Zygmunt Bauman and Liquid Modernity (Posmodernity) PDF

POSMODERNITY: Zygmunt Bauman, analyst of the "liquid" society Rafael Gómez Pérez (Aceprensa), Dec. 2016 Zygmunt Bauman is perhaps the most widely read of today's "philosophical" sociologists. He has become famous for his analysis of the post-modern mentality, which he describes as "liquid", with an...

POSMODERNITY: Zygmunt Bauman, analyst of the "liquid" society Rafael Gómez Pérez (Aceprensa), Dec. 2016 Zygmunt Bauman is perhaps the most widely read of today's "philosophical" sociologists. He has become famous for his analysis of the post-modern mentality, which he describes as "liquid", with an intuition that he applies to various dimensions of society. His latest book, Strangers at Our Door, has just appeared [in Spanish,] on waves of migration and the problems of refugees, a subject he had already dealt with in Archipelago of exceptions (2005) and other works. Bauman, in his youth, was a communist. According to his account, his reading of Antonio Gramsci helped him to reject Soviet orthodoxy, without disavowing Marx, but adopting a socialism that had to take into account the changes that had occurred in social, economic and cultural life, new sensibilities and the fall of the Gulag universe. A man of wide and diverse readings, he is able to say that he has learned more from Italo Calvino, specifically in Invisible Cities, than from anywhere else. Because Calvino, with his imagination, was able to predict what the future would be like. Destructive efficiency Zygmunt Bauman has been able to combine social history, sociology and philosophy (in which Lévinas' influence is evident) for an analysis of modernity, starting, like other Jewish writers (Hannah Arendt or Theodor Adorno), from the confrontation of the alleged ideals of Modernity with the tragic reality that was the Holocaust. At Modernity and the Holocaust (1988) Bauman identified a necessary (nothing is necessary in history) but predictable fact: the tendency of Modernity to efficiently organise its capacity for destruction. In fact, this breakdown of Modernity already occurred in the war of 1914-1918, which made Paul Valéry write the famous phrase that "we now know that civilizations are mortal". It has been known all along. Bauman's fame comes mainly from a 1999 book, Liquid Modernity which is what he calls what others mean by postmodernity. With Modernity exhausted, with the end of confidence (as Lyotard had written) in the great ideological narratives (liberalism, communism), sensibilities are turning towards the fluid instead of the solid, nomadism instead of a sedentary lifestyle, throwaway consumption, throwaway relationships, the economic powers of globalization — which renders the "local states" impotent—, the collateral damage caused by the marginalization of life, the moral blindness which prevents the consistency of community values... From 1999 to the present day, Bauman has not ceased to explore the same thesis, dealing with it from different points of view: the economy, culture, art, time, love, education, ethics, etc., and now, refugees. 1 These are relatively pleasant books, although he sometimes gets entangled in that kind of circular thinking (very Polish, it seems) which makes it somewhat difficult to follow him. The liquid Bauman has created a happy image —the liquid— to encompass a series of phenomena that are there and that had already been studied by others (Bourdieu, Bell, Touraine, Lyotard, Lipovetsky, etc.). One of the most pronounced features is a new kind of individualism: an individualism that is both by choice and necessity, because society, not that it "does not exist", as Margaret Thatcher said, but that it has lost its incarnation and produces more and more marginalized people. At the same time, many people think the opposite is true, thanks, for example, to social networks. But, as Bauman rightly points out, these networks, while useful, are also a trap. To have friends from these networks is not to be in community, because the undisputed head of this supposed community is the one who admits or deletes those he or she wishes. Virtual easily surpass the real. Although it is first and foremost the offline that drives young people to be constantly on the move, such pressures would be useless without the electronic capacity to multiply interpersonal encounters, which gives them a fleeting, disposable, and superficial character. Virtual relationships are equipped with the keys to delete and spam that protect from the heavy consequences (above all, the loss of time) of in-depth interaction". Bauman also points to the paradox that, in an age of abundant media, such communication results not in union but in fragmentation. Life, work, leisure are fragmented, all seen as individual goods without the horizon of a human totality. He speaks of a "rampant individualism" where everyone plays his or her own game. Postmodern fear Another characteristic of postmodernity is "liquid" fear. Once again, Bauman sees it as a consequence of the breakdown of Modernity. In Modernity, it was thought that thanks to reason, science, technology and progress, humanity was already moving decisively towards widespread social happiness. Now, on the other hand, there is a changing fear, which one would like to forget, but cannot, because there are the natural disasters (Bauman devotes much attention to