Occupation: Sociologist Birth: 1944 Death: January 1, 2015
You need education. You need subsistence protection. We need jobs and social security. These are preconditions under which it will perhaps be possibl….
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….
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….
Initially, the horrific images of September 11th triggered an enormous wave of solidarity..
Electronic communication makes possible what has previously been excluded: namely, active, simultaneous and reciprocal contact between individuals ac….
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….
Relinquishing apparent national sovereignty does not have to entail a loss of national sovereignty, but can actually be a benefit..
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….
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….
Western countries in particular can today no longer be separated from Muslim societies, because they have them within themselves. They are themselves….
You cannot make peace with terrorists. The normal dividing lines between war and peace do not apply..
And the terror itself is an example of the world's uncontrollability..
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….
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….
Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an….
The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion..
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 first instance, therefore, global terrorism created a kind of global community sharing a common fate, something we had previously considered i….
But it then very soon became clear that the response of a war against terrorism, initially conceived of in a metaphorical sense, began to be taken in….
In the final analysis, terror is also another proof of the fact that the superpower is not really a superpower. It was vulnerable..
Global conditions are far too complex to be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power..