Modernidade e identidade, Anthony Giddens, 2002. Tradução Plínio Dentzien. Jorge Zahar Editor, Rio de Janeiro, 233 p. Idioma do livro: português. ISBN: 85-7110-669-X.

Giddens is one of the most proficuous sociologists of our time, by the quality and the themes of his work as well as by his political convictions. He has been rector of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) since 1966. This books reaffirms his solid and coherent intellectual trajectory in relation to themes with which he has been working for a number of years (1), contributing significantly to researchers in the areas of sociology, anthropology and also social psychology.
For the author, it is impossible to dissociate the contributions of modern society, in its present complexity, without taking into consideration the dramatic consequences that globalization or social risks imprint on the individual as well as on the collectivity, influencing “the most personal aspects of our existence” (p. 9) in a decisive manner.
Gidden’s reflection, however, is not centered on the “I”, fruit of an eminently psychological approach, but on the importance of understanding the mechanisms of self-identity constituted by the institutions of modernity, also influencing their constitution. Not being a passive entity determined by external influences, the individual forges a self-identity, independent of the place where the specific contexts of the action occur, and contributes to the social influences that are global in their consequences and implications (p. 9).

1 Just mention some examples, we refer to the reader three books of Anthony Giddens: (1991) As Conseqüências da Modernidade, published in São Paulo, by Editora da Unesp; (1993) As Transformações da Intimidade: Sexualidade, Amor & Erotismo nas Sociedades Modernas, by Editora Unesp, and (2000) Mundo em Descontrole. O que a globalização está fazendo de nós, published in Rio de Janeiro, by Editora Record.

In the first chapter, Giddens attempts to circumscribe modernity, considering local as well as global situations. Selecting a few of his more significant examples, one can affirm that persons living today in industrialized countries are subject to situations that are individual or, at the most, familiar, such as chronic illnesses, stress, violence and divorce, and that present tensions for the “I” as well as for the social group as a whole.
Although relatively more protected from the actions of natural forces than in pre-modern times, individuals are subject to other risks, considering that artificial ingredients, pesticides, etc. may have been added to the food they consume daily, in detriment of those ingredients considered more traditional. The environmental dangers that threaten the Earth;s ecosystems are today much more present and disseminated in global society. These examples illustrate what Gidden’s calls the “dialect of the local and the global” (p. 27). In this dialect, the culture, the economy and the social dimensions play preponderant roles.
In the second and third chapters, the “I” is analyzed both in its ontological dimension as well as in its trajectory in modernity. In this trajectory, the controls of the body and the mind are included due to the need to construct an accepted model, where books on autotherapy play a significant role, along with the quest for an ideal body model (the increasing market for this type of literature and the elevated rates of anorexia, principally among adolescents, are evidence of these new norms of reference). In the fourth, fifth and sixth chapters, the author examines modernity in the light of the dynamics of risk and safety and the consequences of all these changes on the “I”. In chapter six, the tribulations of the “I” are finally viewed from another place, where the culture of narcissism and the concept of a “minimum I” lose space (concepts emphatically pointed out by Lasch in the ‘80s) (2). The author affirms that modernity, as an established entity, with its risks and complexity, imposes generalized perturbations and anxieties on individuals, requiring the creation of new forms of identity in order to deal with these perspectives.
The tension suffered by the “I” and its search for new identities in high modernity find space and reference in the emergence of what the author calls life-policy (chapter 7), that can be understood as a policy for the decisions in life (p. 198) and, in this sense, one can explore the idea that “personal is political” and, consequently, admit, as Giddens, that the “questions of life-policy (...) cry out for a remoralization of social life and demand a renewed sensibility for the questions that the institutions of modernity systematically dissolve”. One can affirm, therefore, that Giddens, with this work, aids us in reflecting intensely on contemporary society, opening space to consider the “I” and the quest for “new identities” as fundamental points.

(1) To cite just a few examples, we refer the reader to three of Anthony Giddens works. (1991) As conseqüências da modernidade, edited in São Paulo by Unesp; (1993) As transformações da Intimidade: sexualidade, amor & erotismo nas sociedades modernas, by the same Editor, and (2000) Mundo em descontrole. O que a globalização está fazendo de nós, edited in Rio de Janeiro, by Record.
(2) Lasch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism, London, Abacus, 1980 and The Minimal Self, London, Picador, 1985.

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