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Quote by Anthony Giddens

“Thinking in terms of risk certainly has its unsettling aspects (...), but it is also a means of seeking to stabilise outcomes, a mode of colonising the future. The more or less constant, profound and rapid momentum of change characteristic of modern institutions, coupled with structured reflexivity, mean that on the level of everyday practice as well as philosophical [Seitenwechsel] interpretation, nothing can be taken for granted. What is acceptable/appropriate/recommended behaviour today may be seen differently tomorrow in the light of altered circumstances or incoming knowledge-claims.”

Quote by Anthony Giddens

Author

Anthony Giddens

Anthony Giddens is a British sociologist and political theorist, born on January 18, 1938. He is one of the most influential sociologists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, known for his work on structuration theory and the study of modernity. more

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“Abstract systems depend on trust, yet they provide none of the moral rewards which can be obtained from personalised trust, or were often available in traditional settings from the moral frameworks within which everyday life was undertaken. Moreover, the wholesale penetration of abstract systems into daily life creates risks which the individual is not well placed to confront; high-consequence risks fall into this category. Greater interdependence, up to and including globally independent systems, means greater vulnerability when untoward events occur that affect those systems as a whole.”

Source: Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age

“The thesis that risk assessment itself is inherently risky is nowhere better borne out than in the area of high-consequence risks.”

Risk Consequence Areas Assessment Thesis

Book:Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age

Source: Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age

“We now spend a good deal more on drink and smoke than we spend on education. This, of course, is not surprising. The urge to escape from selfhood and the environment is in almost everyone almost all the time.”

Courses Deals Environment Risk Drink Smoke Urges Surprising

Book:Complete Essays: 1939-1956

Source: Complete Essays: 1939-1956

“In youth we take egregious risks because death has no reality for us. Youth goes caparisoned in immortality. It is only in middle age that we are shadowed by the awareness of the transitoriness of life.”

Reality Age Risk Middle Awareness Youth Immortality Middle Ages

Book:Devices and Desires

Source: Devices and Desires

“All our qualities, whether good or bad, are unstable and ambiguous, and almost all are at the mery of chance.”

Chance Quality Risk Unstable Ambiguous

Author:Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Silence is the safest policy if you are unsure of yourself.”

Ifs Silence Risk Policy Silence Is Unsure

Author:Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Moderation is like sobriety: you would like to have some more, but are afraid of making yourself ill.”

Risk Ill Moderation Sobriety

Author:Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Just as a moral distinction is drawn between "those at risk" and "those posing a risk", health education routinely draws a distinction between the harm caused by external causes out of the individual's control and that caused by oneself. Lifestyle risk discourse overturns the notion that health hazards in postindustrial society are out of the individual's control. On the contrary, the dominant theme of lifestyle risk discourse is the responsibility of the individual to avoid health risks for the sake of his or her own health as well as the greater good of society.”

“Health education emphasizing risks is a form of pedagogy, which, like other forms, serves to legitimize ideologies and social practices. Risk discourse in the public health sphere allows the state, as the owner of knowledge, to exert power of the bodies of its citizens. Risk discourse, therefore, especially when it emphasizes lifestyle risks, serves as an effective Foucauldian agent of surveillance and control that is difficult to challenge because of its manifest benevolent goal of maintaining standards of health. In doing so, it draws attention away from the structural causes of ill-health.”

“No longer is the body a temple to be worshipped as the house of God; it has become a commodified and regulated object that must be strictly monitored by its owner to prevent lapses into health-threatening behaviors as identified by risk discourse. For those with the socioeconomic resources to indulge in risk modification, this discourse may supply the advantages of a new religion; for others, this discourse has the potential to create anxiety and guilt, to promote hopelessness and fear of the future.”