Uncertainty

About living in the risk society

Uncertainty by Dirk Geldof

Of this book I only found a Dutch version. But the Ideas are important to share.

I happened to get my hands on the first edition of Uncertainty from 2008. This may therefore possibly mean differences compared to later editions. However, I trust that this will not be detrimental to this book review.

A faster world

In the introduction, the author of Uncertainty states that our world is changing faster and faster. What seemed obvious yesterday is no longer obvious today. Those who surf these waves of change hardly notice the continuous acceleration. Only those who take a little distance can see the speed. Often, changes mean improvements, not least technologically. However, not every change is an improvement.

With those words, the book Uncertainty begins. So it’s not surprising that in the midst of this speed of change, people feel insecure.

With this book, the author wants to provide a framework to (continue to) understand the rapidly changing society and the uncertainty it causes. In order to be able to do this, the author writes this framework in nine chapters. Which lessons have stuck with you?

Chapter 1: A World of Uncertainty

• We live in a paradoxical world: never has there been so much uncertainty.
• The world is evolving at lightning speed and change is the norm.
• People want to avoid more and more risks.
• Uncertainty is challenging but also psychologically taxing.
• We are moving from a solid modernity to a fragmented modernity: we have to be more and more flexible.
• Growing separation between power and politics: protective frameworks are falling away.
• Economy as a power creates uncertainty.
• Competition is becoming trendier than solidarity.
• There is less thinking, planning, and acting in the long term.
• People need to learn to deal with risks more on their own. Individualization is a problem.
• Living in the 21st century is about responding to change and dealing with uncertainty. What was evident yesterday is obsolete today.

Chapter 2: The world as a global risk society

• Current pressure causes constant change.
• We need to step away from our normal fragmented way of seeing to see the bigger story.
• The idea of a risk society is that we are confronted with risks in all areas of society. Ecological risks are very important in this respect.
• At-risk societies are “those societies that face the challenges posed by the self-created – and first hidden – possibility of destroying all life on Earth”.
• Both as a society and in the private sphere, people are increasingly concerned with learning how to deal with risks. It is now about more and different risks than in the past.
  • Technical risks have been magnified.
  • Global warming is more than an issue.
• Uncertainty is now more man-made.
• It is not only about objective differences between certainty in the past and the present, but also about the subjective experience of it.
• There is a battle for the distribution of risks, and it is becoming more dominant. But: wealth can be hierarchical, but smog is democratic: everyone is affected by it.
• Science and technology are losing their authority, and sometimes contradict each other in crises.
• In the transition to the global risk society, risks sometimes become uninsurable, such as nuclear disasters and terrorist attacks. We always know the beginning of the disaster, but rarely, if ever, the end.
• Risks are also becoming increasingly global. The impact of a financial or ecological crisis is/will be global. The fear of this is also global.
• But the focus on risks is also the impetus to do something about it.

Chapter 3: Ecological risks increasingly central

• Ecological risks were a recent issue in 2008.
• Sustainability is a key word in the risk society.
• Global warming is the hot issue, it is located all over the world and it is still underexposed.
• There are three main groups of global ecological risks:
  • that come from wealth, (e.g. acid rain)
  • arising from poverty, (e.g. burning down forests for agriculture)
  • derived from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (and classical warfare).
• Dangers are different from the past for two reasons:
  • the impact goes beyond nuclear and chemical or genetic processes,
  • We often go beyond the boundaries of what nature can restore.
• We have to relearn how to deal with not-knowing. Knowing and knowing everything is not the path to the solution, nor is it possible anymore. The precautionary principle can help us with this.

Chapter 4: Globalization and socio-economic risks

• A job for life can no longer be a certainty. But for many, this is no longer an ideal image either. The risk of poverty is linked to this, but so is the risk of burnout.
• The markets are more central to the world, the importance of nation states is crumbling. Or is it?
• Boundaries of space and time are blurring. Because of the internet, and because some cities are already bustling with life 24 hours a day. Production takes place almost around the clock.
• Today’s migrants can keep in touch with their families at any time via mobile phones and the internet. In this way, they live in two worlds.
• The labor market is coming under pressure from globalization. The first changes were after the Second World War and the labor shortage at the time.
• Working people have to be more and more flexible with the relationship between private life and work. The question is how much stretch there is. This was one of the reasons why structural unemployment arose.
• Unemployment is a problem in several ways:
  • with regard to income,
  • integration (not only of migrants but also of natives in society),
  • with regard to the financing of social security,
  • with regard to the division of the amount of labor, unequal wages, power, prestige, self-realization and time (interpretation).
• Poverty and social exclusion are also important socio-economic risks.
• With wage work central and job insecurity rising, there is a growing risk of burnouts, depression and other health problems. In doing so, we consider the economic system we have created ourselves as an external pressure.

