Overmodernity. The Zero-Brake Society.

Overmodernity. The Zero-Brake Society. What happens when "enough" is no longer enough? This book introduces the concept of Overmodernity to describe a transformation of modernity in which the overstepping of the threshold of sufficiency becomes an ordinary mode of societal functioning. This is not simply a society that produces, consumes, works, communicates, or chooses "too much". Overmodernity describes a condition in which exceeding functional limits tends to become normal: overproduction, overconsumption, overinformation, overchoice, overmedicalization, overperformance, and so on. A quantitative increase does not necessarily coincide with an increase in value and, beyond certain thresholds, can produce paradoxical effects: overload, saturation, loss of meaning, inefficiency, and new forms of dependency. The volume situates Overmodernity within the long transformation leading from premodern society to modernity, from postmodernity to the contemporary condition. The concept engages with some of the major sociological interpretations of contemporaneity, including social acceleration, liquid society, the achievement society, and the transformations of contemporary capitalism. The analysis considers overstepping across several areas of social life: production, consumption, work, information, choice, technology, the body, relationships, mobility, tourism, and fashion. Particular attention is paid to the role of digital technologies and artificial intelligence, which amplify the contemporary capacity to produce, distribute, select, and consume content and possibilities. The aim is not to propose a theory of excess in a generic sense, but to identify a specific historical form of modernity, characterized by the progressive overstepping of the thresholds beyond which an increase no longer necessarily generates value. The book is divided into three parts: Part One traces the ages of modernity, then moves to the definition of Overmodernity and its conditions.Part Two examines the mechanisms that shape it and make it possible.Part Three draws on Edmund Husserl's phenomenological method to understand how we experience Overmodernity. The manuscript is presented as a working paper / pre-publication manuscript, intended for scholarly discussion and subsequent editorial development.