Abstract

Modernity is marked by five noteworthy dimensions: (1) the compulsion to optimize, (2) the logic of bureaucracy and the demand for justice, (3) the demand for transparency and documentation, (4) commodification and legalism, and (5) identity thinking. These five dimensions are firmly embedded in modernity’s two defining principles—that is, the structural principle of dynamic stabilization and the cultural principle of the expansion of humanity’s reach. The dynamism that is built into the fabric of social life is generated by the ever-changing frontlines in the conflict between the controllable and the uncontrollable aspects of human existence.