we justify the frenzy to obtain what we want in the shortest time possible? In this paper we propose to address this and other questions, in order to show the relationship between a sociological understanding of acceleration with a theological-Christian view of time. In other words, the main claim exposes the transfer of teleology from a religious conception to a historical-worldly conception of time.