ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to identify and evaluate the ordinary literal expressions of Bauman's liquid metaphor and related idioms. The position of education in liquid modernity highlights that Bauman's approach is both inadequate and misleading, his juxtaposition of liquid and solid is paradoxical, and his account of liquefaction is rooted in a faulty dualistic deduction of solid versus liquid modernity. The swarm represents a form of solidarity within liquid modernity and it is viewed by Bauman as a complex concatenation of interpersonal encounters. The swarm concept has travelled with Bauman from before the liquid turn in 2000. According to Shaun Best (2010, 2013), within Bauman's conception of liquid modernity there is no space for altruistic fundamentalism, whereas empirical studies in areas as diverse as football fandom and suicide bombing demonstrates that behaviour is often rooted in a Durkheimian conception of altruism.
