ABSTRACT
The nation-state society is the dominant societal paradigm. The mainstream considers that the concept of society is applicable only to the nation-state. Theory and sociology of the second age of modernity elaborate, therefore, the basic assumption that towards the end of the twentieth century the conditio humana opens up anew – with fundamentally ambivalent contingencies, complexities, uncertainties and risks which, conceptually and empirically, still have to be uncovered and understood. There is an excellent example that illustrates the need to understand and decode the transition from the first to the second age of modernity as a paradigm shift, a change in the co-ordinate system. In the conflict of values between the authority of the sovereign state and the protection of human rights, Western governments, led by the USA, place a higher value on opposing the genocide against the Kosovars than on UN Charter procedures based on international law.
