X. Uncontrollability

In the context of late modernity, the experience of uncontrollability is present in people’s everyday lives, but in ever more disempowering and alienating, rather than empowering and resonant, ways. Uncontrollability manifests itself both at the micro-level and at the macro-level of late-modern existence: in both the communicatively sustained domain of the lifeworld and the functionally driven sphere of the system, we are confronted with high degrees of uncontrollability—from interpersonal dynamics and personal issues to numerous crises (such as social, cultural, political, economic, demographic, and environmental crises, among others). In late-modern societies, the widespread quest for control (defined in social, political, economic, cultural, ethnic, or any other terms) goes hand in hand with a loss of control (in various spheres of our existence). Even in technologically advanced societies, the pursuit of controllability cannot do away with the high degree of uncontrollability permeating the human condition.