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Beck's Risk Society and Giddens' Search for Ontological Security: a Comparative Analysis Between the Anthroposophical Society and the Assemblies of God

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Volume 15, Number 1 27 Beck's Risk Society and Giddens' Search for Ontological Security: A Comparative Analysis Between the Anthroposophical Society and the Assemblies of God Alphia Possamai-Inesedy University of Western Sydney There is a contention by social theorists such as Beck, Giddens, Bauman and Lash that contemporary Western society is in a transitional period in which risks have proliferated as an outcome of modernisation. In accordance with these changes individuals' sense ofselfhood have moved toward being more sensitive as to what they define as risks, such as threats to their health, as economic security or emotional wellbeing than they were in previous eras. Living in such a world can lead individuals to what Giddens would term ontological insecurity. Obsessive exaggeration of risks to personal existence, extreme introspection and moral vacuity are characteristics of the ontologically insecure individual. The opposite condition, ontological security, when achieved, leaves the individual with a sense of continuity and stability, which enables him or her to cope effectively with risk situations, personal tensions and anxiety. This emergent field of study in sociology has nevertheless poorly addressed religious issues; as if these social researchers have omitted parts of the religious aspects ofcontemporary society. This article attempts to fill this lacuna and explores the notion of risk society and ontological security with that of postmodern religion/spiritualities. Two case studies of the Anthroposophical society and Pentecostalism aid in this task. UlrichBeck(1992; 1994; 1995; 1996)andAnthonyGiddens(1990; 1991; 1994; 1999) while differing in their approaches, share similar concerns, foci and epistemological underpinnings in their work. Together these theorists describe the most conspicuous features of contemporary society as institutionalised pluralism, variety, contingency and ambivalence (Lash, 1993). In this society westerners cannot be sure what is going to happen, and so neither know how to behave, nor can predict what the outcome of their actions will be. Instinctively or by learned habit, westerners 28 Australian Religion Studies Review dislike and fear ambivalence, that enemy of security and self-assurance. Westerners are inclined to believe that they would feel much safer and more comfortable if situations were unambiguous - where it is clear what to do and certain what would happen if they did it. Let us consider some of the health and environmental scares of the past few years: brain tumours caused by cellular phones, cancer caused by high-tension electrical wires, Alar in apples, complications arising from breast implants, the Gulf War and the new Balkan War Syndrome, the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle (or what is called the mad cow disease), and its possible connection with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease ( CJD ). And let us not forget the risks from our homes, our water, and the very air we breathe. As Anthony Giddens (1991:123) states: "The threats of death, insanity and - somehow even more fearsome - cancer lurk in all we eat or touch". The approach of these theorists is not without critiques; however, it is beyond the scope of this article to address this debate (see for example Lash 1993, Mestrovic 1997; 1998 and Wynne 1996). What I want to draw attention to concerns the fact that these theorists mostly employ a secular approach. Featherstone (1991) notes the marginal and isolated position that sociology of religion has taken within the field of sociology. Whilst reminding us of the invaluable works of Durkheirn and Weber, whose writings on culture treated religion as central to the understanding of the structure and development of social life, he argues, save for a few notable exceptions, there has generally been little interest in religious phenomena on the part of those engaged in theorising the contemporary cultural complex. This argument is also reflected by Peter Berger ( 1996/97; 1999), a one time proponent of the secularisation thesis.1 Berger contends that religiosity in the modem world may tum out not to be lost in the everyday life paths of ordinary people, but to be lost from view in academic accounts of the modem world. This argument has led me to attempt to fill in this gap by examining religion in relation to the search for ontological security in what is termed the 'risk society'. The Influence of Risk Society Beck (1994) argues that the central problem of western societies is not the production and distribution of goods such as wealth and employment in conditions of scarcity, but the prevention or minimisation of risks. Individuals are daily bombarded with debates and conflicts, which proliferate over these risks. Bauman (1998:65) illustrates this point well when he states: .. .it [risk] is now dissolved in the minute, yet innumerable, traps and ambushes of daily life. One tends to hear it knocking now and again, daily, in fatty fast food, in listeria-infected eggs, in