ABSTRACT
While it is undoubtedly true that the dangerousness of contemporary society is exaggerated, it is almost certainly the case that we have become unusually sensitive to fear and risk, that anxiety and trepidation permeate our everyday consciousness. There are two dimensions of the growing discourse on fear and risk that are particularly significant. One is that the main threat comes from the unpredictability of the future. What is portrayed as particularly dangerous is the risk represented by the future – uncertain, unknowable, not amenable to calculation – and the impossibility of being able to assess fully the risk such unpredictability poses. During his time as Prime Minister, Tony Blair was keen to assert that the world had changed post-11 September, and such a world requires a new style of politics: ‘a new world order needs a new set of rules’. One result is that the threat (and reality) of terrorism in the UK has been mobilized to emphasize the dangerousness of the post-11 September world; a world which ‘no longer makes sense’ according to the logic of conventional politics.
