Anne FREMAUXPostgraduate student (PhD)Queen’s University- BelfastJanuary 2014

Title:

Self-criticism and self-endangerment in reflexivemodernity: an account of Beck and Giddens’ theories

Introduction

We are living in very fast changing

times characterized by globalisation, mass-communication,

the rise of multiculturalism and nationalism, the

ecological threats, the decline in the legitimacy of

established political parties and what Ulrich Beck calls

the ‘risk society’ (Beck, 1992). These recent social

changes have led to debates over the very nature of our

contemporary world: have we entered a new post-modern era

fundamentally different from the modern one or can the

philosophical discourse of modernity still be the

conceptual framework in which we can think our times?

Giddens and Beck both reject the post-modern claim of a

surpassed modernity and contend that we are in the stage

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of ‘reflexive modernity’ (Beck, 1992: part 3 and Giddens,

1991a: 36-45).

Reflexive modernity ‘breaks up the premises and

contours of industrial society and opens path to another

modernity’ (Beck, 1994: 3). For Giddens, the modernity’s

culture of incessant reflexivity creates a ‘post-

traditional social world’. The concept of

‘detraditionalization’ that he uses does not mean a

society without tradition but refers to the fact that

traditions are constantly subject to interrogation; they

are no more taken for granted and are routinely exposed

to public debates.

We must indeed make the difference between the

‘unidimensional modernisation’ (or ‘simple

modernisation’) and the ‘reflexive modernisation’: the

first one refers to the rationalisation of tradition

while the second one has to do with the rationalisation

of the process of rationalisation itself (Beck, 1998:

16). This conception can be associated to a

‘‘discontinuist’ interpretation of modern social

development’ (Giddens, 1991a: 3) or to ‘discontinuous

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changes within modernity’ (Beck, 2010: 414). According to

both authors, discontinuity lies at the heart of

Modernity.

The development of reflexive human knowledge, or in

other words, the fact that over time, society has become

more self-aware, and therefore “reflexive”, ‘does not

lead to a situation in which collectively we are the

masters of our destiny. Rather to the contrary: the

future looks less like the past than ever before and has

in some basic ways become very threatening. As a species,

we are no longer guaranteed survival, even in the short

term, and this is a consequence of our own doings, as

collective humanity’ (Beck, Giddens & lash, 1994: vii).

New areas of unpredictability have been created because

of ‘self made risks’. According to Beck, Reflexive

modernity contains in itself ‘the possibility of its own

destruction’: ‘The ‘subject’ of this creative destruction

is not the revolution, not the crisis, but the victory of

Western modernization’ (Beck, 1994: 2).

Reflexive modernisation means also that more and more

agents (subjects) ‘acquire the ability to reflect on the

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social conditions of their existence and to change them

in that way’ (Beck, Giddens & lash, 1994: 174). For

Giddens, it means that ‘institutional reflexivity’ or the

increase in knowledge through ‘expert systems’ becomes

bigger while Beck emphasises the unconscious dissolution

of the industrial society, a process that takes place

‘without reflection, beyond knowledge and consciousness’

(ibid: 175).

This essay will attempt to compare Beck and Giddens’ key

concepts of ‘reflexive modernity’ and ‘risk’: What are

the differences between the ‘first’ and the ‘second’

modernity? What does it mean for individuals to live in a

‘high modernity’? How do the two sociologists challenge

the notion of ‘post-modernity’? How can the concept of

‘reflexive modernity’ be correlated to the notion of

‘risk’? Furthermore, I will discuss one of my own

research interests within this essay, that is the nature

of the ecological crisis ad its correlation with the

‘world risk society’ (Beck, 1999). I will analyze in

which extent Beck and Giddens vary in their approach to

addressing the question of risk in the light of

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environmental issues and I will offer a critical account

of Giddens’ optimistic conceptions.

What is Modernity?

One of the fundamental beliefs of modernity is the

belief in progress.  According to modernity, human

history can undergo an endless progression of

development, improvement, and growth.  Knowledge,

technology, economy, social systems, and our selves are

all capable of a never-ending process of improvements.

Indeed, modernity usually involves ‘the conviction that

things [are] generally improving, especially under the

impact of early Enlightenment’ (Lyon, 1994: 5). With the

advent of Enlightenment and industrial revolution, the

rationality of science replaced religious and

supernatural explanations and the secular idea of

progress, based on technical improvements and economic

growth, occupied the space left by providence. Such a

conception represents a break with the traditional

apprehension of life where people believed that the world

was the subject of cycles of growth and decay or that it

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held to a tenuous equilibrium capable of catastrophic

disruption.

