“In advanced modernity the social production of wealth is systematically accompanied by the social production of risk”.
With this statement, Ulrich Beck opens the first chapter of his most renowned work “Risk Society, Towards a New Modernity”(1986). It has been a long time since then, and yet some of the German sociologist’s pioneering considerations contained in that book seem to be still valid today.
In what Beck refers to as ‘modern’ society there has been a shift from a ‘wealth-distributing’ society to a ‘risk-distributing’ one as a product of the modernization process itself. The staggering techno-economic development and its mass production of goods, Beck claims, has unfortunately led to an uncommonly production of “bads” or, to put it differently, of risks.
“Risks” – the author promptly clarifies – “are not an invention of modernity” and yet, there are substantial differences between past risks and modern ones. Risks were once perceptible, whereas today most of them are undetectable. Moreover, in the past they were due to a dearth of technology (especially in sanitation), whereas in our day they ascribe to overproduction. In short, Beck maintains, “they are a wholesome product of industrialization, and are systematically intensified as it becomes global”.
The author continuously insists on the global threat they represent for all life on Earth. Owning to the very “nature” of the risks here examined – namely radioactivity, toxins, as well as pollutants in the air, water and foodstuff- the very notion of calculation collapses.
Risks mostly occur in scientific knowledge about them, the author states, outlining this way the increasing reliance on science for defining them. All we know about risks, he alleges, comes from people with specialized knowledge in certain research areas.
Another crucial point here presented is that concerning the social inequalities connected to risks. On the one hand, some risks, Becks points out, could be classified as class-specific risks, since they can result from the place where you can afford to live, form education and even from the food and beverage you can afford to buy. On the other hand, risks are unevenly distributed between underdeveloped countries and industrialized ones, with the former, so to speak, “purchasing” additional dangers to cope with poverty (here the author hints of the “cultural blindness to hazards”) and the latter “selling” them to be safer (e.g. “balkanization of risks”).
In this sense, the author claims, “old social [as well as national] inequalities are strengthened on a new level. But that does not strike at the heart of the distributional logic of risks”. Because of the ongoing globalization process, “risks display an equalizing effect within their scope and among those afflicted by them”. Risks don’t discriminate between class and nationality. They represent a global threat and therefore worldwide solutions through transnational cooperation are required. “Risk society in this sense is a world risk society” Beck states.
Nevertheless, risks don’t escape the logic of capitalism. “There are always losers but also winners in risk definitions” the author asserts. In the long-run, risks will eventually affect also the people who profit from them. “Under the roof of modernization risks, perpetrator and victim sooner or later become identical” and in this regards, risks involve what Beck calls a boomerang effect.
Another “intrinsic property” of risks is that they “have always to break through in order to be acknowledged”. Only after being socially recognized, they enter the public domain, usually sparkling a heated debate over whom is to blame for the catastrophe.
Going back to the incalculability of risks, Beck adds a further argument by saying that by their very nature modern risks – bear in mind that some of them involve a latency period – require the “sensory organs of science – theories, experiments, measuring instruments- in order to become visible or interpretable as hazards at all”.
In Beck’s point of view, there are no experts on risks. There are too many parties at stakes, especially when it comes to risk assessment. There are different ways to deal with risks, but in the case of civilization’s risks, the author asserts, “the sciences have always abandoned their foundation of experimental logic and made a polygamous marriage with business, politics and ethics”. With regard to risk definition, there is a sort of selection of (im)plausible hazards, which depend both on scientific expertise as well as on what a society recognizes as a risk and defines how important it is do deal with it.
As a final point, Beck argues that as much like inside capitalism, world risk society features a lack of responsibility. “Everyone is cause and effect, and thus non-cause”. It’s the generalized other- the system- the one to be blamed.
Throughout the passage, the author highlights the upcoming threatening component that risks basically express. Quoting directly from the text, Beck assesses that “the center of risk consciousness lies not in the present, but in the future. In the risk society, the past loses the power to determine the present. Its place is taken by the future”. In view of this impending fate, how can society acts defensively if there is no escape from such global peril? Anxiety, fear, indifference, rage, Beck says, are all understandable feelings if one takes into account the uselessness of any concrete measure to cope with modern risks. However, non action is not admissible because behind carelessness risks grow and run out of control.
Now then, do you think that Ulrich Beck’s theorization of risk society could be taken as a framework of reference for the current proliferation of end-of-the-world narratives that throng contemporary cultural expressions? Staying within the domain of audiovisual texts I am sure all of you would have watched at least once in his life, one of the so called ‘disater movie’. Thus, what I would like you to do now, is to watch something so to say ‘offbeat’: a 82 minutes docufilm, that presents a far more frightening vision of the world witout being as spectacular as the blockbuster disaster-movie you are all familiar with: based on real events and plausible conjectures, Collapse by the American filmmaker Chris Smith, explores the theories, writings and life story of a single man, Michael C. Ruppert.
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