X. Fatalism

Arguably, Rosa’s interpretation of modernity suffers from a hidden degree of fatalism. Rosa’s tendency to attribute a moment of constitutive uncontrollability to the ways in which the world presents itself to us is in danger of understating the important civilizational achievements that have allowed humans to make significant progress of different types and in numerous respects throughout their evolutionary history as a species. There is a considerable amount of historical and empirical evidence to suggest that our species-distinctive attempt at making more and more aspects of the world controllable has had, and continues to have, both negative and positive, disempowering and empowering, repressive and emancipatory consequences. A balanced approach needs to account for this ambivalence, which appears to be built into the human condition.