More specifically, the term ‘modernity’ refers ‘to

the institutions and modes of behaviours established

first of all in post-feudal Europe, but which in the

twentieth century increasingly have become world-

historical in their impact’ (Giddens, 1991b: 14-15).

According to Giddens, Modernity can be understood as

roughly equivalent to ‘the industrial world’ so long as

it is recognised that industrialism is not its only

institutional dimension. Indeed, ‘Giddens posits

‘modernity’ and ‘industrialism’ as congruent both in time

and content. Both start in post-feudal Europe, and the

central features and mechanisms are defined by those of

industrialism: the separation of space and time (...); symbolic

media like money and the rationality of experts (…); institutional

reflexivity’ (Beck, 1997: 14). Industrialism, which involves

the use of material power and machinery to produce goods,

is one of the dimensions of modern institutions along

with capitalism (characterized, inter alia, by commodity

production and private ownership of capital), institutions of

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surveillance (supervisory control of populations) and the

military control of the means of violence in the context of the

‘industrialisation of the war’. One of the major social

forms produced by modernity is the nation-state that

contrasts in a fundamental way with most types of

traditional orders by the level of organization it

entails (Giddens, 1991b: 15-16).

According to Beck, Bonß and Lau (2003: 4-5), the

‘premises of First Modernity societies’ are also closely

linked to the nation-state (welfare state, legal system,

national economy and parliamentary democracy) but also to

individualization (universalization of freedom and equality),

gainful work and employment (global participation in the

economy), a particular conception of nature founded on its

exploitation (nature considered as the ‘outside’ of the

society’), a scientific conception of rationality (instrumental

control) and the principle of functional differentiation (progressive

specialization and growth of complexity). The rise of

organization (bureaucracy and monitoring) is indeed one

of the main features of modernity (Giddens, 1991b: 16).

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Modernity is characterized by the development of

modern scientific world-views and the dismissal or the

marginalisation of tradition. According to Giddens,

‘modernity, almost by definition, always stood in

opposition to tradition’ (Giddens, 1994: 56), or,

elsewhere: ‘Inherent in the idea of modernity is a

contrast with tradition’ (Giddens, 1991a: 36). For Beck,

modernisation is also thought in terms of liberation and

differentiation from the world of traditions and religion

(Beck, 1998: 16). Modernity has always rebuilt and

dissolved tradition: it is characterized by a greater

dynamism and greater changes than the one occurring in

traditional civilisations: ‘the rapidity of change in

conditions of modernity is extreme’ (Giddens, 1991a, 6).

The scope of change is also much wider, extending to the

entire planet (trough for instance capitalistic

organisation of the economy or environmental impacts of

technologies). ‘One of the most obvious characteristics

separating the modern era from any other preceding period

is modernity’s extreme dynamism’ (Giddens, 1991b: 16).

This is why ‘living in the modern world is more like

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being aboard a careering juggernaut (…) rather than being in

a carefully controlled and well-driven motorcar’

(Giddens, 1991a: 53). The metaphor of the ‘juggernaut’1

recalls us that modernity is fraught with risks of high

consequence (lack of control and feeling of ontological

insecurity).

One of Beck’s central theses is that the victory of

the first modernity has led to its own crisis: ‘the West

is confronted by questions that challenge the fundamental

premises of its own social and political system’ (Beck,

1994:1). Globalization and competition in the market

economy, individualisation and erosion of collective

life, increasing flexibility in work and social

insecurity, global ecological crisis, etc. are all

expressions of the erosion of the social basic

institutions of the first modernity: ‘Across the world,

nation-states, political parties, trade unions,

democracy, market economies, industrial enterprises,

welfare systems (…) increasingly display seemingly1 ‘A runaway engine of enormous power which, collectively as humanbeings, we can drive to some extent but which also threatens to rushout of our control and which could rend itself asunder’ (Giddens,1991a: 139)

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irreversible weaknesses’ (Beck & Grande, 2010: 415). Beck

speaks in terms of ‘zombie institutions’ that are ‘dead

and still alive’ to describe this phenomenon.

