Remembering Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) (original) (raw)
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The present paper examines the moral aspects of solidarity as expressed by the work of Zygmunt Bauman. Influenced by Emmanuel Levinas and drawing upon Sigmund Freud, Hannah Arendt, Georg Simmel and Jacques Derrida, the Polish sociologist presents the relationship between the principle of solidarity and globalization as a conflicting one. In an attempt to delineate the main determinants of Bauman’s thought, we distinguish between two axes, one supportive of the idea of solidarity as prerequisite of a viable political community (together with the principles of Freedom and Difference) and another illustrating the way globalization puts obstacles to its function. More analytically, the arguments for the idea of solidarity are based in: i) the Kantian perspective that a perfect unification of the human species through common citizenship is the destiny Nature has chosen for us, since we all move on the surface of a spherical planet ii) the Levinasian definition of morality as being responsible for the Other’s well- being and iii) Karl Jaspers’ theory on metaphysical guilt, which asserts that the postulate of absolute human solidarity is the foundation stone of all morality and undetachable from a moral stance. Concerning the negative consequences of globalization, the Polish sociologist points out as obstacles to the solidarity i) the fact that the forces of globalization, consumerism and postmodernism have made people into individualized individuals, multiple units of self-identification that have more interest in consumption than citizenship ii) the deep-seated suspicion of the Other that has become the condition sine qua non of human interaction in “liquid life” and iii) the fear of becoming human waste in an ever changing world. Thus, it is interesting to follow Bauman’s thought, considering his insight that solidarity is grounded in a belief that non practicing solidarity leads to Auschwitz.
Zygmunt Bauman: On what it means to be included
Power and Education
Although Zygmunt Bauman has written very little directly about education, his underpinning ideas on the transition from solid to liquid modernity, the mechanisms of social exclusion, the Other and the stranger have had a significant impact on education research. Taking his starting point from a questionable secular reading of Emmanuel Levinas’s contribution to ethics, Bauman’s account of social exclusion has become well respected. The social forces described by Bauman are always external to the individual in Bauman’s social analysis of suffering in that it places no emphasis on the culpability of other human agents as the cause of the Other’s suffering. This article identifies this underemphasis on human agency as a flaw in Bauman’s analysis and evaluates Bauman’s largely ignored and problematic understanding of inclusion, in which social inclusion and exclusion are based on the same mechanisms and identified as two sides of the same coin central for maintaining social solidarity.
Cosmopolitan perspective in the work of Zygmunt Bauman
The theoretical legacy of Zygmunt Bauman is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for sociological analysis, particularly bearing in mind the scope of his work and the diverse range of modern day problems that this British-Polish author dealt with. The first part of this article examines the question of personal identity in liquid modernity, which is the starting point of Bauman's work. Similar to some other authors, Bauman discusses the paradox of the individual who is not free in an individualized society. Bauman's diagnosis carries pessimistic features which in some places correspond to insights developed in classical sociology. Bauman makes occasional and sporadic incursions into the pitfalls of conservative thought, particularly in relation to the dichotomies of individual versus community, individualism versus togetherness, and egoism versus solidarity. However, it seems that the author manages to skilfully avoid the inherent theoretical traps of sociology, turning towards cosmopolitan theory. The second part of this article presents the thesis that Bauman's thought is in fact cosmopolitan , especially bearing in mind his final public appearances and writings. This argument is based in his description of global society that is simultaneously integrating and developing, and dramatically disintegrating and regressing. Bauman writes about violent killings and expulsions of people in the 21 st century and their inability to find refuge in the Western and democratic world that promotes human
Rethinking Democracy, Rethinking State. A Conversation with Zygmunt Bauman
Recerca. Revista de Pensament i Anàlisi, 2013
Zygmunt Bauman, professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds and, since 1990, emeritus professor, has developed key concepts for the understanding of fundamental issues of today’s world, such as liquid modernity, time, space and disorder, individualism versus community, globalization and consumer’s culture, love and identity, etc. His analyses of the links between modernity, Holocaust, democracy and social politics were the principal subject of the following interview, which was conducted by Vicente Ordóñez and Vicent Sanz on the occasion of Zygmunt Bauman’s recent visit to Spain.
Zygmunt Bauman – The wicked openness of society
СОЦИОЛОШКИ ДИСКУРС
In this paper, we will analyze Zygmunt Bauman’s understanding ofthe idea and the reality of “open” society in the age of “negative globalization”.He identified many adverse and undesirable effects of thissocial process, and as the basic one he names the “openness” of modernsocieties. Under the influence of devastating powers of globalization,the “openness” of societies has turned into its perverted contradiction,to use Karl Popper’s definition of this notion. In order to understandBauman’s point of view, we will analyze: a general meaning of theidea of an open society, its manifestations in reality and assumptionsregarding it. In the addition, we will investigate a distinction betweenan open and closed society made by Karl Popper.