Modern societies as knowledge societies: the implications for health and health care

RESUMO

The lecture explores the various novel prospects for modern society and its actors as the social order of industrial society, and the knowledge used to comprehend it, complete their assignment. The foundations of the emerging social world are best described as based on knowledge. New realities require a new perspective. It is not that times of rapid change are new; what is new is the nature of the social transformations we are experiencing. In as much as knowledge becomes constitutive not merely for the modern economy and its productive processes but also for social relations, social cohesion and integration generally and as the primary source of the modern society's problems and conflicts, the term 'knowledge society' becomes appropriate as a designation for the nature of modern societies' forms of life. The implications of the transformation of modern society into knowledge societies for health and healthcare are explored.