Consequently, ‘The institutionalized answers of first

modern society to its self-produced problems – for

example, more and better technology, more economic

growth, more scientific research and more specialization

– are less persuasive than they once were, although it is

not at all clear what should take their place’ (Beck,

Bonß & Lau, 2003: 7).

These aspects lead the sociologists to develop a

pessimistic view of the ‘first modernity’ process. This

troubled side of modernity has been very well enlightened

by authors such as Marx (‘alienation’), Weber (‘iron

cage’ and disenchantment) or Durkheim (“anomie”, violence

and suicide) but all of them, except Weber who succumbed

to pessimism, thought that the negative aspects of

modernity would be counterbalanced by the positive side.

As Giddens puts it, even Weber ‘did not fully anticipate

how extensive the darker side of modernity would turn out

to be’ (Giddens, 1991a: 7). For instance, none of them

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has considered seriously that the ‘”forces of production”

would have large-scale destructive potential in relation

to the material environment’ (Giddens, 1991a: 8).

Actually, modernity, for Giddens, is a double-edged

phenomenon: ‘The developments of modern social

institutions and their worldwide spread have created

vastly greater opportunities for human beings to enjoy a

secure and rewarding existence than any type of pre-

modern system. But modernity also has a sombre side,

which has become very apparent in the present century’

(Giddens, 1991a: 7). Beck, for his part, focuses more on

the negative side, on the seemingly dystopian outcome of

rationalization in the first modernisation: ‘the

consequences of scientific and industrial developments

are a set of risks and hazards’ (Lash and Wynne, 1992:

2).

Reflexive modernity or Post-modernity?

As Giddens says, ‘today, in the late twentieth

century, it is argued by many, that we stand at the

opening of a new era (…) which is taking us beyond

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modernity itself ’. This new era refers to ‘the emergence

of a new type of social system, (such as the “information

society” or the “consumer society”) but most of which

suggest rather that a preceding state of affairs is

drawing to a close (“post-modernity”, “post-modernism”,

‘post-industrial society”, “post-capitalism”, and so

forth)’ (Giddens, 1991a: 1-2).

On the contrary to this conception, Giddens and Beck

oppose the word ‘post-modernity’ to describe our time.

Beck rejects the formulas ‘past plus post’ as the prefix

‘post’ appears to be the magic fashionable word

reflecting the present perplexity. It is the basic

recipe, indicative of our “talkative, conceptual hunger

and incomprehension”, which helps us to confront a

reality that seems to collapse2 (Beck, 1992: 9).

The development of post-modernity is linked,

according to its supporters, to the rise of relativism

and individualism, to the ‘incredulity towards meta-

narratives” (Lyotard, 1984: p. xxiv) and to the removal

of science as the unique source of truth. Against the

2 Here is an approximate translation of the French version that seemsto me much closer to the complexity of Beck’s original text than theEnglish one.

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idea that systematic knowledge has become impossible,

Giddens (1991a: 47) contends that such a view would lead

us ‘to repudiate intellectual activity altogether’.

Moreover, if he does not disagree with some

characterisations of recent social life that other

theorists have labelled as ‘post-modern’ such as

scepticism, superficiality, or consumerism, he thinks

that they are attributable to the exacerbation of

modernity rather than to the dawn of a new era. The

decline our civilization is currently facing is due to

the spread of these institutions or, in other words, to

the process of ‘globalisation’ (‘The globalizing of

modernity’, Giddens, 1991a: 63).

To define « Post-modernity » in opposition to the

aesthetic connotations of the word « postmodernism »,

Giddens states that ’post-modernity refers to something

different (…). If we are moving into a phase of post-

modernity, this means that the trajectory of social

development is taking us away from the institutions of

modernity towards a new and distinct type of social order

‘ (Giddens, 1991a: 46).

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According to Giddens, we can characterize the post-

modern system as being beyond the ‘institutional

dimensions of modernity’ (Giddens, 1991a: 55). Post-

modernity must be analyzed ‘as a series of immanent

transitions away from –or “beyond”- the various

institutional clusters of modernity’ (Giddens, 1991a:

52). Indeed, if post-modernity existed, it ‘would be

characterized by a post-scarcity system, increasingly

multilayered democratisation, demilitarization, and the

humanization of technology’ (Ritzer, 1997: 147; Giddens,

1990: pp 163-173). If some signs of post-modernity are

already there like the rise of new social movements, ‘we

do not yet live in a post-modern social universe’

(Giddens, 1991a: 52). We are rather currently living a

period of ‘high’ or ‘reflexive’ modernity.

