Reflexivity and spontaneity
Beck believes that a risky society is always subject to decisions being made and controlled by the problems posed by the contemporary world: those decisions that are impossible to depend on anything of certainty and the result is that doubt advances all areas to invade the world Rational machine controlled greatly. Currently, it is not possible to be certain that there is a single decision that has been reached to provide the individual or social life with viable alternative solutions. There are seldom any events that can accommodate a single sure answer. Every decision contains risks that Beck sees as implicitly reflexive.
Let us now call this unrequited and invisible autonomy, that transition from industry to a society fraught with many risks, “reflexive” or “spontaneous” (distinguish it at first from reflection). “Reflexive modernity” means confronting oneself with the effects of social risk. which cannot be dealt with in this industrial society and which are measured by the standards of this society. The fact is that these standards may later become the general basis for political or scientific reactions, which must not serve to overshadow the semi-autonomous technologies that appear spontaneously under them. The transitional stage: It is the abstract things in reality that produce and give a real dimension to the risks of society” (The Importance of Creativity and Innovation).
The emergence of a society in this way means that there are many dangers that become evident precisely when society tries to find appropriate solutions to its problems because of the difficulty in finding proven solutions. On this basis, this society must be confronted with the consequences of the decisions it takes or even those it fails to reach. It is worth noting that one of the consequences of this automatic reflexive society is that many individuals have been forced to reach their own decisions without using any of the means of technical knowledge that might put some guiding signs for them to guide them to the right path. Therefore, many individuals had to take risks, learn and think about the right decisions on their own. Moreover, most of them had to adapt to those variables that occur in society as a consequence of many other variables. As Beck suggested, one must make one’s own life and career.
In other words, the creative discoveries and new decisions made by members of the workforce are hallmarks of individual education. As Beck claims, “Participation in labor in these reflexive societies, in turn, presupposes participation in education, or at least in education.” One of the consequences of reflexive modernity is that individuals learn many things and facts during their lifetime, whether they think about it or not. This is what is called “teaching all the time” – this phrase is not about softening or concealing facts but rather an essential feature of reflexive modernity. Thus, the modern automatic society must be a society of education, but education is an individual and independent subject and takes place far from the institutional environment concerned with providing educational opportunities for all.
