View source for History:Second modernity

{{Short description|Industrial society transformed into a more reflexive network society or information society}}
{{Format footnotes|date=September 2020|reason=Parenthetical referencing has been deprecated; convert to shortened footnotes.}}
'''Second modernity''' is a phrase coined by the {{wipe|Germany}} sociologist Ulrich Beck, and is his word for the period after [[Philosophy:Modernity|modernity]].

Where modernity broke down agricultural society in favour of [[Social:Industrial society|industrial society]], second modernity transforms industrial society into a new and more reflexive [[Social:Network society|network society]] or information society {{harv|He|2012|loc=111 and 215}}.

==Risk society==
{{Main|Philosophy:Risk society}}
Second modernity is marked by a new awareness of the risks — risks to all forms of life, plant, animal and human — created by the very successes of modernity in tackling the problem of human scarcity {{harv|Carrier and Nordmann|2011|loc=449}}. Systems that previously seemed to offer protection from risks both natural and social are increasingly recognised as producing new man-made risks on a global scale as a byproduct of their functioning {{harv|He|2012|loc=147}}. Such systems become part of the problem, not the solution. Modernisation and information advances themselves create new social dangers, such as [[Cybercrime|cybercrime]] (He 2012, 69), while scientific advances open up new areas, like [[Biology:Cloning|cloning]] or genetic modification, where decisions are necessarily made without adequate capacity to assess longterm consequences {{harv|Allan, Adam, and Carter|1999|loc=xii–ii}}.

Recognising the fresh dilemmas created by this [[Social:Reflexive modernization|reflexive modernization]], Beck has suggested a new "cosmopolitan Realpolitik" to overcome the difficulties of a world in which national interests can no longer be promoted effectively at the national level alone {{harv|Beck|2006|loc=173}}.

==Knowledge society==
Second modernity has also been linked{{huh|date=October 2019}}<!-- in what way? --> to the so-called [[Organization:Society#Knowledge|knowledge society]], marked by a pluralisation of different types of knowledge {{harv|Carrier and Nordmann|2011|loc=439 and 448}}. It is characterised in particular by knowledge-dependent risks — the uncertainties manufactured by the information world itself {{harv|Harding|2008|loc=55–58}}.

==Resistance==

Various forms of resistance to second modernity have emerged, among them, for example, [[Social:Euroscepticism|Euroscepticism]] {{harv|Marchetti and Vidović|2010|loc=171}}.

Beck sees [[Religion:Al-Qaeda|al-Qaeda]] as a by-product of, as well as resistance to, second modernity, not only in its use of information-technology tools, but also in its syncretist ideology {{harv|Beck|2006|loc=113}}.

==See also==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=22em|
*Late modernity
*[[Philosophy:Postmodernity|Postmodernity]]
*[[Post-normal science]]
*Great Recession, often seen as a failure of modern [[Philosophy:Capitalism|capitalism]]
*[[Engineering:Nanotechnology|Nanotechnology]], a possible second [[History:Industrial Revolution|Industrial Revolution]]
*[[Biography:Bruno Latour|Bruno Latour]]
}}

==Sources==
*{{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Allan, Adam, and Carter|1999}}|reference=Allan, Stuart, Barbara Adam, and Cynthia Carter (eds.). 1999. ''Environmental Risks and the Media''. London and New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|9780415214469}} (cloth); {{ISBN|9780415214476}} (pbk); {{ISBN|9780203164990}} (e-book).}}
*{{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Beck|2006}}|reference=Beck, Ulrich. 2006. ''The Cosmopolitan Vision'', translated by Ciaran Cronin. Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity Press. {{ISBN|0-7456-3398-6}} (cloth); {{ISBN|0-7456-3399-4}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Carrier and Nordmann|2011}}|reference=Carrier, Martin, and Alfred Nordmann. 2011. ''Science in the Context of Application''. Dordrecht, London, and New York: Springer. {{ISBN|9789048190508}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Harding|2008}}|reference=Harding, Sandra G. 2008. ''Sciences from Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities''. Next Wave. Durham: Duke University Press. {{ISBN|9780822342595}} (cloth); {{ISBN|9780822342823}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|He|2012}}|reference=He, Chuanqi. 2012. ''Modernization Science: The Principles and Methods of National Advancement''. Berlin and New York: Springer Verlag. {{ISBN|9783642254581}} (cloth); {{ISBN|9783642254598}} (ebook).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Marchetti and Vidović|2010}}|reference=Marchetti, Raffaele, and Davorka Vidović (eds.). 2010. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=2WzdTaj-H0oC&pg=PA3 European Union and Global Democracy]''. Zagreb: CPI [Centar za Politološka Istraživanja]/PSRC [Political Science Research Center]. {{ISBN|9789537022211}}.}}

==Further reading==
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Carrier, Roggenhofer, Küppers, and Blanchard|2004}}|reference=Carrier, Martin, Johannes Roggenhofer, Günter Küppers, and Philippe Blanchard (eds.). 2004. ''Knowledge and the World: Challenges beyond the Science Wars''. The Frontiers Collection. Berlin and New York: Springer-Verlag, ; {{ISBN|9783540210092}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Carrier|2006}}|reference=Carrier, Martin. 2006. ''Wissenschaftstheorie zur Einführung''. Zur Einführung 317. Hamburg: Junius. {{ISBN|9783885066170}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Hadjileontiadis|2010}}|reference=Hadjileontiadis, Leontios J. 2010. "[http://btc.web.auth.gr/_assets/_papers/HADJILEONTIADIS.pdf Aesthetic Shifts from the Avant-garde towards the 'Second Modernity': The Swaddling of a New Compositional Thinking. In Beyond the Centres: Musical Avant Gardes since 1950]". In ''In Memoriam Yannis Andreou Papaioannou (1910–1989)'', edited by Kōstas Tsougkras (Κώστας Τσούγκρας), Danaī Maria Stefanou (Δανάη Μαρία Στεφάνου), and Kōstas Chardas (Κώστας Χάρδας). Greece: s.n.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Mahnkopf, Cox, and Schurig|2008}}|reference=Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen, Frank Cox, and Wolfram Schurig (eds.). 2008. ''Facets of the Second Modernity''. New Music and Aesthetics in the 21st Century 6. Hofheim: Wolke Verlag. {{ISBN|9783936000177}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Sørensen and Christensen|2012}}|reference=Sørensen, Mads Peter, and Allan Christiensen. 2012. ''Ulrich Beck: An Introduction to the Theory of Second Modernity and the Risk Society''. New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|9780415693691}} (hardback); {{ISBN|9780203107928}} (ebook).}}

==External links==
* [http://sociology.wetpaint.com/page/Ulrich+Beck Ulrich Beck, 'World Risk Society']
* [http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29600/ U. Beck, 'Varieties of Second Modernity']

[[Category:Historiography]]
[[Category:Postmodern theory]]

{{Sourceattribution|Second modernity}}