As seen previously, Modernity was characterized by

the rational scepticism towards tradition; high

modernity, for its part, is characterized by the rational

(and also irrational) scepticism towards reason and

knowledge. Rationality, which was the Archimedean point

of the first modernity, is put into question by the

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spread of scepticism that it has itself supported through

critical thinking. Reason is therefore caught in

foundational issues (Munchausen syndrome): ‘the

reflexivity of modernity actually subverts reason, at any

rate where reason is understood as the gaining of certain

knowledge (…) The equation of knowledge with certitude

has turned out to be misconceived’ (Giddens, 1991a: 39).

Paradoxically, knowledge, under conditions of

reflexive modernity, has become greater but eminently

fragile as it can constantly be revised through the

process of reflexivity itself. “To know” does not mean

anymore “to be certain”. However, the absence of

foundationalism in epistemology does not imply, as

postmodernists claim, that systematic knowledge has

become impossible (Habermas, 1987 mentioned by Giddens,

1991a: 3). The break with foundationalism must be seen as

‘”modernity coming to understand itself” rather than the

overcoming of modernity as such’ (Giddens, 1991a: 48).

The question: ‘how can we justify a commitment to reason

in the name of reason?’ (ibid: 49), raised by reflexive

thinking, should be seen as a stage of self-clarification

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of modern thought. Rather than taking us ‘beyond

modernity’, the critical developments about the

legitimacy of reason and science ‘provide a fuller

understanding of the reflexivity inherent in modernity

itself ’(Giddens, 1991a: 49).

Reflexive modernity, structures and individual agency

To say that modernity has become ‘reflexive’ means

on one hand that individuals make choices and decisions

without referring anymore to tradition, religion or

custom. As Giddens puts it, ‘many aspects of our lives

have suddenly become open, organized only in terms of

‘scenario thinking’, the as-if construction of possible

future outcomes’ and ‘many of the uncertainties which

face us today have been created by the very growth of

human knowledge’ (Giddens, in Beck, Giddens & Lash, 1994:

184-185). This is what Giddens calls ‘institutional

reflexivity’, an expression that he favours over

‘reflexive modernization.’ Reflexivity, here, refers to

the possibility for institutions to undergo profound

changes in the face of new knowledge and information.

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Giddens, in this way, restates the central theme of The

Nation State and Violence, according to which, ‘modernity must

be understood on an institutional level’ Giddens, 1991:

1). It seems that in spite of his intention to focus on

the reflexive project of the self in Modernity and Self-identity

(1991b), Giddens favours a structural examination of the

reflexive project over the part played by agency (This

problematic point cannot be treated in the context of

this essay. See Hay, O’Brien & Penna, 1993-4: 95). The

psychic reorganization and the rise in reflexivity, seems

to result, in Giddens’ theory, from an increasing

dependence on abstract systems (‘expert systems’) such as

media of mass-communication, transport and communication

networks that allow people to enjoy a wide diversity of

experiences in separated time & space locales

(‘disembedding’ or ‘space-time distanciation’). This

makes societies and individuals becoming more subject to

conscious changes.

This is a point on which Giddens and Beck disagree

(cf. Beck, in Beck, Giddens & Lash, 1994: 174-184): for

Beck, the process of ‘reflexive modernisation’ is not

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based on knowledge. To say that modernity has become

‘reflexive’ does not mean that people in today’s society

are more self conscious than in the past and therefore

more able to reflect on the social conditions of their

existence and to change them. As he suggests, this latest

idea is the relevant horizon of ‘reflection’ and not of

‘reflexivity’ understood as ‘unintentional self-

dissolution’ or ‘self-endangerment’ of industrial

modernization: ‘Unlike Giddens (…), I assert that it is

not knowledge but rather non-knowledge which is the

medium of ‘reflexive’ modernization. To put it another

way: we are living in the age of side effects’ (ibid.: 175). For

Beck, the reflexivity of modernity does not mean for

instance ‘self-referentiality’ or ‘self-criticism’ of

modernity in the sense of classical sociology. It means

rather that ‘the further the modernization of modern

societies proceeds, the more the foundations of

industrial society are dissolved, consumed, changed and

threatened. The contrast lies in the fact that this can

quite well take place without reflection, beyond

knowledge and consciousness’ (ibid.: 176). Nevertheless,

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Beck points out that together with Giddens, they agree on

the fact that ‘individuals have become ever more free of

structure; in fact they have to redefine structure (or,

as Giddens puts it, tradition)’(ibid.: 176-177).

