"The world has become so complex that the idea of a power in which everything comes together and can be controlled in a centralized way is now erroneous"
About this Quote
Beck is swatting down a fantasy that still drives modern politics: the belief that somewhere there exists a master switchboard for society, a room where the levers of markets, borders, media, climate, and security can be pulled in synchrony. His target is not just state bureaucracy but the entire managerial worldview that treats complexity as a temporary inconvenience and control as the natural endpoint of expertise.
The line lands because it names a mismatch between institutional muscle memory and contemporary reality. Nation-states were built for an era when problems were legible: factories had addresses, pollution had smokestacks, enemies wore uniforms. Beck’s signature idea, the “risk society,” argues that late modernity manufactures hazards that are dispersed, networked, and hard to assign: financial contagion, nuclear fallout, pandemic spread, algorithmic amplification, climate feedback loops. These don’t respect administrative boundaries or obey linear cause-and-effect. They ricochet.
The subtext is a critique of centralization as a moral posture, not just a technical strategy. The promise of total coordination comforts publics and flatters leaders, but it also encourages scapegoating when reality refuses to comply. Beck’s “erroneous” isn’t a shrug; it’s a warning that the old dream of sovereign command produces brittle institutions and theatrical governance: announcing control instead of building resilience.
Contextually, this is European late-20th-century sociology staring down globalization and ecological crisis. Beck isn’t celebrating chaos. He’s arguing that politics must move from domination to navigation: distributed responsibility, cross-border cooperation, and systems designed to absorb shocks rather than pretend they can prevent them.
The line lands because it names a mismatch between institutional muscle memory and contemporary reality. Nation-states were built for an era when problems were legible: factories had addresses, pollution had smokestacks, enemies wore uniforms. Beck’s signature idea, the “risk society,” argues that late modernity manufactures hazards that are dispersed, networked, and hard to assign: financial contagion, nuclear fallout, pandemic spread, algorithmic amplification, climate feedback loops. These don’t respect administrative boundaries or obey linear cause-and-effect. They ricochet.
The subtext is a critique of centralization as a moral posture, not just a technical strategy. The promise of total coordination comforts publics and flatters leaders, but it also encourages scapegoating when reality refuses to comply. Beck’s “erroneous” isn’t a shrug; it’s a warning that the old dream of sovereign command produces brittle institutions and theatrical governance: announcing control instead of building resilience.
Contextually, this is European late-20th-century sociology staring down globalization and ecological crisis. Beck isn’t celebrating chaos. He’s arguing that politics must move from domination to navigation: distributed responsibility, cross-border cooperation, and systems designed to absorb shocks rather than pretend they can prevent them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
|---|
More Quotes by Ulrich
Add to List
