Proposing the Concept of “Crisis Modernity”Based on the Critique and Interpretation of the Book Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition andAesthetics in the Modern Social Order

Sadeghizadeh, Salman; Nouri, Mokhtar

doi:10.30465/crtls.2025.50481.2892

Proposing the Concept of “Crisis Modernity”Based on the Critique and Interpretation of the Book Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition andAesthetics in the Modern Social Order

Document Type : Research

Authors

Salman Sadeghizadeh ¹

Mokhtar Nouri ²

¹ Assistant Professor of Political Sociology at IHCS, Tehran, Iran

² Assistant Professor of Political Science at Razi university, Kermanshah, Iran

https://doi.org/10.30465/crtls.2025.50481.2892

Abstract

“Reflexive modernity” is a new concept that has important theoretical implications. This concept was first introduced in a work titled “Reflexive Modernity: Politics, Tradition, and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order” by Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, and Scott Lash. This article attempts to examine the hidden aspects of the new modernity through a critique and interpretation of the central idea of this work and to show how the positive idea of reflexive modernity can be a precursor to the emergence of a negative and crisis-ridden concept of modernity. This article is organized at three levels of description, analysis, and reflection: first, at the descriptive level, we introduce the main elements that constitute “reflexive modernity.” Second, at the analytical level, we try to look at “between the lines,” in Leo Strauss’s terms, and reveal the hidden aspects of this idea. Here, we will show that in the conceptualizations made, there are always two competing scenarios: a positive and ideal scenario and a negative and anti-ideal scenario. The first scenario seems to be the overt and covert approach of this idea. Finally, as a reflection, we will discuss the idea of “crisis-ridden modernity” and show how, in the shadow of the increasing strengthening of modernism, we are witnessing the increasing weakening of modernity.

Highlights

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Keywords

Reflexive Modernity

Institutional Reflexivity

Modernity

Modernism

Crisis-Ridden Modernity

Subjects