Ultimately, they need to reinvent themselves society and

politics. This means eventually, as Archer says, that

‘much greater demands are placed upon personal

reflexivity to make a ‘life of one’s own’ (Archer, 2012:

3).

However, we can notice that both theories present

the part devoted to human agency in the process of social

changes not as a cause, but as a consequence of the

conscious (Giddens) or unconscious (Beck) structural

reflexivity. It is what has come to be called the

‘extended reflexivity thesis’, that is a conception

‘presented as the direct counterpart of ‘the demise of

structure’’(Ibid.). According to this thesis, it is the

social destructuration, or in Bauman’s terms, the

‘liquidity’ of modernity (Bauman, 2000), the loss of

tradition and trust, that enables self-reflexivity and

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self-construction of individuals (what Beck and Giddens

describe as the ‘institutionalization of individualism’).

The place dedicated to the power of agency seems

quite ambiguous in both theories. On one hand, in Beck’s

theory, individualization is more thought as a fate than

as a self-affirmative action: to take part into the

individualizing process is not a choice. As Beck says,

‘how one lives becomes a biographical solution to

systemic contradictions’ (Beck, 1992: 137). Risks and

contradictions are socially (structurally) produced, and

individuals face the duty and the necessity to cope with

them. ‘To cut a long story: a gap is growing between

individuality as fate and individuality as the practical

and realistic capacity for self-assertion’ (Bauman, 2000:

34). ‘Individual reflexivity’ in the second modernity is

an ‘individuality by assignment’; this means that human

beings have no choice but to act: ‘the tendency is

towards the emergence of individualized forms and

conditions of existence, which compel people - for the

sake of their own material survival - to make themselves

the centre of their own planning and conduct of life’

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(Beck, 1992: 88). Second modernity, indeed, is

characterized by uncertainty, Unsicherheit, and instability

penetrating all aspects of individual life, but as Bauman

puts it ‘no ‘beds are furnished for ‘reembedding’ (…)

There are rather ‘musical chairs’ (…) which prompt men

and women to be constantly on the move and promise no

‘fulfilment’, no rest and no satisfaction of ‘arriving’,

or reaching the final destination, where one can disarm,

relax and stop worrying’ (Bauman, 2000: 33).

Giddens’ past attempts to understand the part played

by agency against structures can be found in his

‘Structuration Theory’ (1984) in which he tried to

overcome the contradictions between functionalists,

structuralists, Marxists (primacy of structures) and

interactionists (primacy of individual freedom).

According to his theory, structures are said to be both

the medium and the outcome of individual actions

(dialectic of structure and agency): individuals

reproduce social structures but they also influence them

through their skills and knowledge. In this way,

structures seem to be not only constraining but also

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enabling. This ideal view can be contradicted from a

point of view that Beck would may be not disregard, that

is from the fact that it overlooks ‘the irrational forces

at work in the psyche, the boundedness of the knowledge

that agents possess, and, above all, the strict limits of

where and how agents may behave like agents in a world

that is becoming increasingly monitored, controlled, and

controlling’ (Mestrovic, 1998: 23). The importance of

structures3 is itself acknowledged by Giddens in his

analysis of the part played by social reproduction in

social processes. As Johnson (1990) shows, Giddens’

structuration theory is even much too focus on the

processes of social reproduction through individual

practice to really leave some place to genuine individual

freedom. This latter is actually reduced to the fact

that, ‘at any point in time, the agent could have acted

otherwise’ (Giddens, 1988: 56) even if he mostly does not

for reasons that Giddens fails to show. The analysis of

3 On this last point, I would agree with Archer’s critique of thetheory of ‘extended reflexivity’ on the fact that social structures(neo-liberal structures like multi-national corporations orsurveillance institutions) are not dissolved like the concept of‘post-traditional society’ would make us believe but rather occluded:for instance ‘rather than disappearing, the workings of financecapital had been partially and deliberately occluded’ (Archer, 2012:4). This means that the structures are still very strong but hidden.

