ABSTRACT
Zygmunt Bauman and Ulrich Beck are both deeply engaged in understanding the conditions of contemporary society – and understanding them in relation to the general development of modernity. Beck speaks of "second modernity" rather than "liquid modernity". He distinguishes between a first modernity, culminating in the Western industrialised societies, and a second modernity, and new type of society, which he calls "the risk society". This chapter present Beck's understanding of modernity and look at the transition to second modernity and the risk society. It discusses how Beck, like Bauman, understands individualisation and globalisation as key trends of the second modernity. Beck describes modernity as a historical epoch in which man gradually frees himself from nature's supremacy by means of human reason. Beck understands individualisation as a process that frees the individual from prior, given and collective identities and opens doors to a life where the individual, to a much larger extent, is forced to pick its own trajectory.