the consequences of Katrina) and the very calculated but, for the victims, unpredictable attacks of Islamic jihadism. Thus, a society that claims the "liquidity" of the absence of durable commitments is instead besieged by durable fears. At Multiple Cultures, One Humanity, Bauman discusses an old and well-known theme, but today somewhat obscured by the insistence on multiculturalism. This insistence is "liquid", because multiculturalism is used to justify any approach with the explanation that "it is the way of that culture". While stating the obvious, that all humans are of the same race, multiculturalism paradoxically leads to the marking of identity boundaries, resulting in a globalized and 2 fragmented world at the same time. Fear of the stranger, of the different, of the outsider has not only not disappeared, but tends to grow. Pessimism The basic thesis —"liquidity"— has not changed; the numerous subsequent books only bring nuances, developments and, why not point out, many repetitions. There is a certain infatuation with this liquidity of which he has become both a critic and a propagandist. His terror of the solid means that sometimes his proposals are also somewhat liquid. Bauman's account of "liquidity" is substantially true, but more so in today's Western culture than in others. For example, it is difficult to describe Islam as "liquid" and easy to see it as "solid", even pre-modern. When it comes to providing solutions to a generally pessimistic diagnosis, Bauman stops, almost becomes "liquid". In what follows I try to outline what could be a path towards, not the "solidity" of rationalist and "progressive" Modernity, but towards the constitution of true communitarian networks. Sum of attitudes Bauman does not say —at least not clearly enough— that authentic community (both in the ought to be and in reality, when it occurs) is the result of valuable individual actions, of love in the strict sense, of caring for the other as much as for myself. It is the sum of these valuable attitudes that builds any community worthy of man. A community that can bear neither injustice, nor exploitation, nor marginalization. When he refers to socialism, Bauman alludes to something similar to what was at the origin of the young Marx's indignation, but which later, in theory, gave way to the humanization that collectivism brings with it. A community is not really a community if it is not for the good of each of its members; that is what I have tried to show in Fragmented Reality. The individual and institutions. There will always be individuality because actions always belong to the individual; what is important is that these individual actions do not turn into egoism, whether "solid" or "liquid", but into a fair and friendly consideration of the other and his or her needs. Bauman already said something of this in Postmodern Ethics (1993), when, after many subtleties, not always clear, he stated: "We increasingly understand that it must be the moral capacity of human beings that makes them capable of forming societies". Or, even more clearly: "Individual responsibility, the last bastion and hope of morality". Although at that time Bauman did not yet speak of "liquidity". Whatever the evils of globalisation, the remedy does not lie in "global" solutions. Just as globalisation is the result of a sum of self-interested and sometimes unfair policies and decisions, but always taken by individuals, a "global" solution must be the sum of fair and equitable actions. A globally just world, or at least one that tends towards it, requires something like a "conversion" 3 to justice of a sufficient number of individuals, especially those who hold economic and, indirectly but effectively, political power. Justice alone is not enough It must be borne in mind that, as has always been the case, justice, while indispensable, is not enough. There must also be mercy, as Pope Francis continually emphasizes in a clear-cut way, in the wake of Christian truth. There is no "all-embracing" mercy, but concrete acts of mercy, which Christian catechetics has individualised into "seven corporal" and "seven spiritual". In his work Moral Blindness written together with Lithuanian political scientist Leonidas Donskis, Bauman speaks of "the possibility of the rediscovery of a sense of belonging as a viable alternative to fragmentation, atomisation and the resulting loss of sensibility". This is true, but it is not unique to 'liquid' modernity. The sense of belonging (to a community) is not and never has been spontaneous, but is an individual, personal and reciprocal work of building real bonds of justice and love. The first place of this construction is the family; that is why the "liquidation" of the family is the main obstacle to the creation of a sense of belonging. By criticizing both "the solid" —the previous Modernity— and "the liquid", one can come to the conclusion that any solidity is a negative thing. I think Bauman would not be against a solid sense of belonging in which individuals are recognized and their rights guaranteed. Solidity is a quality that can be found in the bad as well as in the good. Alongside many good points, I have seen in Bauman's work some shortcomings, perhaps because he is a good sociologist but not such a good philosopher. All in all, he is still one of the best witnesses and analysts of what is happening to us in the West. 4