Ulrich BeckThinkers

Atheism is merely another belief system among many. It is a modern phenomenon, to be sure, but it does not qualify as supporting evidence for an argument about the modern phenomenon of the lessening influence of religion.

The Boomerang effect is the idea that individuals producing risks will also be exposed to them.

Brazilianization is the diversity, unclarity and insecurity in people's lives and work which is coming to dominate the social structure of the west similar to how they do in the south.

Class is a zombie category, or idea which lives on even though the reality to which it corresponds is dead.

Cosmopolitanism is internal globalization, globalization from within the national societies.

A Distinction is not a systematic boundary but a dichotomy with functions relating to action.

The Elevator effect is the (controversial) idea that with the prosperity explosion, inequality is not reduced, but mitigated by increased affluence: Some have more than others, but everybody has enough.

The Enlightenment (European) is not a set of ideas but a process whereby criticism, self-criticism, irony, and humanity play a central role.

The Future is, in science, held out as a kind of legitimating tool in so far as it is put forward to be the space we should hand over to it so it can go about solving present problems.

A Global domestic politics is the recognition that the well-being of the rest of the world is a matter of enlightened self-interest.