Chapter 5: Individualization and Uncertain Freedom

• The individual freedom is enormous. People can write their own book. But with that come uncertainties: what choices do we have to make? That’s not in that book until they’re made. In doing so, they also engage in self-realization.
• At the beginning of the 20th century, people became more independent of the (local) community, family and friends. People are now choosing for themselves which group they belong to.
• This is one of the reasons why the demand for meaning and quality of life increases. This goes beyond the immediate security of existence.
• As a result, relationships become more fragile. Marriage is often no longer until death do you part. Best forever friends are not forever. The chance of being alone becomes more realistic. But new forms of meeting are also emerging: relationship agencies, relationship therapy, dating websites,…
• Self-realization also unfolds to a large extent in the world of work on the job. Fragile relationships make job security more crucial. Flexibility requirements don’t exactly help those fragile relationships.
• The effects of individualization on children are considerable. Even on the decision to have children. Now more than ever, it is a controllable, plannable and conscious decision.
• Every choice in relation to the above in this chapter carries a corresponding individualization risk, because every choice can be the wrong one. And the fact that they can confront us and others.
• Some caveats are
  • Individualization and inequality: not everyone in society has a truly free choice to build a life project, to write their own book.
  • Society is more than the sum of individuals and families. There is a need for social cement. That is in danger of disappearing. Furthermore, everyone wants free choice, but most choose the same thing.
  • Nowadays, the power to choose for oneself is often more important than following patterns and traditions. The church, for example, has lost its power. So do many parents.
  • It is clear that migrants have a different attitude towards the individualization processes in Western Europe.

This creates tensions.

Chapter 6: Time risks in an accelerating society

• Economic and technological changes are creating increasing time pressure. In addition, personal and social time problems occur. After all, dealing with time is one of the areas in which individualization is most strongly expressed. Among other things, three time paradoxes occur:
  • Our average working hours have never been shorter, but our time pressure has never been so high. We cram every free moment full of time spent on a packed rollercoaster. Even if we call it our “free time”, and that of the housemates. The pressure on the woman in the relationship is significantly high there.
  • The increasing sense of time shortage is accompanied by an acceleration of everything we do. We plan our time more and more. The more time we gain, the less we seem to have left.
  • Materially we are very well off, but we don’t take / have the time to enjoy it.
• Slowing down seems to be a solution to the time paradoxes.

Chapter 7: Migration risks in our cosmopolitan cities

• Migration is timeless, but its impact has never been as great as it has been recently. Globalization also provokes migratory flows. Risks are high on the agenda. Both for the society where the migrants end up, and for the migrants themselves. Questions are:
  • Who is immigrant, who is a migrant?
  • How long will you stay that way?
  • What exactly is integration?
  • Why is who migrating?
  • What is the difference between a migrant and a refugee?
  • Is the migration process necessarily an alienation process?
• In addition to the risk of poor integration, there is also the risk of disadvantage and discrimination.
• Because we look at the change in cities through an outdated lens, we often continue to think in outdated, stereotypical images, on both sides. This creates us/them contradictions. As a result, we fail to recognize the ambivalence and complexity of reality. This provides fertile ground for oversimplified so-called extreme solutions (without a holistic view of the problem) and for polarization on both sides.
• Either/or thinking that separates the own from the foreign must be replaced by and/and thinking.
• Cities are becoming increasingly ‘transnational’. With the corresponding expectations, ambitions and contradictions. So it doesn’t get any easier. After all, migrants in our cities also bring in their families through their contact via the internet and mobile phones.
• Not everyone is known in our statistics. The population figures are not fully known. This creates problems of undeclared work and poverty.
• The multicultural image of living obediently side by side is outdated. Every migration process is accompanied by conflicts about norms and values, about habits, about behaviors that lead to irritation. One of the flaws in this is the idea of keeping one’s own identity. Among other things, there must be recognition of otherness, and of multiple identities.
  • In addition to acquiring skills, integration is mainly about being part of a society. In doing so, traditions need to be reconsidered. But society must also want to allow migrants to participate in that society. Critical self-examination on both sides is no stranger to this. Living side by side is therefore not an option in this vision.

Chapter 8: Uncertainty, Reflexivity and Modernity

• Reflexivity as self-contemplation is needed at different levels: the individual, the organizations, society and globally. But not only about oneself, but also from and by the other party should contribute to this. If necessary, it can be done together.
• There is a risk that the individual will be accused of continuing to expose himself to risks from which he cannot escape.
• By modernity, the author understands the way of life and organization of society that arose in Europe from the 17th century onwards and that has since had a worldwide influence and spread.
• One of the results of the chapter is that ecological risks will force us to drastically adjust the existing economy. This is what the author wrote in his first edition from 2008. Today, this feels increasingly dire. Outdated institutions and structural constraints don’t help. This must also be translated politically.

Chapter 9: Challenges in the Global Risk Society

• The challenge for the 21st century is without a doubt global warming. This is of an entirely different order from the environmental problems of the first generation, which were easy to solve.
• Our wealth in Europe is exceptional and possible because five billion people are far less fortunate. A radical adjustment of the short-term pursuit of profit is needed.
• Social security in Europe and social security are a realization of the past that cannot be taken for granted. Our welfare state is under pressure. More and more people are living longer, enjoying their pensions longer and making more use of health care, for example. But more and more knowledge of social risks is also putting more and more pressure on solidarity.
• Individualization processes put pressure on our traditional social relationships. Superficiality is a risk. This poses a challenge to society’s social capital.
• There is a shift in what we as a society consider to be a priority: our quality of life. But due to the current developments in the domains discussed in the book, this quality of life is coming under increasing pressure.
• Migration and population growth will further increase diversity in Europe. As a result, people will have to learn to live with pluralism. However, this runs the risk of polarization.
• We will have to learn to deal with knowledge differently. How should we learn to live with knowledge about global risks? The two irrational reactions the author sees are denial and hysteria. Reflexive modernization, on the other hand, can build on science, reason and knowledge, and can learn to deal with boundaries, ours, those of our fellow human beings and those of the planet, etc.

Title: Onzekerheid – over leven in de risicomaatschappij, Author: Dirk Geldof, Publisher: ACCO, ISBN: 9789033469169