cholesterol rich temptations, in sex without condoms, in cigarette smoke, in asthma-inducing carpet mites, in the dirt you see and the germs you do not. Volume 15, Number 1 29 Accordingly individuals living in these societies have moved towards a greater awareness of risks, deal with them on an everyday basis, and are far more sensitive to what they defme as 'risks', or threats to their health, economic security or emotional wellbeing than they were in previous eras (Lupton, 1999). As Beck (1994:45) states, "[e ]veryone is caught up in defensive battles of various types, anticipating the hostile substances in one's manner ofliving and eating." Consequently this 'risk society', as Beck terms it, involves living with contingency. That is, living in a more complex and less controllable world than that of our past. This leads us to question if contemporary western society is any different from that of earlier times? Or are the hopes, anxieties, risks and uncertainties of each period merely a carbon copy of previous eras? Giddens ( 1999) contends the meaning of risk has changed with the emergence of modernity, beginning in the 17d' century and gathering force in the ISlh century. The underlying ethos of modernity is the notion that the key to human progress and social order is objective knowledge of the world through scientific exploration and rational thinking. It assumes that the social and natural worlds follow laws that may be measured, calculated and therefore predicted (Swingewood, 2000). It seems that since humans have secularly taken control of nature (through the example of industrialisation) and themselves (by the example of the French Revolution) so that risk, which at one time was the responsibility of an omnipotent God, would now be the responsibility of human kind. Furthermore, the dangers and hazards of contemporary societies, principally enviromnental problems, differ significantly from previous eras. These threats, argues Beck (1995), cannot be delimited spatially, temporally or socially. The magnitude and global nature of risks is such that risks are becoming more and more difficult to quantify, prevent, and avoid. Contemporary events are often open-ended, rather than events that have a foreseeable end. Accordingly the risks of late modem society are not easily calculable. Beck (1996:31) encapsulates this powerfully when he states ' [ ... ] the injured of Chernobyl are today, years after the catastrophe, not even born yet'. Scenarios where damage is long lasting, irreparable and incalculable lead to difficulty in identifying a single cause upon which blame can be cast, or in awarding financial compensation for the damage done (Beck, 1996:31 ). Accordingly, the early modernist rules of attribution and causality break down, as do the safety systems that once dealt with risk. As Beck (1995:76-77) states, contemporary hazards can only be dealt with by technological means - they can never be removed entirely. Risks that may always have been part of human history have an intrinsic difference within late modernity. The difference is that many of them arise from, rather than being assuaged by, the growth in human knowledge. This is reflected in the following statement from Ulrich Beck (1994:14): The naive certainties of the Enlightenment - the optimism in human progress wrought through science and rationalised action - have disintegrated, resulting in individuals' need to seek and invent new certainties for themselves. 30 Australian Religion Studies Review The Interplay ofRisk Society and Ontological Security Living in a world of contingency can lead to what Giddens (1991) terms 'ontological insecurity'. The onto logically insecure individual has little if any sense of continuous narrative or biography. Obsessive exaggeration of risks to personal existence, extreme introspection and moral vacuity are characteristics of this individual (Giddens, 1991:53). Giddens is arguing that the ontological insecure individual may fail to achieve an enduring conception of his or her aliveness. The opposite condition, ontological security, when achieved, leaves the individual not troubled by, or even oblivious to, existential questions. Practical consciousness has excluded or bracketed them out, resulting in the taken for granted attitude that Giddens conceives as necessary for action (Jacobs, 1999). 2 Giddens clearly defmes ontological security as an emotional phenomenon, incorporating 'the confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their self identity and in the constancy of their surrounding social and material environments of action' (Giddens, 1990:92). Ontological security has to do with: " ... being or, in the terms of phenomenology, 'being in the world'. But it is an emotional, rather than a cognitive phenomenon, and it is rooted in the unconscious" (Giddens, 1990:92). Of course what has just been presented, in the case of ontological security and insecurity, represents.extremes. What should be clear is that ontological security is understood as a latent concept, which remains in the individual's unconscious unless it is threatened. It is the argument of this essay that living in what Beck would term a 'risk society' does indeed threaten one's 'ontological security'.
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