Risk Society: The Context of British Politics

Abstract

The author argues here that risk society, the current form of modernity, originates in a system of securities governed by tradition, and advances towards a world of uncertainties. On the one hand, by freeing itself from traditional restraints, society turns its members into risk-takers, as more and more aspects of social life result from decisions and no longer from an assumed fate. On the other hand, the sudden appearance of science and technology in all aspects of social life, particularly family and individual life, delivers to these domains the noxious effects of many of their products. Science and technology expand the array of options, but also the array of dangers implied in each option. The author points out the relations between the several types of risk that characterize our times, such as ecological risks that affect the worlds of finance, social morality, and politics. Any attempt to control or shape the future -i.e., any risk-creating activity-, brings negative and undesired consequences on social order itself.