ABSTRACT
Polish born and for many decades British domiciled – but for all practical intents and purposes globally renowned – sociologist Zygmunt Bauman is, beyond any reasonable doubt, one of the world’s most prolific, productive, professionally acclaimed and publicly recognised contemporary social thinkers.1
For more than half a century he has practised the discipline and heeded the calling of sociology. Throughout the years, he has at an almost inhuman pace published numerous pieces of work that have left a lasting and indelible imprint on future studies of a variety of sociological topics such as, most prominently, the Holocaust, morality, postmodernity, utopia, culture, the intellectuals, critical sociology, liquid modernity, globalisation, identity, fear, inequality, ethics, community, love, individualisation, education, freedom, consumerism, surveillance, etc. Zygmunt Bauman is indeed – in the apt words of Swedish sociologist Walter Korpi (1990) – one of the discipline of sociology’s few and most iconic ‘Pegasuses’ who, contrary to those practitioners of social science remaining concerned primarily with minuscule methodological or sharply defined empirical matters, hovers theoretically well above such more mundane scientific concerns and instead provides us with grand interpretative frameworks, narratives and diagnoses of the times that put our contemporary human condition into perspective. With his original, deep, refreshing and thoughtprovoking ideas, Bauman has thus contributed greatly to the development of contemporary sociology. Throughout his entire career, Zygmunt Bauman has written at an incredible
pace. Particularly during the last few decades he has published one or two new book titles almost every year – each and every book adding to his increasing readership and his undisputed status as a contemporary key sociologist. And his outpouring of incisive analyses and intriguing diagnoses of the times seems to be almost hyperenergetic. By now he has published more than forty books in English, and add to this numerous articles published in academic journals and chapters in books as well as a substantial amount of books published in his native Polish language. Besides this he is a frequent columnist and commentator in various newspapers providing insightful and critical
analyses of topical issues. Being often labelled an ‘intellectual guru’ or a ‘sociological superstar’ – however much to his own disliking – Bauman is also frequently asked to reflect on and comment on his own work in interviews published in books, academic journals or newspapers. Moreover, his work is now translated into numerous languages making his thoughts and ideas accessible to a truly global audience. All in all, Zygmunt Bauman is self-evidently regarded as one of the major stalwarts of contemporary sociology. One of the key concerns of Zygmunt Bauman’s writings throughout parti-
cularly the last few decades has been describing and diagnosing the gradual transformation of modernity – from a ‘premodern’ phase (which is often undertheorised in his work) followed by a ‘solid-modern’ to a contemporary ‘liquid-modern’ phase. Acknowledging that these labels are merely analytical concepts aimed at reducing the unfathomable complexity of social life, they, however, according to Bauman, still provide sociology with some analytical substance, useful conceptual distinctions and interpretive value (Bauman 1992b: 11). ‘Liquid modernity’ – presented as the antithesis of ‘solid modernity’ – is a modernity by and large characterised by its relinquishing of the illusions and aspirations of any long-term planning, obsessive ordering, structuring and organising as well as by the abandonment of any collective insurance for individual misfortune otherwise so characteristic of its earlier solid-modern incarnation. Initially, the idea or metaphor of ‘liquid modernity’ was coined and used primarily as a general descriptive term capturing a variety of social processes and transformations characterising the shift from solid to liquid modernity such as incessant individualisation, disembedding without re-embedding, the separation of power from politics, globalisation, the curtailing of collective responsibility for social development as well as for individual life challenges, and finally – and perhaps most dramatically – the shelving of any utopian hopes for a better present or future. Later, however, Bauman has gradually applied the notion of ‘liquidity’ to various specific social contexts such as his analyses of love, fear, consumption, inequality, fashion, management, surveillance, art, utopia, culture, moral blindness, education, etc. One of the key concerns in Bauman’s by now widely publicised analysis of
liquid modernity is the disclosure and diagnosis of the many paradoxes and ambivalences created by the increasing liquefaction of contemporary modernity. Obviously, all societies and all historical epochs, in one way or the other, produce patterns of ambivalence or paradoxes on the social, interactional and psychological level (see, e.g., Merton 1976;Weigert 1991). As such, paradoxes, dilemmas, contradictions, discrepancies, inconsistencies, chasms, ambivalences and inner tensions are endemic to most societies most of the time. Just as solid modernity according to Bauman was haunted by the paradox of ambivalence – for example, he showed how the quest for order so incessantly pursued by solidmodern society ended up producing overwhelming amounts of ambivalence and with it also incomprehensible amounts of human suffering (Bauman 1991a) – so also liquid modernity produces its own fair share of paradoxical life circumstances and outcomes. In this context, a paradox is defined as inner
tensions or contradictions that defy common sense and which are created by or exist within a social environment – tensions and contradictions that are often accompanied by unintended consequences or unanticipated and indeed also undesirable side effects. According to Bauman, it is exactly the ambition of and a new and daunting task for contemporary critical sociology to increase awareness about these paradoxes and ambivalences – that often remain largely invisible to the naked eye – created by liquid modernity and especially to puncture the prevailing myths about the apparently impenetrable and peculiar solidity of liquidity. Bauman’s writings therefore look deep into some of the main reasons behind and the most spectacular repercussions of the paradoxes produced by liquid modernity. But besides pointing to the breeding ground for and the consequences of liquidity, his work is also characterised by a deep-seated aspiration to make his readers aware that something can in fact be done about it and that the human world is not yet ossified or congealed into such immutable structures. As noted by one perspicacious observer: ‘Instead of theoretical unity and the persistence of the same critical judgments, [Bauman’s] books relentlessly emphasize the intellectual need to cope with emerging social problems, crises, contradictions and paradoxes and highlight sociology’s role in facilitating responses to them’ (Prˇibáñ 2007: 2). One way to create or increase awareness of such paradoxes and ambivalences,
not to mention to strengthen our ability to act on them, is continuously and critically to question society as it currently confronts us. Such awareness calls for a critical attitude towards the present. Already in Bauman’s inaugural lecture as Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds in 1972, he thus stated:
