Social Science and Salvation
Risk Society as Mythical Discourse
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11980909 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jeffrey C Alexander (0000-0003-3600-8023, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA, corresponding author), Philip Smith (0000-0001-7781-4350, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld., Australia) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 251-262 |
| Publication date | 1996-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Zeitschrift für Soziologie (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0340-1804 • E-ISSN: 2366-0325 |
| Publisher | De Gruyter (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/zfsoz-1996-0401 |
| OpenAlex | W2117987128 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 25 |
| References cited | 9 |
Dominant perspectives on science and technology fail to come to terms with the continuing role of culture and mythology in mediating perceptions and moral evaluations of technology and its impacts. The need for such an understanding is demonstrated in a critique of Ulrich Beck’s important „ Risk Society“ thesis. Failure to acknowledge a mediating cultural variable influencing the time-lag in risk perception leads Beck to theorizing which deconstructs on close inspection. A similar flaw leaves the contending theory of Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky unable to explain the social distribution of risk consciousness except through recourse to residual and ad hoc explanations. As a solution to these problems the paper proposes a late-Durkheimian theory of discourses on technology and risk. This argues that technology is coded as sacred or profane and is narrated as bringing salvation or damnation. This theory is then applied in a rereading of Beck’s Risk Society as an environmentalist manifesto replete with apocalyptic imagery
Blame · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Mythology · Perception · Risk perception · Risk society · Social science · Sociology · Theology · Academic Research and Education Studies · Education, Healthcare and Sociology Research · Philosophy · Psychology · Risk Perception and Management · Social Psychology
Risk Society
The Moral Construction of Risk
Nichtwissenskommunikation in den Wissenschaften
Doing the right thing
Risk Society - Reconsidered in a drug context
Science Fiction
Climate Crisis and the Actuarial Imaginary
The Visualization of Uncertainty
Critical Reflections on 'Reflexive Modernization
Preensões trágicas
Value change and the pragmatist theory of morality
Ulrich Beck
Uncertainty and certain death
La medida de la percepción social del medio ambiente. Una revisión de las aportaciones realizadas por la sociología
Explaining Decision‐making in Government
The politics of urban climate risks
Focus groups in integrated assessment
Citizens’ perspectives on climate change and energy use
(World) risk society’ or ‘new rationalities of risk’? A critical discussion of Ulrich Beck’s theory of reflexive modernity
Die „Zweite Moderne“
The inequality of security
Reappraising the Risk Society Thesis
Pesticides in the Risk Society
From ontological security to cultural trauma
The left and the right in the ethnographic imagination
| Unique citing works | 25 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,83 |
| Citation span | 1996 - 2025 (30) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 25 |