The risk climate of modernity is thus unsettling for…

“The risk climate of modernity is thus unsettling for everyone: no one escapes.”

Anthony Giddens

About This Quote

This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.

Modern life creates pervasive risk that affects everyone, leaving no one untouched.

In simple terms: Modernity brings unavoidable risk for all.

Key Takeaway

Recognize and manage shared risks.

Themes

risk modernity society

Mood

analytical serious

Type

sociological inspirational

When to use this quote

policy making
urban planning
personal finance

Key Concepts

systems theory uncertainty

Questions to Reflect On

What risks do you feel most vulnerable to?
How can societies mitigate collective risk?

A Different Perspective

Risk perception varies across cultures.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

More by Anthony Giddens

The body is thus not simply an 'entity', but is experienced as a practical mode of coping with external situations and events.

Anthony Giddens

The body is an object in which we are all privileged, or doomed, to dwell, the source of feelings of well-being and pleasure, but…

Anthony Giddens

High-consequence risks form one particular segment of the generalised 'climate of risk' characteristic of late modernity - one characterised by regular shifts in knowledge-claims…

Anthony Giddens

High-consequence risks have a distinctive quality. The more calamitous the hazards they involve, the less we have any real experience of what we risk:…

Anthony Giddens

To live in the universe of high modernity is to live in an environment of chance and risk, the ineveitable concomitants of a system…

Anthony Giddens

“Old Conservatism, at least in its more principled forms, is, as has been aptly said, the ‘other God that failed’ alongside Communism and radical…

Anthony Giddens

Both life-planning and the adoption of lifestyle options become (in principle) integrated with bodily regimes. It would be quite short-sighted to see this phenomenon…

Anthony Giddens

Abstract systems depend on trust, yet they provide none of the moral rewards which can be obtained from personalised trust, or were often available…

Anthony Giddens

The flow of action continually produces consequences which are unintended by actors, and these unintended consequences also may form unacknowledged conditions of actions in…

Anthony Giddens

The sustaining of life, in a bodily sense as well as in the sense of psychological health, is inherently subject to risk.

Anthony Giddens

To a greater or lesser degree, the project of the self becomes translated into one of the possession of desired goods and the pursuit…

Anthony Giddens

The difficulties of living in a secular risk culture are compounded by the importance of lifestyle choices.

Anthony Giddens

Achieving control over change, in respect to lifestyle, demands an engagement with the outer social world rather than a retreat from it.

Anthony Giddens

Thinking in terms of risk certainly has its unsettling aspects (...), but it is also a means of seeking to stabilise outcomes, a mode…

Anthony Giddens

In a world of alternative lifestyle options, strategic life planning becomes of special importance. Like lifestyle patterns, life plans of one kind or another…

Anthony Giddens

Explore all 27 Anthony Giddens quotes

More Climate quotes

Irish research will contribute to global progress and have the potential to help all countries realise the potential of their land sectors in addressing…

Enda Kenny

In the current climate, things that are true, brave human stories become political.

Cate Blanchett

Windmills and solar cells are carbon-free sources of electricity. But they are costly. If you've been investing in those, give it up. That game…

Kenneth Fisher

Society understands the architecture of academia and knows there are relevant qualifications in different fields, and the media accepts the idea of specialisations and…

Jay Griffiths

There are many more traits that the climate deniers share with the creationists and Holocaust deniers and others who distort the truth.

Donald R. Prothero

Some would call me an environmentalist. I don't know why. I reuse the water that falls in my backyard in the winter. I reuse…

Ed Begley, Jr

I talk to fashion designers and say I want some money to save the rainforest, and they say, 'Oh, I agree with you completely…

Vivienne Westwood

Assuming normal winter weather, we currently anticipate the coal markets to remain difficult through 2015; while we always strive to operate a full capacity…

Joe Craft

Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can't afford the risk of inaction.

Rupert Murdoch

Fossil fuels, including oil, are running out and supplies are getting harder to find. If we do nothing, prices will continue to rise and…

Lucy Powell

Local and state governments have outrun the federal government. The EPA has served notice that it will enact a rule requiring CO2 reductions by…

Al Gore

I am sympathetic to developing countries’ concerns: because of our emissions it’s their crops that will disappear; because of our inaction, it’s their fields…

John F. Kerry

We live in a state with a wonderful climate and plenty of natural beauty, from the shores of Cumberland Island to the Chattahoochee River…

Roy Barnes

Right now, the government is spending billions of dollars supporting the problem-makers in the U.S. economy - the polluters, despoilers, incarcerators, and warmongers.

Van Jones

All of the barriers to innovation in the energy sector are arguments for a big commitment to public investment. Only the public sector can…

Ted Nordhaus

Browse all 8,549 Climate quotes

The risk climate of modernity is thus unsettling for…

About This Quote

Related quotes

More by Anthony Giddens

More Climate quotes