Quote

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 attacks happened and there was a complete conversion. Suddenly terrorism was the central risk.

Ulrich Beck

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ulrich Beck
Age: 70 †
Born: 1944
Born: May 15
Died: 2015
Died: January 1
Sociologist
University Teacher
Stolp
Didn
Terrorist
Hysteria
Thought
Terrorism
Conference
Believe
Held
Conferences
Suddenly
Conversion
Complete
Harvard
Americans
Attacks
Risk
European
Happened
Central

More quotes by Ulrich Beck

Image
You need education. You need subsistence protection. We need jobs and social security. These are preconditions under which it will perhaps be possible to deal with these complex circumstances.
Ulrich Beck
Image
Global conditions are far too complex to be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power.
Ulrich Beck
Image
Europe itself is an embodiment of this diversity.
Ulrich Beck
Image
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 control risks rationally.
Ulrich Beck
Image
Initially, the horrific images of September 11th triggered an enormous wave of solidarity.
Ulrich Beck
Image
Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an appropriate form of democracy and centralized government.
Ulrich Beck
Image
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: atheism is only one belief system among many.
Ulrich Beck
Image
Accordingly, globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the future, but something that is taking place in the present and to which we must first open our eyes.
Ulrich Beck
Image
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 erroneous.
Ulrich Beck
Image
In the first instance, therefore, global terrorism created a kind of global community sharing a common fate, something we had previously considered impossible.
Ulrich Beck
Image
In the final analysis, terror is also another proof of the fact that the superpower is not really a superpower. It was vulnerable.
Ulrich Beck
Image
You cannot make peace with terrorists. The normal dividing lines between war and peace do not apply.
Ulrich Beck
Image
Electronic communication makes possible what has previously been excluded: namely, active, simultaneous and reciprocal contact between individuals across all frontiers constituted by countries, religions and continents.
Ulrich Beck
Image
We are living in a world that is beyond controllability.
Ulrich Beck
Image
Relinquishing apparent national sovereignty does not have to entail a loss of national sovereignty, but can actually be a benefit.
Ulrich Beck
Image
And the terror itself is an example of the world's uncontrollability.
Ulrich Beck
Image
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 possibility of gaining a hearing. To that extent, for a while this also represented a forced opening of a cosmopolitan view.
Ulrich Beck
Image
Western countries in particular can today no longer be separated from Muslim societies, because they have them within themselves. They are themselves internally globalized.
Ulrich Beck
Image
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 increasingly seriously and came to entail waging a real war.
Ulrich Beck
Image
The idea that you surrender your identity when you relinquish national powers is unhelpful. No, indeed, precisely the opposite is the case: if done in an intelligent way, you attain the sovereignty to better solve national problems in cooperation with others.
Ulrich Beck