Paper short abstract:

Security is not just a strategy, but a need that results in a feeling from which people give meaning to each one of the actions that takes place both in the private and in the public fields, both individually and collectively. From this perspective, my contribution tries to analyze anthropologically how this concept relates with the modules of culture and so understand the current situation in complex societies.

Paper long abstract:

My contribution here is the relation of the concept of security, employing as base the classical model of the universal modules of culture.

As regards the techno-economic module, we find that scientific and technological advances are becoming more difficult to decode and that the speed they happen, places the individual at the known as cognitive deficit, this is, much information, but little knowledge. From the field of economics, leaves the person in a place of insecurity and instability.

The second module of culture is the institutional, which rules this need of the human species that is living in society. Our sociability is unfolded in three big levels. At the micro level, we situate the family, whose changes in the relations between its members are undeniable, what Bauman called the liquid love. At the meso level, we refer to the associations and to a series of number of organizations articulated to defend the interests of different groups which, in many cases, are losing legitimacy and representativeness. Finally, at the macro level we have coexisting, but without clear references, the nation-states and supranational organizations, whose profiles are quite unknown to most citizens.

The Ideal module concentrates the beliefs, values and norms that act as catalysts of meaning for the people who take them as a reference, but in today's complex societies, beliefs are diffuse, values are overshadowed by the hegemonic value of money and standards have dissociated, and in some cases opposed, legality and justice.