The Emergence of a "Risk Society" and the Paradigm of "Altruism"

Abstract

This paper aims to look into the historical process where the theory of risk society was born, examine how altruism disappeared in the course of development of risk society, and reconsider the importance of disaster society and altruism. To this end, this paper will first focus on Ulrich Beck, Klein Naomi, and Rebecca Solnit, who are representative advocates of the risk social theory. The three people shared a common view on reconsidering the concept of "society" created in the course of historical development and explaining how risks were conceived in the process, and emphasized reflection and introspection as an alternative to overcoming the risk society. However, these were already suggested by Pitirim Sorokin between the 1940s and the 1950s, who advocated altruism. Sorokin interpreted the emergence of a risk society by connecting the changes in production structure and the theory of social mobility and explained it as the structure of sociocultural system. It clarified that the risk society was created in a historical background and altruism was concealed, and that it was emphasized in relation with the cultural sentiment.