Ulrich Beck’s historical-social theory

1. Ulrich Beck’s historical-social theory Cities After Society October 6, 2009

2. Risk defined An environmentalist definition: “the probabilities of physical harm due to given technological or other processes” (Risk Society, pg. 4) A rational critique of science and other modern authorities: “Then ‘reflexive modernization’ means self-confrontation with the effects of risk society that cannot be dealt with and assimilated in the system of industrial society—as measured by the latter’s institutionalized standards” (“The Reinvention of Politics,” pg. 6) For individualization: “the risk society is potentially also a self-critical society… Precisely where traditions and hence values have deteriorated, risks come into being” (pg. 176)

3. Macro Production Consumption

4. Macro Production Consumption Micro “Work” “Life”

5. Macro Production Consumption Social reproduction family, sexual DOL culture, religion class, status nation-state Micro “Work” “Life”

6. Under tradition and first modernity, these social dynamics are largely routinized… Macro Production Consumption Social reproduction family, sexual DOL culture, religion class, status nation-state Micro “Work” “Life” … although capitalism, technology and the nation-state are inherently dynamic

7. PHYSICAL RISK Macro Production Consumption Social reproduction family, sexual DOL culture, religion class, status nation-state Micro “Work” “Life” Introduces instability and uncertainty to economy and social reproduction

8. RISK SOCIETY Macro Production Consumption Social reproduction family, sexual DOL culture, religion class, status nation-state Micro “Work” “Life” People challenge the legitimacy of risk-generating institutions and social order.

9. REFLEXIVE MODERNIZATION Macro Production Consumption Social reproduction family, sexual DOL culture, religion class, status nation-state Micro “Work” “Life” Critical reason aimed at routine nature and taken-for-granted legitimacy of all social forms and processes.

10. INDIVIDUALIZATION Macro Production Consumption Social reproduction family, sexual DOL culture, religion class, status nation-state Micro “Work” “Life” … although capitalism, technology and the nation-state are inherently dynamic

11. Individualization defined • Structurally, “the disintegration of previously existing social forms” (Individualization, pg. 2) • Culturally as personal experience and modes of legitimacy, “this level of pre-conscious ‘collective habitualizations’, of matters taken for granted,… is breaking down into a cloud of possibilities to be thought about and negotiated (pg. 6) • (Re-)structurally, “new demands, controls and constraints are being imposed on individuals… the space in which modern subjects deploy their options is anything but a non-social sphere” (pg. 2). • In terms of human agency, “far more than earlier, individuals must, in part, supply [these modern regulations or guidelines] for themselves, import them into their biographies through their own actions… The normal biography thus becomes the ‘elective biography’, the ‘reflexive biography’, the ‘do-it-yourself biography’… [which] is always a ‘risk biography’, indeed a tightrope biography’ (pp. 2-3).