Occupation: Sociologist Birth: 1944 Death: January 1, 2015
I held a conference in Harvard where Americans said they didn't believe in risk. They thought it was just European hysteria. Then the terrorist attac….
Europe itself is an embodiment of this diversity..
The idea that you surrender your identity when you relinquish national powers is unhelpful. No, indeed, precisely the opposite is the case: if done i….
Electronic communication makes possible what has previously been excluded: namely, active, simultaneous and reciprocal contact between individuals ac….
Relinquishing apparent national sovereignty does not have to entail a loss of national sovereignty, but can actually be a benefit..
The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion..
Global conditions are far too complex to be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power..
And the terror itself is an example of the world's uncontrollability..
The world has become so complex that the idea of a power in which everything comes together and can be controlled in a centralized way is now erroneo….
Initially, the horrific images of September 11th triggered an enormous wave of solidarity..
And it also became clear that these conditions of inequality and historical injustice have given rise to a feeling of hate in the world - a deeply fe….
In the final analysis, terror is also another proof of the fact that the superpower is not really a superpower. It was vulnerable..
Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an….
Accordingly, globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the future, but something that is taking place in the present a….
All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: at….
In the first instance, therefore, global terrorism created a kind of global community sharing a common fate, something we had previously considered i….
Neither science, nor the politics in power, nor the mass media, nor business, nor the law nor even the military are in a position to define or contro….
And therefore we must seek dialogue in this networked world. We must ask which voice was actually attempting to make itself heard and saw no other po….
Western countries in particular can today no longer be separated from Muslim societies, because they have them within themselves. They are themselves….
You need education. You need subsistence protection. We need jobs and social security. These are preconditions under which it will perhaps be possibl….
We are living in a world that is beyond controllability..