On the Way toward an Industrial Society of Risk?

The term that describes our situation socially and sociologically most succinctly and most incisively is the term post. Everything is post We became accustomed some time ago already to the condition of post-industrialism: the concept still says something to us. But since then post-materialism, post-feminism, and post-modernism have come into currency, and as for post-late-capitalism, it is perhaps better for the time being to pass over it in silence. Post is the expression of a sociological quandary. It is the blind man's staff of the social sciences. Its message is as troubled and as irritating as it is empty: there is something that is after?what this is and how it looks, we do not know. Post is also the word forlaziness in sociological thinking. The strings of our thought in social theory and social history have snapped. We have accommo dated ourselves to theories of advanced industrial society or late capitalism, convinced ourselves of the end of history?post-history? and therefore for all the sheer innovations expect no further real innovations. Everything has already been. So let us continue as before.