Hauptseminar Unsicherheiten des Sozialen: Wissenschaft, Neue Technologien und Risiko Michael Schillmeier Joost van Loon

A little introduction What is a ‘second modernity’? The problem of understanding modernity – as a historical period – as a type of society or culture – as a mode of thinking

As a historical period - beginnings Collapse of feudal society/Black Death (mid 14 TH century) Renaissance (early/mid 15 th century) ‘Discovery’ of America (late 15 th century) Introduction of Print in Europe (early 16 th century) Protestant Reformation (mid-16 th century) Enlightenment (mid 17 th century) Industrial Revolution (mid 18 th century) American & French revolutions (late 18 th century)

The logic of beginnings: modernity as: An economic process, Birth of science and technology, Secularization, Cultural changes The European continent obtaining global domination by means of trade (mercantile capitalism) and force (colonialism).

Theorists of modernity (1) Scotland: Hume, Ferguson, Smith France: Descartes, Montesquieu, Rousseau Germany: Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche

Theorists of modernity (2) Modern thought as ‘episteme’ - a shift in the very nature of knowledge (Foucault) Secularization and anomie (Durkheim) Individualization and indifference (Simmel) Rationalization and bureaucracy (Weber) Alienation and class struggle (Marx)

Immanuel Kant The existence of God is beyond the realm of Reason, Faith and reason are completely separate What is true and what is just are completely separate 1.Validity = questions of truth -> critique of pure reason 2.Ethics = questions of justice –> critique of practical reason 3.Aesthetics = questions of taste –> critique of Judgment

Modernity Man over Nature (through technology) Man over God (through reason and science) Man over history (planning rather than fate)

Hegel and Marx Dialectical reason: Justice and truth are not separate but realised in history (= progress); The laws of history can be known The task of knowledge is to facilitate practices that enable the unfolding of history according to its own logic Marx: men make history but not under conditions of their own chosing.

Weber Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Entzauberung der Welt - disenchantment (a reverse Harry Potter) Dominance of rationality Bureaucrcay

Bauman: Modernity and the Holocaust ideal typical’ modern event and organization: –The precise and perfectly programmed coordination of biological and medical science, bio-chemical technology, engineering, logistics, management and propaganda. –The extermination of Jews was carefully planned in population- administration, the logistics transport, the appropriation of science and technology, the setting into work of the death machine, and the use of images and ideas for propaganda purposes –The role of radio – disembodied tribal drum (McLuhan, 1964).

Why? The separation from action and consequences (just doing one’s job, just following orders) - Eichman Fascism is within us - Deleuze & Guattari (1977) – it is a neurotic disorder caused by capitalism and modernity, justified by psychoanalysis and driven by a will to power and to know

Second Modernity As a response to the crisis of modernity: Historical/Societal –Post-industrialism –Risk society –Consumerism –Individualization –Globalization Conceptual –The emergence of non-linear thought –Emphasis on flows, symbiosis, hybridization, ambivalance –‘man’ as differentiated and open (networked being) –Reflexivity (as self-confrontation) –The virtual as different from not-real