World Risk Society and Ulrich Beck's Manufactured Uncertainties

The aim of this contribution is to pursue Ulrich Beck's line of thought with particular reference to the rise of the 'world risk society' triggered by globalization and by the metamorphosis of nature and risk features in early modernity. Globalized risk appears to be a feature specific to second modernity and a useful instrument for the interpretation of the social transformations now under way. Risks undergo a process of hardly reversible universalization: wherever produced, their distribution, and therefore their effects, will impact not only on a limited local dimension but will interest the whole global community. Speaking of world risk society means considering the extended range of the consequences coming from new risks which appear to be delocalized across space, time and societies, and to be incalculable and not subject to compensation. The inadequacy of the various branches of expert knowledge in foreseeing and confronting these new forms of risk sets in motion a series of paradoxical actions that appear in the spread of what Beck calls fabricated uncertainties, i.e., insufficiently thought-out decisions produced by organizations of knowledge in an attempt to contain those uncertainties already in existence;the effect of this is a failure to guarantee an on-going choice between a risky option and a safe one, but to select that option that may cause the least possible damage. Introducing the distinction between uncertainties fabricated either unwittingly or on purpose, this contribution focuses on an analysis of the author's conception of the globalized terrorism of Islamic origin.

Ulrich Beck’in Risk Toplumu Teorisi Çerçevesinden Covid-19 Pandemi Sürecinin Değerlendirilmesi

Risk, yaşam var olduğundan beri insanlığın karşılaştığı tehlike ve tehdit durumlarını ifade etmektedir. Ínsanlık riskleri bertaraf etmek için ilk çağlardan günümüze kadar geçen dönemde bilim ve teknolojinin gücünü kullanarak doğaya müdahale etmeyi öğrenmiştir. Doğaya müdahale günümüzde o kadar çok ileri gitmiştir ki Beck’in risk toplumu teorisinde ifade ettiği şekliyle doğa yapay bir duruma dönüşmüştür. Dolayısıyla eskisinden çok daha fazla risklerle dolu bir dünya ortaya çıkmıştır. Risk toplumu teorisinde Beck’in küreselleşmenin etkisiyle ülkeler arasında sınırların bir anlamının kalmadığını ifade etmesi Covid-19 pandemi sürecinde dünyanın herhangi bir köşesinde ortaya çıkan pandeminin bütün ülkeleri kısa sürede ve hızla etkiler hale gelmesi açısından önemli bir değerlendirmedir. Bu çalışma, Beck’in risk toplumu teorisinde dile getirdiği küreselleşme, bumerang etkisi, gerçeğe susamışlık, sosyal eşitsizlik, riskin inkârı, risk pazarlaması, bireyselleşme, bilimin yetersizliği ve itibar kaybı, medyanın riski sunuş biçimi konuları ile bağlantılı olarak pandemi süreci üzerinden değerlendirilmektedir. Pandeminin sebeplerinin ve ortaya çıkan sonuçlarının Beck’in risk toplumu teorisinde ortaya koyduğu sonuçlar ile örtüşmesi önemsenecek niteliktedir.Alternate : Risk refers to the situations of danger and threat that humanity has faced since life has existed. Humanity has learned to intervene in nature by using the power of science and technology to eliminate risks from the earliest ages to the present day. Today, interference with nature has gone so far that nature has turned into an artificial state, as Beck expressed in the theory of a risk society. Therefore, a world has emerged as full of risks much more than before. Beck’s statement that there is no sense of borders between countries due to the impact of globalization in his theory is an important evaluation in terms of the fact that the pandemic that occurs in any region of the world in the Covid-19 pandemic period affects fast all countries in a very short time. In this study, globalization, boomerang effect, thirst for truth, social inequality, risk denial, risk marketing, individualization, lack of science and loss of reputation, the way the media presents risk are evaluated through the pandemic period in connection with the issues expressed by Beck in his theory. It is significant that the results revealed by Beck coincide with the causes of the pandemic and its consequences.

Aus dem Maschinenraum der Beratung in Zeiten der Pandemie

Es handelt sich um einen Beitrag zur soziologischen Verwendungsforschung, die Anfang der 1980er Jahre von Ulrich Beck und Wolfgang Bonß mit der DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm »Verwendungszusammenhänge sozialwissenschaftlicher Ergebnisse« in Gang gebracht worden ist. Auf Grundlage einer teilnehmenden Beobachtung wird geschildert, wie soziologische Einsichten während der Pandemie in Kontexten wissenschaftlicher Beratung zur Geltung gebracht worden sind. Die Beispiele sind zum einen ein informelles Beratungsgremium des Bundesinnenministeriums und zum anderen die zivilgesellschaftliche Initiative »No-COVID«. Hier zeigt sich, wie unter der Bedingung von hohem Handlungsdruck ein »überlappender Konsens« zwischen den verschiedenen methodologischen Welten der Forschungen zu Populationen und der Forschungen zu Gesellschaft möglich ist.Alternate :This is a contribution to the so called »Verwendungsforschung« introduced by Ulrich Beck und Wolfgang Bonß in che 1980s. It's a piece of »participatory Observation« that shows how sociological knowledge plays its part in political Consulting during the pandemic. The two examples are an informal body within the German Ministry of the Interior on the one hand and the civil society initiative No-COVID on the other. Under high pressure to act it turns out that an »overlapping consensus« between the two different methodological worlds of research on populations and research on societies is possible.

Song of Masking Myself, 46

Evoking the image of the beaked plague doctors of mediaeval Europe, Shane Neilson proposes that the wearing of masks in public always includes a measure of anxiety or even fear.2 Before COVID, I suffered six to seven minor colds a year. Since wearing surgical masks at work every day, I have never fallen ill. Neilson follows Ulrich Beck’s (1992) critique of ‘the cosmetics of risk’, a policy attitude which prioritizes only a theatre of mitigation and avoidance at the expense of seeking deeper resolution of impending problems.3 Before COVID, risk was in the sky, the air, the ground. While this must be studied empirically, and therefore remains beyond the scope of this article, the prevalent use of medical facemasks in the context of Covid-19 might indeed exacerbate rather than alleviate the fear of getting sick or even dying.7 Alone, in my office, I sometimes don a mask just to honor my love, to ritualize the reality that COVID is always present, never gone;it is no memory. In addition to the general hardships imposed by living during pandemic conditions, I was subject to a great deal of online harassment due to an innocuous article I published in 2016 about surgical masks functioning as affect-laden symbols titled “The Surgical Mask is a Bad Fit for Risk Reduction.”