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individual agency became only dominant in his later work

but the conceptual bridge between individualist and

structurationist elements remains a problematic issue in

Giddens’ theory. Eventually, the Giddens’ appeal to the

persistence of the free, autonomous individual in the

face of the juggernaut of modernity is, according to

Mestrovic, an act of optimistic bad faith, by which

Giddens, ‘an optimistic modernist’, refuses to accept the

darker implications of modernity that he has however

always recognized (Mestrovic, 1998: pp. 4, 23, 78 and 155

quoted by King, 1999). Or, in other words, ‘Giddens

cannot accept the implications of his own theory or the

reality of modern society, which substantially curtail

individual freedom’ (King, 1999:63).

Reflexive modernity and the risk society

Giddens is extremely optimistic about what he calls

the post-traditional society: ‘For him, new technological

and institutional developments have broken the shackles

of tradition and have liberated individuals into a world

of choice in which they can freely decide on the way in

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which they can lead their lives and interact with others’

(King, 1999: 69). Post-traditionalism facilitates the

development of individual reflexivity: ‘The more

tradition loses hold (…), the more individuals are forced

to negotiate lifestyle choices among a diversity of

options’ (Giddens, 1991b: 192). Although shortly said,

individuals are supposed to become what they make of

themselves, bearing the responsibility of their own

choices4. While defending the emancipatory dimension of

reflexivity, Giddens fails to analyze the negative side,

i.e. the problem of existential insecurity and

instability raised by the loss of traditional guidelines

(Durkheimian ‘anomie’). But more than that, Giddens does

not take seriously into account the rise of objective

hazards linked to the rise of what Beck calls the ‘risk

society’.

Indeed, an additional difference between Giddens and

Beck lies in the fact that Giddens’ theory of reflexive

modernization is optimistic as its core: ‘more science,

more public sphere, more self-awareness and self-

4 This means a development of individual responsibility againstinstitutional liability that we find very linked to the developmentof neo-liberal ideology

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criticism will open up new and better possibilities for

action in a world that has got out of joint’ (Beck, 1994:

177). This optimism is not shared by the theory of

reflexivity defended by Beck. As he puts it, ‘the theory

suggested by me is neutral and more complex with respect

to this; it takes up and takes on the “ambivalence of

modernity” (Bauman)’. One of the paradigmatic negative

side effects of the second modernity are the ‘creeping

ecological catastrophes (ozone hole, climatic changes and

so on). As Günther Anders, Hans Jonas, Karl Jaspers,

Hannah Arendt, Robert Jungk and many others have

impressively shown, the possibility of intended and

unintended collective suicide is in fact an historical

novelty which blows apart all moral, political and social

concepts’ (Beck, 1994: 180). The destructive power of

our modern mega-technologies has reached unprecedented

degree and the faith in the anticipatory controllability

of side effects by ‘expert-systems’ is not anymore

possible: ‘The immanent pluralisation of risk also calls

the rationality of risk calculations into question’

(Beck, ibid.: 181). The risk produced by our advanced

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industrial societies can no longer be covered by the

calculus of risk and insurance (see for instance nuclear

plants that insurance companies do not want to cover).

For Beck, high modernity is a world that introduces

global risks that previous generations have not had to

face, precisely because of the failure of modern

institutions to control the risks they have created (see

Elliott, 2002). Beck’s conception goes along with the

criticism of political denial and ‘organized

irresponsibility’. This situation leads to the

questioning of social-institutional system by the society

itself and the development of sub-politics means, that

is, of the self-empowerment of society: ‘within the

horizon of the opposition between old routine and new

awareness of consequences and dangers,’ writes Beck,

‘society becomes self-critical’ (Beck, 1999: 81). Beck’s

analysis appears to me very relevant, especially when it

leads to the critique of the institutional organisation

of irresponsibility and of the political ideology of

industrial fatalism (faith in progress, dependence on

rationality and the rule of expert). Beck offers a real

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critical account of the reflexive modernity and of the

society of risks it give birth to. According to Beck,

‘reflexivity does not imply a kind of hyper-Enlightenment

culture, where agents and institutions reflect on

modernity, but rather an unintended self-modification of

forms of life driven by the impact of autonomized

processes of modernization.’ (Elliott: 2002, 302). Using

Giddens’ metaphor, we could say that the juggernaut has

no driver. It is the autonomous, compulsive dynamic of

reflexive modernization that creates risks that cannot be

addressed and measured. In this regard, reflexivity is

better defined by ‘reflex’ than by ‘reflection’ even if

the confrontation with risks that politics refuse to

acknowledge, leads eventually the society and the

individuals to develop some processes of self-reflection

and self-protection. I disagree for instance with

Elliott’s critique of Beck when he sees incompatibility

between the account for blind social processes and

concepts of reflection, referentiality and reflexivity

(Elliott, 1999: 302). Eventually, as Beck shows,

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reflection may occur as a reaction to the social and

institutional forms of dissolution.

