Second modernity is a phrase coined by the German sociologist

Ulrich Beck Ulrich Beck (; 15 May 1944 – 1 January 2015) was a German sociologist, and one of the most cited social scientists in the world during his lifetime. His work focused on questions of uncontrollability, Sociology of scientific ignorance, ignora ...

, and is his word for the period after

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular Society, socio-Culture, cultural Norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the ...

. Where modernity broke down agricultural society in favour of

industrial society In sociology, an industrial society is a society driven by the use of technology and machinery to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the Western world ...

, second modernity transforms industrial society into a new and more reflexive

network society Network society is the set of social, political, economic, and cultural changes brought about by the widespread use of networked digital information and communication technologies. The intellectual origins of the idea can be traced back to the wo ...

or information society.

Risk society

Second modernity is marked by a new awareness of the risks — risks to all forms of life, plant, animal and human — created by the very successes of modernity in tackling the problem of human scarcity. Systems that previously seemed to offer protection from risks both natural and social are increasingly recognised as producing new man-made risks on a global scale as a byproduct of their functioning. Such systems become part of the problem, not the solution. Modernisation and information advances themselves create new social dangers, such as

cybercrime Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of criminal activities that are carried out using digital devices and/or Computer network, networks. It has been variously defined as "a crime committed on a computer network, especially the Internet"; Cyberc ...

, while scientific advances open up new areas, like

cloning Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical genomes, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction; this reproduction of an organism by itself without ...

genetic modification Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including th ...

, where decisions are necessarily made without adequate capacity to assess longterm consequences. Recognising the fresh dilemmas created by this reflexive modernization, Beck has suggested a new "cosmopolitan Realpolitik" to overcome the difficulties of a world in which national interests can no longer be promoted effectively at the national level alone.

Knowledge society

Second modernity has also been linked to the so-called

knowledge society A knowledge society generates, shares, and makes available to all members of the society knowledge that may be used to improve the human condition. A knowledge society differs from an information society in that the former serves to transform info ...

, marked by a pluralisation of different types of knowledge. It is characterised in particular by knowledge-dependent risks — the uncertainties manufactured by the information world itself.

Resistance

Various forms of resistance to second modernity have emerged, among them, for example,

Euroscepticism Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies and seek reform ...

. Beck sees

al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...

as a by-product of, as well as resistance to, second modernity, not only in its use of information-technology tools, but also in its syncretist ideology.

References

Sources

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External links

Ulrich Beck, 'World Risk Society'

U. Beck, 'Varieties of Second Modernity'
Historiography Postmodern theory Modernity