Risk is either 'external' or 'manufactured'.
This is one of the key messages from Anthony Giddens recent Reith
Lecture. (The Reith Lectures, sponsored by the BBC, form one of the
pinnacles of UK scholorship. Giddens is the prolific head of the
London School of Economics. He is currently delivering a series
of five lectures on the theme of globalisation. The second lecture,
on Risk, was delivered in Hong Kong about ten days ago. All the
lectures are available and downloadable from the BBC web site
(www.bbc.co.uk).
to quote:
"...in all tradityional cultures, one could say, and in industrial
society right up to the threshold of the present day, human beings
worried about risks coming from external nature - from bad harvests,
floods, plagues or famines. At a certain point however - very
recently in historical terms - started worrying less about what
nature can do to us, and more about what we have done to nature.
This marks the transition from the predominance of external risk to
that of manufactured risk." Giddens, 1999.
Dr. NICK HALL,
Senior Research Fellow, South Bank University, Wandsworth Road, London SW8 2JZ, U.K.
tel: +44-171 815 7283; fax: 815 7366; e-mail: <[log in to unmask]>
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