Book Notes: Ulrich Beck’s The Metamorphosis of the World

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Clarissa

July 6, 2016

The great German philosopher📃 Ulrich Beck died before completing this book. His wife and colleagues had to finish it based on the author’s notes and conversations. As a result, the book ended up being very repetitive. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though. If I had to choose a book by Beck to introduce students to his thinking, I’d pick this one because its repetitiveness will help Beck’s ideas really to get across.
Since the collapse of the nation-state model is inevitable, should we drag it out in order to soften the impact or should we accept the inevitable and move on? Ulrich Beck insists that we have no time to waste because the longer we hang on to the illusion that the nation-state is salvageable, the more time we waste instead of solving the problems of the new world order. The most pressing problems of today – climate change, for instance- will only begin to be addressed when we relinquish the nation-state illusions.

Ulrich Beck’s posthumously published volume is an impassioned plea for us to stop hiding from the erosion of the nation-state model behind right-wing fundamentalism, ultra nationalism or vapid fantasies about bringing back the good old times and to start creating structures of action and collaboration that will transcend the porous national borders just as easily as floods, hurricanes, radioactive clouds, viruses and terrorists do. We can’t allow the agents of our risk to travel faster and lighter than we do.

📃In Europe, Beck is known as a sociologist, just like Zygmunt Bauman. But a sociologist in Europe is nothing like the useless idiots who call themselves sociologists in the US. Beck and Bauman are the world’s leading thinkers, philosophers, theorists of the nation-state and not the kind of pseudo scholars you can find in American departments of social sciences.

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3 responses to “Book Notes: Ulrich Beck’s The Metamorphosis of the World”

cliff arroyo

July 7, 2016

“to start creating structures of action and collaboration”

What does this mean? It sounds like vacuous business language “Let’s energize our options to embolden our strategies”….

“that will transcend the porous national borders just as easily as floods, hurricanes, radioactive clouds, viruses and terrorists do”

Again? On what basis? Islamic State operatives are fluid because they have networks of adherents to their particular version of Islam to fall back on . International expat workers have corporate networks and stuctures. What are normal people supposed to use?

It’s clear that governments are disinvesting in the population and rolling back instutions like education and soon enough democracy (have you noticed all the pieces now appearing saying that democracy needs to be rolled back?)

Does this mean governments are going to stop taxing people? What are citizens going to be getting for their taxes beyond ineffective technocratic solutions that will probably make most situations worse rather than better?

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 7, 2016
  
  The problem is that what we get in return for the taxes is no longer all that relevant. We still pay them but what we are getting in return is not helping address the new kinds of problems that keep arising. And instead of creating the networks and structures you mention, we either hear idiotic fantasies about building walls or equally idiotic fantasies about bringing back the 1970s.
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    July 7, 2016
    
    “And instead of creating the networks and structures you mention,”
    
    Again, based on what?
    
    Also, it has finally occurred to me that maybe the Brexit vote was actually a vote for fluidity. The leadership of the EU is burdened by being fossilized technocrats whose only solution is mimicking the nation state format and blowing up to giant unworkable size : A European army! a European currency! a European flag! More bureaucracy! and please not that just like the American army hasn’t won a war since Grenada the EU has not really solved a problem in…. forever.
    
    Crucially, note that remainers invariably talk in terms of stability while many exiters are fine with instability in the wake of the vote.
    
    The UK, is not a nation state in the traditional sense (like France) but a smaller alliance similar to the EU itself made up smaller units with some degree of autonomy and local autonomy (rather than ever increasing centralization) is going to be crucial to fluidity.
    
    Brexit is not about fantasies of returning to the past but letting go of the wreckage after a shipwreck and starting to swim.
    
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