Zygmunt Bauman, the philosopher and sociologist of “liquid modernity” passed away on January 9th, at the age of 91 years. Here we pay you a simple but heartfelt tribute.
Zygmunt Bauman was born in 1925, in Poland, of Jewish origins. During World War II the family fled Nazism to the Soviet Union. After the war, he returned to Poland but criticism of the Polish communist government earned him political persecution and, in 2, he took refuge in Israel where he taught at Tel Aviv University.
A critic of Zionism left again and, in 1971, accepted a position as professor of sociology at the University of Leeds in England.
Zygmunt Bauman is a man of his time and all the major current themes deserved his attention, which, moreover, is well reflected in around fifty published works. Bauman is known for being the philosopher of “liquid modernity”, a metaphor for the state of our human condition: everything is volatile, ephemeral, precarious, transitory, fleeting, unstable, temporary, fluid, finally, liquid.
On the theoretical-philosophical level, the transition from the concept of structure (solid) to the concept of network (connection) fully accounts for this transition. And these liquid and fluid notions have application in all areas, from love and family relationships, to power relations in the fields of economy, society, politics and the digital revolution. It is this cross-reading grid of contemporary problems that gives meaning, consistency and density to his philosophical and sociological writings, as well as to his numerous social and cultural interventions.
Zygmunt Bauman is also known for being a philosopher of postmodern pessimism, just by looking at some titles of his most recent works: Strange Knocking at the Door (2016), Estado de Crise (2016), Moral Blindness (2016) , Amor Liquid (2008), A Vida Fragmentada (2007), Modernity and Ambivalence (2007), Confidence and Fear in the City (2006), all published in Portugal by Editora Relógio d´Água. The other titles in Portuguese are practically all published by Editora Zahar, in Brazil. For example, under the theme of “liquid modernity”, there are the titles Liquid Life, Liquid Times, Liquid Violence, Liquid Fear and Culture in the Liquid World.
The topics of reflection that most deserved his attention were the following: the social inequalities of capitalism and the frauds of neoliberalism (in the book, Does the wealth of a few benefit us all?), the loss of the sense of community in a hyper-individualized world ( in the book, A Cegueira Moral), the crisis of the state and the collapse of confidence (in the book, Estado de Crise), immigration and refugees (in the book, Estranhos Beating à Porta), the digital revolution, the weakness of social networks and the movements of the indignant, the precarious workers (in countless interviews in recent years).
Ethical values are a common trait and give meaning to all of Zygmunt Bauman's thinking. In the book Moral Blindness can be read: “An induced and manipulated moral insensitivity becomes a compulsion, almost second nature, and moral pains are deprived of their healthy role of preventing, alerting and mobilizing” .
His most recent positions on digital culture, social networks and social protest movements are equally revealing of his “liquid modernity”. Here are some statements by Zygmunt Bauman taken from recent interviews in the media and now brought to the attention of the general public at the time of his death:
– Social networks are a trap, we can have 500 friends without leaving the house, everything seems very easy in the virtual sphere, but we have lost the art of social relationships and friendship;
– The old sacred limit between working hours and personal time has been surpassed, we are permanently available, we forget the time for love, friendship and solidarity; today, even the “right to disconnect” is discussed outside working hours;
– Couch activism and communities online they are cheap entertainment, it is necessary to confirm and validate this commitment on the street, in contact with people and in real communities offline.
With regard to the discrediting of the policy and the movements of the indignant and precarious workers, read:
– It is one thing to protest, quite another to take consequent political action;
– It was a catastrophe to drag the middle class into precariousness, the conflict is no longer between classes, it is between each one and society;
– People do not believe in the democratic system because it does not keep its promises; at the same time, the main victim of this inequality that continues to grow will be democracy, because the so-called free market economy contradicts and ridicules the promises of politicians;
– With regard to precarious workers and the indignant, they do not have an identity based on work and the shadow of the future does not hang over them; for the survival of the nation-state the consequence is that in the more or less near future all societies will be a collection of diasporas.
Final Notes
Finally, by way of synthesis, four short brief notes on Zygmunt Bauman's eclectic thought.
First, the manifest divorce between politics (local) and power (global), that is, while politics is domestic and territorialized, power is global and extra-territorial. In the face of this, the nation-state as we know it is powerless. Real power is outside national borders. Domestic democracy is unconvincing, ineffective and dragged down by this crisis of the nation-state.
Second, domestic democracy is only now learning to deal with the digital universe, but the contradictions are numerous. Virtual communities online they are also extra-territorial and do not identify with the former royal communities offline.
Connected culture is a permanent bricolage, it is often a veritable caricature, public discourse is pure rhetoric, and public space is too fragmented to be representative and effective.
Thirdly, Zygmunt Bauman's philosophy and sociology is a philosophy and sociology of everyday life where sensitivity, empathy and happiness are far more important than theoretical and methodological purity. In its eclecticism, its sociology seeks to reconstruct all layers of reality and make its language accessible to all types of readers.
Last note, Zygmunt Bauman is very concerned with distraction and therefore with the “attention economy” or the “focus of attention”. The easy and quick access to the ocean of information that the internet and search engines provide is a real trap and must be taken carefully, weighed and measured. In the face of so many pieces of information, it is not surprising that there are attacks of impatience and a lot of irritation. It's another facet of liquid modernity.
Finally, as a university professor and frequent reader of Zygmunt Bauman, I cannot help suggesting that readers read the work of this great philosopher of modernity. I hope that Editora Relógio d'Agua will republish in 2017 all his work in Portugal.
Author António Covas is a full professor at the University of Algarve and a PhD in European Affairs from the Free University of Brussels
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