Resonance and revolution

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between resonance and revolution through a critical dialogue between Hartmut Rosa and Georg Lukács. Against interpretations that ascribe a merely adaptive character to resonance, it argues that resonance is intrinsically linked to processes of radical social transformation. Far from being a contradiction in terms, the idea of a “struggle for resonance” is constitutive of the very concept of resonance. By reconstructing Lukács’s analysis of the emergence of revolutionary consciousness in light of categories proposed by Rosa, the article reveals the insufficiency of both the notion of a purely adaptive resonance and strictly antagonistic conceptions of revolution. On the one hand, resonance requires radical social struggles: it is through opposition to the alienating structures of dynamic stabilization that we recognize our shared capacity to be affected. On the other hand, revolutionary struggle requires resonance: it is by opening ourselves to others that we can recognize our common capacity to move the world and direct it against alienating structures.