Hartmut Rosa's 'Ethics of Resonance' - New Paths Beyond the Aggressive Relationship to the World

Jul 10

Hartmut Rosa, School of Philosophy, Munich June 2025

Yesterday evening I attended a lecture by Hartmut Rosa at the Munich School of Philosophy – the same university where I began my studies over 40 years ago. Rosa spoke about “Solidarity, Responsibility, Resonance” and outlined the first foundations of an “ethics of resonance.”

Let me attempt a summary and assessment as I heard it through my Individual Psychology lens, and I find that Rosa develops approaches with his resonance theory that open new perspectives on established psychological concepts - and conversely, established theories can help deepen his insights.

Rosa's Diagnosis: The “Aggressive Relationship to the World”

Modern capitalist societies depend on “dynamic stabilization." They must permanently grow, accelerate, innovate in order to survive. What suffices today is insufficient tomorrow.

This logic of escalation creates a specific aggressive relationship to the world on three levels.

At the macro level, we see extractive exploitation of nature through fracking, mining of rare earths, systematic resource depletion. The promise of making things available paradoxically leads to “monstrous unavailability” such as climate crisis, pandemics, wars.

At the meso level, the other is primarily perceived as a competitor. Rosa describes how feelings of disgust toward those who think differently are increasingly emerging in politics. “When I just see them, I feel sick.”

At the micro level, an aggressive relationship to oneself develops. People are increasingly dissatisfied with themselves. Not beautiful enough, not athletic enough, not successful enough. “They are not satisfied with themselves,” Rosa says about rising depression rates.

Rosa's central insight reads: “We have entered into a resource relationship with the world.” Everything is viewed from the perspective of whether we can make it available, whether we can increase it, whether we can optimize it.

The result is systematic alienation. People lose the ability to engage with the world, to be touched by it.

The Alternative: Four Moments of Resonance

Rosa develops resonance as a counter-concept to alienation. A resonance relationship has four characteristic moments.

Touch or Affection means: “Something speaks to me,” without my actively bringing it about. Rosa emphasizes: “Resonance doesn't begin with me increasing or doing something. You can't put resonance on your to-do list.”

Response or E-Motion means: “I move toward it.” This is not just passive reception, but active movement toward what touches us. “We all know what sparkling eyes are,” Rosa describes the physical dimension of resonance.

Transformation means that both sides of the relationship change mutually. “This is a moment of transformation, which I believe is the core of education.”

Constitutive Unavailability means that resonance cannot be produced or guaranteed. “Nine times out of ten it doesn't happen. You go home bored, even annoyed.”

Rosa illustrates this using the example of the lecture itself. “Why do you come here? I don't believe it's primarily because you want to educate yourselves - there are better ways to do that. You go in hope of resonance.”

Resonance as Ethical Program

Rosa's most radical thesis reads: Resonance itself can be the ethical goal. Instead of deontological morality (“You shall!”), he outlined an ethics of resonance that derives ethical implications from the resonance experience itself.

“Where you are in resonance with people, there is an ethics of care implied. Then you want them not to be hurt.” This care is not imposed from outside, but springs from the resonance experience itself.

Rosa makes this concrete with an example. “Anyone who is truly in resonance with mountains - will never step on a rare flower to take a great selfie. You experience that as self-injury.” The resonance attitude toward the world aims to “preserve what is capable of response in its being.”

Rosa emphasizes that from the resonance attitude, certain behaviours are automatically recognized as problematic. Namely, those that make other “voices fall silent.” When people are no longer perceived as independent, responsive beings, but are reduced to certain roles or characteristics, genuine encounter becomes impossible.

Individual Psychology Perspective

Allow me now a few remarks from my Individual Psychology perspective. Rosa makes accessible what was inherent in Alfred Adler's “social interest,” with remarkable parallels.

In terms of diagnosis, Rosa shows that Adler's observations about “neurotic striving for superiority” have today become systemic. What was described as individual pathology has become societal normalcy.

Rosa supports the insight that genuine connectedness automatically produces ethical behaviour. “Social interest” or “community feeling” (in German: Gemeinschaftsgefühl) as the foundation of ethical action corresponds to Rosa's “automatic ethics of care through resonance.”

In terms of concept-finding, Rosa makes “social interest” accessible again through modern terms like “resonance.” While “social interest” today is quickly dismissed as old-fashioned, “resonance” sounds contemporary and scientifically grounded.

In the structural dimension, Rosa extends the societal perspective already inherent in Adler with a specific contemporary diagnosis. While Adler developed social interest as a response to societal competitive relationships, Rosa identifies the systematic conditions of late modernity that make resonance difficult: acceleration, instrumental reason, competitive logic.

Here Individual Psychology offers concrete additions: Methods like lifestyle analysis show where resonance capacity is blocked. “Encouragement” as a specific intervention can cultivate resonance. And the concept of “double dynamics” - integrating power striving AND social interest rather than suppressing - offers practical approaches for the transformation Rosa demands.

Practical Implications for Leadership and Consulting

What does Rosa's resonance perspective mean for practice? It turns many things upside down.

Leadership would no longer primarily aim to motivate or control people. Rather, it would be about creating conditions under which people can feel touched. This could mean: More time for genuine conversations, fewer meetings with predetermined outcomes. Projects that can have personal meaning, not just fulfil quarterly targets.

Change processes would look different. If transformation occurs in resonance and cannot be “made,” then it's less about overcoming resistance and more about creating spaces for encounter. Less communication “from above,” more genuine listening.

Consulting would focus less on problem analysis and more on where resonance already exists and how it can be strengthened. What already connects people in this organization? Where do vibrant moments emerge? How can these be cultivated?

From “What to Do?” to “How to Let?”

Rosa proposes a fundamental shift in perspective. Instead of activist activism (“Should we drop more bombs?”), it's about “new ways of relating that are not based on aggression or control.”

He puts it provocatively: “The question is no longer: What should we do? But rather: How could we let? How can we stop?” - Stop in the sense of: listen, become attentive.

Human Beings Are Resonance Beings

At the end of his lecture, Rosa emphasized: “Human beings are resonance beings before they are rational beings. Even when we are old and no longer able to speak, we are still resonance beings. This sensitivity to touch, this subtle interplay - that's what actually makes humans human.”

This insight has far-reaching consequences. If humans are fundamentally resonance beings, then it's not about teaching them resonance capacity or making them “better” people. It's about creating the conditions under which this original connectedness can come into play again. It's about clearing away the obstacles to what is already there.

A thought that will resonate for a long time to come.

Siegfried Lautenbacher