Tip-Off #114 - A Closer Look
"Before our capacity for speech or thought, before our desire to claim ownership, we are, above all else, beings of resonance." - Helmut Rosa, social theorist. [*]
The Beatles' "Let It Be" is celebrated not only for its haunting melody and evocative lyrics but also for its uplifting message of resilience and surrender amid adversity—a theme that continues to touch listeners worldwide. John Lennon famously disliked the song, feeling it was not in line with The Beatles' artistic direction. Its release coincided with the band's dissolution. This timing imbued the music with even greater emotional weight for devoted fans, as it echoed their experiences of dreams and hard times while marking the end of an era. [**]
Helmut Rosa considers this kind of echo more than sentimentality or nostalgia. He broadly explores it as "resonance" — reclaiming "good vibrations" from the vernacular and proposing a new way of viewing the world. He calls resonance a fundamental quest in social relationships, like conversations between us and our surroundings, pre-empting or overcoming distance, indifference, or dissonance. The world is responsive and filled with significance in a state of resonance. Re-enchanted. The constant push for efficiency, speed, and control — "acceleration," the enemy of modernity — gets in the way, blocking a genuinely fulfilling life.
Resonance often coincides with moments of unpredictability, happy or sad. Literary critics call these moments of frisson — a more exact French word for sudden sensations of excitement, shudders of emotion, thrill. When everything is under control, the world loses its frisson, resonance, and ability to surprise, challenge, and stimulate a response.
In moments of uncontrollability, we can be caught off guard by a flash of connection — as with the sudden NFL appearance of beguiling Taylor Swift madly in love with her new partner, or, closer to home, simply sitting in the garden feeling a deep sense of belonging; or finding peace in the quiet of a forest.
While both resonance and empathy involve a kind of connection or relationship with the world outside of us, empathy is more specifically about understanding and sharing the personal feelings of others. In contrast, resonance is a broader concept encompassing a range of interactions and experiences, including the natural environment. Resonance is reciprocal — a two-way experience where ideas and feelings are mirrored and magnified. The word comes from the Latin for "resound." Resonance involves mutually resounding relationships.
Rosa says, "Resonance is an emotional, neural, and thoroughly physical reality. It is the primary form of our relationship with the world. All culturally established forms of life subsequently evolve from resonant relationships to specific segments of the world."
We're so busy moving on and getting things done that what resounds is what we must do next; moments of connection disappear when they've barely begun. A kind of pop Buddhism prevails that praises fleeting moments and the ephemeral nature of beauty: life becomes like a sand mandala designed to disappear, beauty only known to be lost. In this mindset, "presence" itself is an illusion. Permanence or "absolutes" aim to nail down what won't stay put. Transience is terminal. "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it's yours; if it doesn't, it never was." Who knows?
Resonance is transient but recurring, as with a tuning fork struck again. It’s always about to happen again. It occurs in the simplest exchanges: a meaningful glance shared with a stranger across a crowded room, the sun catching a gleam in someone's eye as they enter, or the sudden influence of another's feelings. It's not something we can create or control but something that allows the world to speak back — as when knowing the words of a song, we suddenly remember the tune. "Whispering words of wisdom, let it be."
Mythologist Joseph Campbell says, "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."
Notes and reading
[*] Resonance theory - "In Chinese thinking, in Japanese thinking, in Indian thinking, and with the Greeks, you have concepts of energeia or dynamis, or in theology, pneuma. It's not something we have to produce, but it's something circulating. So, I want to go a bit in that direction to come up with something maybe truly revolutionary," said Helmut Rosa. Rosa. a German sociologist and political scientist, seeks to redefine the concept of resonance with the same precision Newton brought to the concept of energy, transforming vague and inconsistent notions into a term of clarity. Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World (2016); The Uncontrollability of the World (2020); "Toward a resonant society: An interview with Hartmut Rosa" - ResearchGate (October 31, 2023).
Rosa says, "Resonance is an emotional, neural, and thoroughly physical reality…” -Resonance…, [Ibid.] "In Lieu of an Afterword.”
[**] After I finished this article, I learned of a wonderful column on The Beatles by Robert (Bob) Hart in his Substack, The Musical Platypus (February 9, 2024). https://substack.com/@musicalplatypus
"The Politics of Recognition" - Charles Taylor in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition - Amy Gutmann, Editor (1994). A seminal text in political philosophy and multicultural studies. Taylor praises Rosa's work, while Rosa credits Taylor as a significant influence on his own projects.
Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory - Bruno Latour, d. 2022 (2005). Latour’s transdisciplinary work, ranging across philosophy, history, anthropology, and sociology, positioned him as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers." (NYTimes) Rosa's concept of resonance deals with the qualitative nature of our relationships with the world, including the natural and material environment. Latour is more focused on non-human entities' political representation and rights and speaks of the “Parliament of Things.” - Cf. "The World After: Bruno Latour and Hartmut Rosa . . .” - YouTube, posted on October 18, 2020. (1:05)
"Resonance and Education" - Rita Felski, On Education. Journal for Research and Debate (December 2020); The Limits of Critique (2015). Felski is a prominent scholar in aesthetics, literary theory, and cultural studies (University of Virginia) who challenges “the ethos of critical aloofness that is a part of modern intellectuals' self-image."Rita Felski, The Limits of Critique (2015).
"Mythologist Joseph Campbell says..." - billmoyers.com, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth — The Hero’s Adventure. (June 1988). Video (2 minutes) and transcript.