Social Inertia in Critical Theory

According to Adorno, all attempts to change society “immediately come up against the overwhelming force of inertia in the prevailing situation, and seem condemned to impotence.” This article explores the way the phenomenon of social and institutional inertia has been addressed in recent Critical Theory. It poses two central questions: firstly, what is social inertia, and what causes it? And secondly, how do we judge when institutions or social norms are “inert” or “obsolete”? It first briefly discusses the historical background of the problem of inertia, obsolescence and second nature in Hegel, Marx and the first generation of the Frankfurt School, and then discusses the central questions primarily with reference to recent work by Jaeggi and Menke and, to a lesser extent, Rosa and Von Redecker.