Article by Ionuţ Iordache – published on Saturday, 03 May 2025, 22:26 / Updated on Saturday, 03 May 2025 22:44
This year's presidential elections will show us at what speed we will go to the “second modernity”.
I was in Denmark at the match that CSM București at the dispute a week ago at ESBJERG And I saw on the spot what a society looks like at another level of evolution towards us. To which, even if we want or not, we are heading.
According to German sociologist Ulrich Beck, today's world is divided into regions in various stages of evolution. In his book in 2002, “Individualization“Beck talks about the concepts of”The first modernity“And”The second modernity”.
The regions in the “second modernity” It is characterized by the disintegration of traditional structures (standard family, stable career) and increased individualization.
These areas have managed to balance the differences between rich and poor and turned their attention to other topics such as gender, women's rights, sexual minorities, etc.
They gave up the nationalist speech or, as it is now fashionable in Romania, that of sovereignty. The inhabitants of these areas did not give up their traditions, but they also accept the different ones.
And one of these regions is the northern Europe, of which Denmark is a part, and where it is said to be the happiest peoples in the world.
Romania is currently in the early phase of the “first modernity”, as Beck called it. At this stage the traditional structures are still dominant (patriarchal family, strong religion), gender roles are still well delimited, and pluralism is weak.
And even if it seems that we have not evolved too much in recent years towards the “second modernity”, this evolution exists. If we look at Romania since 1990, who chose President Ion Iliescu with 85%, and the one from 2025, the differences are huge, everything being superior now.
And this evolution will take place even further, no matter who the president will come out. Only the choice of the future president will show us where we are as a society. Are we ready to accelerate this evolution?
Or will we still put in the first modernity and we will take small steps towards the second as we have done it in recent years with the current political class?
Or maybe we need a “sovereignist” shock to understand on our own skin how bad would we take a few steps back?