For Giddens (as for Beck), the idea of risk is not

new but Giddens’s theory tends to minimize the novelty of

the risk-scale entailed by new technologies. ‘Dangers and

hazards have, of course, always existed. Life in the

Middle Ages, for instance was a perilous affair. In those

days, however, people didn’t think in terms of risk but

much more in terms of God-given fortune and misfortune’

(ibid.: 103). The notion of risk is linked to the

assessment of the future hazards ‘and it becomes a more

pervasive notion the more a society seeks to live in the

future and shape it actively’ (Giddens, 1998: 101). Of

course, in the reflexive modernity characterized by a

collective self-representation, the concept of risk has

become generalized: ‘we live in a ‘risk culture’, which

is to be explained by the radicalizing and generalizing

of modernity’. Because of the process of de-

traditionalization (loss of the roots in past) we think

more in terms of risk and less in terms of fate. In the

same time, as nature has become more and more social (non

28

traditional) and dependent on human decisions, the gain

of control over it goes along with the idea of

calculation of risk (rationalization of nature). In the

first modernity, risk was fairly well calculable on the

basis of time-series (cf. calculation of insurance

companies which assume a relative stability in life-style

and nature): ‘the very notion of insurance (…) goes along

with the concept of a calculable future, subject to human

intervention (…). The rise of the notion of humanly

engineered safety is part and parcel of Enlightenment

thought.’ (ibid.: 104). Today the increase of knowledge

and information (reflexivity) has the consequence of

creating new forms of risk for which data do not exist

(risk in financial markets for instance): ‘what I call

‘manufactured risk’, or manufactured uncertainty, is

bound more with the advance of knowledge than with its

limitations’ (ibid.: 104-105). In short, ‘manufactured

risk is not only linked with human intervention in nature

but also with social change in an information society

based upon high reflexivity’ (ibid.: 105) . Giddens, like

many sociologists, is characterized by ‘an ecological

29

blindness’. According to him, ‘it is not true tat the

world is more risky than it used to be. Rather, the

notion of risk becomes more central’ (ibid.: 103). Risk,

for Giddens, is mainly a social construction entailed by

high reflexivity.

If Beck, for his part, acknowledges that public

awareness preselects ecological questions (1995: 41), he

does not deny that ecology is an objective matter linked to

new ‘man made’ (manufactured) risks and new technologies

(nuclear power, bio-chemical disasters, ozone depletion,

global warming, etc.). Risk is the flipside of increased

opportunities we have created through science and

technology. For Beck, increased risk reflexivity (or

subjective sensibility to the notion of risk) is the

outcome of a greater number of risks and hazards being

objectively produced. For Giddens, on the contrary, risks

are merely thought to be greater because human

subjectivity is now more sensitive to risk. From one

side, reflexivity defined as “reflection” is a

consequence of risk (Beck). For the other, risk is a

consequence of greater reflexivity (Giddens).

30

Conclusion

As a conclusion, I will mention my own proximity to

Beck’s thinking rather than to Giddens’ one. Indeed,

although Giddens claims that ‘social theory is inevitably

critical theory’ (Giddens, 1982: 15), his approach is, on

the subject of ecology as on other ones (cf. for instance

his celebration of the post-traditional individuals and

of the soi-disant freedom of choice) is closer to the

defence of statu quo than to any account of the Frankfurt

school. By denying the reality of some problems and

avoiding to question the social order that gave rise to

them (cf. ecological issues or the ontological insecurity

of individuals in neo-liberal societies), he fails, as

King puts it, to perform the very role of reflexive self-

criticism he marks out as the distinguishing feature of

“post-traditional culture”.’ Giddens has become one of

those guardians of the truth and tradition that reflexive

modernization has rendered obsolete ”’ (King, 1999: 78).

31

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