Thinking differently about social transformation

"Transformation is usually talked about with great gestures and even greater concern. Whether it's about combating climate change, restructuring the state and the economy or the question of ending wars: the conclusion is drawn from urgency to possibility and consent, often with a cautionary eye. What is forgotten is that all transformation must take place in a world that is already here and is reacting to it with its own means, including populist threats to democracy. In his clear intervention, Armin Nassehi asks what can be found beyond the grand gesture: a society that has to think differently about transformation and will ultimately benefit from the logic of small steps.

Multiple experiences of crisis mean that many conditions of our way of life in recent decades have become questionable, their vulnerability and preconditions are becoming increasingly visible. This is generating a call for rapid, comprehensive transformation everywhere. Because: another world is possible, we just have to want it. But this triumph of the will does not take into account the stubbornness, inner complexity and resistance of a society that is not a responsive collective. And it does not reckon with the populist reaction to experiences of crisis. It becomes increasingly clear that you cannot transform society against it, but only within it and with it - and only by its own means." (Publisher)