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
2
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
3
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
4
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
8
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)
9
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
10
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.
12
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).
13
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
14
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
15
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.
16
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
17
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,
18
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
19
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’
20
(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
21
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.
22
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
23
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
24
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
25
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
26
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,
27
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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