Herbert Marcuse produced multiple studies on counterrevolution and revolt alongside his assessment of the ‘outcasts and outsiders’ who possess a revolutionary nature that refuses to ‘play the game’ of a given social and political order. His depiction of the subjugation of eros—alongside the intensification of popularized sexual energies—is experienced by many within society to particular social and political ends: as a means of rendering subjects passive and accommodating to social norms. It is in the liberation of eros, such as found in the ‘outcasts’ of society, however, that one finds a subversive power established against the repressive ordering of a given culture. When Marcuse’s analysis is applied to more contemporary Critical Theory, such as in the work of Hartmut Rosa, one can see how facing the uncontrollability of desire (eros) does not remove all bonds between persons, but actually allows us to see how relationships formed through a shared resonance might be a more acceptable socially-bonding formula. Rosa’s notion of resonance, because it confronts experiences of alienation and seeks to overcome them in numerous, everyday ways, helps to re-envision political notions of revolution as micro-revolutions, which are needed more than ever as modern humanity loses its ability to resonate as society accelerates. As Adorno had once pointed out how the far right takes advantage of people who feel out of control in their lives, as with his comments on the culture industry and astrology, Rosa’s account of the search for resonance in the face of an uncontrollable world enables considerations of ‘ordinary’ revolutions that take place beyond large-scale reactions to social, political, and economic alienation. Rosa’s work, I argue, tends toward a form of democratic practice as a process of ‘semicontrollability’ in the face of irresolvable tensions, one that overlaps with occult practices, as he himself notes. In formulating this approach, Rosa builds off of Marcuse’s emphasis on the revolutionary nature of the outsider as a form of life lived beyond the system’s ability to inscribe them within governing social norms. Though Rosa does not directly refute the revolutionary potential of Marcuse’s outsider, he does gesture toward more democratic processes locatable in-between those sites of resonance and experiences of alienation that characterize modern life.