Ontological security

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Ontological security ( English ontological security ), also the certainty of being , is in the sociology according to Anthony Giddens the trust that most people have in the continuity of their identity and the constancy of the social and material world around them.

Its opposite is called ontological uncertainty .

term

The concept of " ontological security" ( Engl. Ontological security ) was first in 1960 by Ronald D. Laing proposed and later taken up by Giddens. Laing wanted the word “ontological” to be understood empirically rather than philosophically: as an adverb or adjective that comes close to the word “being”. He looked for a basic concept that captured the condition of the development of psychoses and called this "ontological uncertainty". According to Laing, a position of "ontological security" is reached where an individual is certain of his or her identity and autonomy , experiences the bond with others as potentially rewarding and not as a permanent threat and sees himself as "real, alive, whole" in a correspondingly " safe world ”.

The term is translated from English as “ontological certainty”, sometimes also as “certainty of being”. The latter expression previously had a slightly different meaning with Alfred Schütz : the certainty that things are as they appear to you.

Social psychology

Giddens ontological security concerns with recourse to Erik Erikson and Donald Winnicott  on the basic trust back, that on the basis of a secure attachment arises an important caregiver. According to Giddens, habits and rituals help maintain ontological security.

Giddens contrasts ontological security with existential fear. The individual defends his ontological security in order to ward off emotional disturbances in the form of existential fears , suspicion and hostility .

The concept of ontological security is used as an explanatory model in various areas. In 2004, the sociologist Jan Wehrheim identified an ontological uncertainty in connection with experiences of social decline, exclusion and fear of crime :

“The change in the labor market and the erosion of the welfare state mean that since the 1970s, growing minorities have experienced social decline and even marginalization. The increasing insecurity of jobs and individual careers as well as the reduction in social benefits lead to a loss of social security . Together with individualization processes, a feeling of 'ontological insecurity' arises. [...] Especially in times of intensified social change , general, diffuse insecurities are to a certain extent recoded into fears of crime. "

Furthermore, the assumption that beliefs with an absolute claim to truth can convey ontological security is used as an explanation for the strong attraction of fundamentalist movements , whether Islamism or right-wing populism and right-wing extremism .

International Relations

In the field of international relations one is the theory of ontological security ( ontological security theory , OST) used as an element of state action, the games in addition to the physical security an essential role.

Jeffrey Huysmans first introduced the concept of international relations in 1998. He differentiates between “daily” and “ontological” security. Strangers are less of a challenge for the physical security than for the ontological security of a nation state, since its order and legitimacy are called into question.

The OST would also explain behaviors that appear to be irrational. For example, humanitarian investments by states can also be explained in this way, since decision-makers try to avoid shame in relation to themselves or their organization or their state. The OST also offers an explanation for long-lasting, seemingly irrational conflicts. Jennifer Mitzen assumes that a conflict, once it is deeply rooted in consciousness, is perceived as part of identity and that in this case it is the possibility of a solution to the conflict that is ontologically unsettled.

Limits of the model

It is emphasized on several occasions that the assumption that a state (or a similar organization) has a uniform identity is not necessarily an adequate description. It is also questioned whether the various actors in a collective “can only take a critical position with regard to the failure of their own routines or practices” and whether they cannot “act reflexively towards the structures or rules themselves”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anthony Giddens. Quoted from: Christopher Daase, Stefan Engert, Julian Junk: Verunsichert Gesellschaft - Überstrallener Staat: Zum Wandel der Sicherheitskultur , Campus Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-593-39873-0 , p. 265 .
  2. ↑ Maren Hartmann, Mediatization as Mediation: From the Normative and Discursive . In: Maren Hartmann, Andreas Hepp: The Mediatization of Everyday World, Springer-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-17042-8 , p. 35 ff. P. 38 .
  3. ↑

    “Laing, The Divided Self , p. 39, footnote. Quote: Despite the philosophical use of 'ontology' (by Heidegger, Sartre, Tillich especially), I have used the term in its present empirical sense because it appears to be the best adverbial or adjectival derivative of 'being'. "

    Quoted from: Martin Howarth-Williams: RD Laing: His Work and its Relevance for Sociology (RLE Social Theory), Routledge, 2014, ISBN 978-1-317-65124-6 . P. 151 .
  4. ↑ RD Laing: The divided self. An existential study of mental health and insanity. 1987, p. 40 f. (orig. The Divided Self. An existential study on sanity and madness. 1960)
  5. ↑ “The concept of certainty of being originally comes from Alfred Schütz. It is used in the same sense by Giddens, but placed in a slightly different argumentation context. For Schütz, certainty of being means as much as the certainty that things are as they appear to me. ”Quoted from: Benno Werlen, Sozialgeographieer everyday regionalizations: Globalization, Region and Regionalization , Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997, ISBN 978-3-515- 06607-5 . P. 162 .
  6. ^ “Drawing upon the object-relational psychoanalysis of Erik Erikson and DW Winnocott, Giddens argues that ontological security is grounded in trust relations - relations constitutes at the level of unconscious communications which relate infant and primary caretaker.” Quoted from: Anthony Elliott, Subject to Ourselves: An Introduction to Freud, Psychoanalysis, and Social Theory , Routledge, 2015, ISBN 978-1-317-25121-7 . P. 108 .
  7. ↑ "Giddes [...] Argues did ontological security depends on our ability to have faith in Those social narrative and routines in Which We are embedded and through Which our social identity is constituted [...] The answers on Which our ontological security rests are not stable and enduring truths of the self, but are produced and enshrined through routinized practices. " Enclosing critique: the limits of ontological security , International Political Sociology, 9 (4), pp. 369-386.
  8. ↑ Anthony Giddens. Quoted from: Andreas Brachmann: Re-institutionalization instead of de-institutionalization in assistance for the disabled: redefinition of the function of residential facilities for adults with intellectual disabilities , Springer-Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-93205-7 . P. 213 .
  9. ↑ Jan Wehrheim: Cities in the focus of internal security. Federal Agency for Civic Education, October 26, 2004, accessed on May 30, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Manfred Brocker : Worldview Difference or the End of Civil Society? The "Culture War" in the USA . In: Gerhard Kruip: Shadow of Difference: the paradigm of recognition and the reality of social conflicts , LIT Verlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-8197-9 , p. 275 ff. P. 277 .
  11. ↑ Jeffrey Huysmans. Quoted by: Brent J. Steele: Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State , Routledge, 2008, ISBN 978-1-135-98009-2 . P. 57 .
  12. ↑ Brent J. Steele: Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State , Routledge, 2008, ISBN 978-1-135-98009-2 . P. 3 .
  13. ↑ Brent J. Steele: Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State , Routledge, 2008, ISBN 978-1-135-98009-2 . Pp. 53-54 .
  14. ↑ Jennifer Mitzen: Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma . In: SAGE Publications and ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research (Ed.): European Journal of International Relations . tape 12 , no. 3 , 2006, p. 341–370 , doi : 10.1177 / 1354066106067346 (English, sagepub.com [PDF; accessed May 30, 2018]).
  15. ↑ Ontological Security - what's behind this new theory trending in IR? In: www.sicherheitsppolitik-blog.de. August 28, 2017, accessed on May 31, 2018 : "Unfortunately, working with OST, it seems necessary to exclude various interpretations of the state self-identity."
  16. ↑ Ulrich Wesser: Heteronomien des Soziales: Social ontology between social philosophy and sociology , Springer-Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-93211-8 . P. 205 .