Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 23 Issue 2

of unity, universality and rationality, the emerging postmodern condition emphasises discontinuity, incommensurability and paradoxicality. The modern narrative of legitimation is displaced along with grand narratives of the emancipation of humanity through knowledge. Instead, there is a heightened sense of the ability to change and transform the rules of scientific practice and the ways in which knowledge is acquired. Mistrust and uncertainty regarding systems, predictability and control become the commonplace attitude to knowledge. In these circumstances, knowledge is legitimised based on performativity – usefulness and profitability become the only measure. Decisionmakers attempt to manage uncertainties based on the optimisation of the system'sperformance, and the only demand in matters of truth and justice alike is to be operational or disappear. Best and Kellner also consider uncertainty as a primary feature of postmodernity. They identified ‘a unique social configuration, modernity, organized around profit and growth imperatives, engineering and architectural marvels, mechanistic visions of the universe, and postanimistic identities in a “disenchanted” world ruled by instrumental rationality and exchange value’ (Best & Kellner, 2001, p. 101). Emerging postmodern tendencies undermine this modernist social configuration and its conception of knowledge, generating a series of significant paradigm shifts. Thus, the concept of nature as a law governed causal order fathomable by reason is replaced by a dynamic perspectivism full of riddles and paradoxes, unpredictability and indeterminacy. These aspects increase uncertainty concerning the models of reality and the ability to predict and control phenomena, and therefore concerning the future of science and technology and their social ramifications. Consequently, Science, technology, economics and culture amalgamate and adopt the principal postmodern characteristics (Heaphy, 2007). These include the rejection of unity, universal schemes and established meanings in favour of difference, plurality, contingency, uncertainty, and chaos. Those who deny the occurrence of a postmodern shift in second modernity reject many of the features commonly associated with postmodernity. They deny that second modernity demonstrates the undermining of objectivity, truth and the scientific understanding of reality or the return to a more enchanted and playful worldview. However, they equally stress the increased levels of uncertainty, doubt and risk involved in the current era. Reflexivity is often considered the definitive mark of second modernity in these interpretations, tantamount to the self monitoring and reconfiguring of social systems, institutions and knowledge. For Giddens (1990), Reflexivity arises because of the incorporation of growing levels of knowledge and technology into everyday social practices. These technological systems continually reshape social existence, and open up new and unpredictable ways for it to evolve. In particular, work, leisure, consumption and social relationships are increasingly taking place within a cyberspace which effectively cancels space and time differences, and offers large volumes of information and interaction at the click of a button. Therefore, knowledge becomes a resource for social interaction, and at the same time, changes its character. Reflexivity places a set of expert systems at the heart of second modern society, whose role is to examine, evaluate and modify the workings of social institutions. Traditional social bases are increasingly undermined by this dynamism, and institutions are constantly redesigned. Technology magnifies these effects of reflexivity on a global scale, and projects them onto the natural environment, which is no longer separate from the social. Thus, pollution, waste, plagues, deforestation and climate change represent the permeation of the social and the natural and its global and often uncontrollable ramifications. Similarly, the interconnectedness of investment and labour markets means that local economic events may have unforeseeable global effects. Contemporary life is therefore based on acute awareness of the unpredictable and uncontrollable aspects of modern technological and social change (Heaphy, 2007). While Giddens perceived reflexivity as a result of growing reliance on knowledge and information technology, for Beck reflexivity is mainly the results of gaps in our knowledge. This is manifested in the manufactured risks of second modernity. These risks lead to competing claims by experts, generating a conflict about what and how we know. Beck defined risks as spectres of impending catastrophes, which have a manufactured source – they are the results of human intervention in the natural order. Risks are delocalised, as their effects are global, crossing national, ethnic or class boundaries, and are therefore everyone’s responsibility; they are incalculable and uncompensatable as they are based on scientifically induced uncertainty and irreversible potential repercussions (Beck, 2014). In first modernity, risks were justified by their supposed benefits such as economic growth, employment, scientific and technological progress, rising standards of living and the security of the welfare state. The transition to a risk society takes place in face of the collapsing faith in these promises because of the adverse aftereffects of modern technology and society – the risks of pollution by nuclear and chemical industries, climate change, genetic modification, unpredictable global financial markets and the economic crisis of the welfare state. Risks highlight the fact that the strive to control reality may © 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue II Version I 73 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 C Epochal Change and Second Modernity as a Sociocultural Manifestation of Managerialism