Risk Society Rest In Peace

Posted: 1/4/2015

Trigger

Just read in this article that one of the two major proponents of risk society (german: Risikogesellschaft), german sociologist Ulrich Beck, has passed away.

Risk Society Was A Dead End

I personally never read Beck’s famous book (translated into 35 languages) about risk society, but I was kind of aware of his great influence on politics etc. I genuinely hope that humanity can quickly move on

The coincidence of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the publication of this book in 1986 gave this book an enormous, unwarranted prominence and popularity. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster was not much more but a testament to the inhumanity and disregard for human life of the real socialist dictatorship USSR, which was at the time already in its imminent death throes.

I would say, the biggest flaw of the concept of risk society was that it is extremely one sided.  The author used dubious expressions like “Logik der Risikoproduktion” (logic of risk production) “Logik der Risikoverteilung” (logic of risk distribution). The author underrated the opportunities that come with risk taking; the progress of human ingenuity to deal with negative aspects of technological progress and so on.

Risk Society Was An Appeal To Superstition & Apocalypse

Risk society was an excuse for extreme environmentalism and, I suspect, other phenomena (e.g. precautionary principle) of the last 30 years.

To quote from the above Wikipedia article on risk society:

1. “Beck argued that environmental risks had become the predominant product, not just an unpleasant, manageable side-effect, of industrial society.”
2. “Modern societies, however, are exposed to risks such as pollution, newly discovered illnesses, crime, that are the result of the modernization process itself. Giddens defines these two types of risks as external risks and manufactured risks. Manufactured risks are marked by a high level of human agency involved in both producing, and mitigating such risks.”

It is not modernization per se, but the increase of the human population to now 7 billion and increasing to 8 billion in about 12 years from now that causes many of the issues. The distinction between ‘external’ and ‘manufactured’ risks is more manufactured than real. Pre-modern societies were exposed to similar risks as modern societies. It is probably also condescending or arrogant to say that pre-modern societies were not as reflexive about their future as modern societies.

It is reported that Beck conjured imaginations of the sorcerers apprentice (Goethe’s Zauberlehrling) or the Jewish golem.