Zygmunt Bauman
Encyclopedia
Zygmunt Bauman
is a Polish
sociologist
who, since 1971, has resided in England after being driven out of Poland by an anti-Semitic campaign, engineered by the Communist government which he had previously supported. Professor of sociology at the University of Leeds
(and since 1990 emeritus
professor), Bauman has become best known for his analyses of the links between modernity
and the Holocaust, and of postmodern
consumerism
.
, Poland
, in 1925. When Poland was invaded by the Nazis in 1939 his family escaped eastwards into the Soviet Union. Bauman went on to serve in the Soviet-controlled Polish First Army
, working as a political education instructor and taking part in the battles of Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg) and Berlin
. In May 1945 he was awarded the Military Cross of Valour.
According to semi-official statements of a historian with the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
made in the conservative magazine Ozon in May 2006, from 1945 to 1953 Bauman held a similar function in the Internal Security Corps (KBW), a military unit formed to combat Ukrainian nationalist insurgents and part of the remnants of the Polish Home Army.
Bauman, the magazine states, distinguished himself as the leader of a unit that captured a large number of underground combatants. Further, the author cites evidence that Bauman worked as an informer for the Military Intelligence from 1945 to 1948. However, the nature and extent of his collaboration remain unknown, as well as the exact circumstances under which it was terminated.
In an interview in The Guardian
, Bauman confirmed that he had been a committed communist during and after World War II and had never made a secret of it. He admitted, however, that joining the military intelligence service at age 19 was a mistake even though he had a "dull" desk-job and did not remember informing on anyone.
While serving in the KBW, Bauman first studied sociology
at the Warsaw Academy of Social Sciences. He went on to study philosophy
at the University of Warsaw
- sociology had temporarily been cancelled from the Polish curriculum as a "bourgeois" discipline -, where his teachers included Stanisław Ossowski and Julian Hochfeld
.
In the KBW, Bauman had risen to the rank of major when he was suddenly dishonourably discharged in 1953, after his father approached the Israeli embassy in Warsaw with a view to emigrating to Israel
. As Bauman did not share his father's Zionist
tendencies and was indeed strongly anti-Zionist, his dismissal caused a severe, though temporary estrangement from his father. During the period of unemployment that followed, he completed his M.A. and in 1954 became a lecturer at the University of Warsaw
, where he remained until 1968.
During a stay at the London School of Economics
, where his supervisor was Robert McKenzie, he prepared a comprehensive study on the British
socialist
movement, his first major book. Published in Polish in 1959, a translated and revised edition appeared in English in 1972.
Bauman went on to publish other books, including Socjologia na co dzień ("Sociology for everyday life", 1964), which reached a large popular audience in Poland and later formed the foundation for the English-language text-book Thinking Sociologically (1990).
Initially, Bauman remained close to orthodox Marxist
doctrine, but influenced by Antonio Gramsci
and Georg Simmel
, he became increasingly critical of Poland's communist government. Because of this he was never awarded a professorship even after he completed his habilitation
but, after his former teacher Julian Hochfeld was made vice-director of UNESCO
's Department for Social Sciences in Paris in 1962, Bauman de facto inherited Hochfeld's chair.
Faced with increasing political pressure and the anti-Semitic
campaign led by Mieczysław Moczar, the Chief of the Polish Communist Secret Police, Bauman renounced his membership in the governing Polish United Workers' Party
in January 1968. With the March 1968 events, the anti-Semitic campaign culminated in a purge, which drove most remaining Poles of Jewish descent out of the country, including many intellectuals who had fallen from grace with the communist
government. Bauman, who had lost his chair at the University of Warsaw
, was among them. Having had to give up Polish citizenship to be allowed to leave the country, he first went to Israel
to teach at Tel Aviv University
, before accepting a chair in sociology at the University of Leeds
, where he intermittently also served as head of department. Since then, he has published almost exclusively in English, his third language, and his repute has grown exponentially. Indeed, from the late 1990s, Bauman exerted a considerable influence on the anti-
or alter-globalization
movement.
In a 2011 interview in the important Polish weekly "Polityka
" Bauman criticized Zionism
and Israel, saying Israel was not interested in peace and that it was "taking advantage of the Holocaust to legitimize unconscionable acts." He compared the Israeli West Bank barrier
to the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto
where hundreds of thousands of Jews died in the Holocaust. However, Bauman has failed to provide any evidence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs being systematically murdered. Israeli ambassador to Warsaw, Zvi Bar, called Bauman's comments "half truths" and "groundless generalizations."
Bauman was married to writer Janina Lewinson (she died on 29 December 2009 in Leeds) and has three daughters, painter Lydia Bauman, architect Irena Bauman, and Professor of mathematics education Anna Sfard. The noted Israeli civil rights lawyer Michael Sfard
is his grandson.
and its relationship to class and social stratification
, originally published in Poland in 1960. He continued to publish on the subject of class and social conflict until the early 1980s, with his last book on the subject being Memories of Class. Whilst his later books do not address issues of class directly, he continues to describe himself as a socialist
, and he has never rejected Marxism
entirely The Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci
in particular remains one of his most profound influences.
, bureaucracy, rationality and social exclusion. Bauman, following Freud
, came to view European modernity as a trade off; European society, he argued, had agreed to forego a level of freedom in order to receive the benefits of increased individual security. Bauman argued that modernity, in what he later came to term its 'solid' form, involved removing unknowns and uncertainties; it involved control over nature, hierarchical bureaucracy, rules and regulations, control and categorisation — all of which attempted to gradually remove personal insecurities, making the chaotic aspects of human life appear well-ordered and familiar. However, Bauman over a number of books began to develop the position that such order-making efforts never manage to achieve the desired results. When life becomes organised into familiar and manageable categories, he argued, there are always social groups who cannot be administered, who cannot be separated out and controlled. In his book Modernity and Ambivalence Bauman began to theorise such indeterminate persons by introducing the allegorical figure of 'the stranger.' Drawing upon the sociology of Georg Simmel
and the philosophy of Jacques Derrida
, Bauman came to write of the stranger as the person who is present yet unfamiliar, society's undecidable.
In Modernity and Ambivalence Bauman attempted to give an account of the different approaches modern society adopts toward the stranger. He argued that, on the one hand, in a consumer-oriented economy the strange and the unfamiliar is always enticing; in different styles of food, different fashions and in tourism it is possible to experience the allure of what is unfamiliar. Yet this strange-ness also has a more negative side. The stranger, because he cannot be controlled and ordered, is always the object of fear; he is the potential mugger, the person outside of society's borders who is constantly threatening. Bauman's most famous book, Modernity and the Holocaust, is an attempt to give a full account of the dangers of these kinds of fears. Drawing upon Hannah Arendt
and Theodor Adorno's books on totalitarianism and the Enlightenment, Bauman developed the argument that the Holocaust should not simply be considered to be an event in Jewish history, nor a regression to pre-modern barbarism. Rather, he argued, the Holocaust should be seen as deeply connected to modernity and its order-making efforts. Procedural rationality, the division of labour into smaller and smaller tasks, the taxonomic categorisation of different species, and the tendency to view rule-following as morally good all played their role in the Holocaust coming to pass. And he argued that for this reason modern societies have not fully taken on board the lessons of the Holocaust; it is generally viewed - to use Bauman's metaphor - like a picture hanging on a wall, offering few lessons. In Bauman's analysis the Jews became 'strangers' par excellence in Europe; the Final Solution was pictured by him as an extreme example of the attempts made by societies to excise the uncomfortable and indeterminate elements existing within them. Bauman, like the philosopher Giorgio Agamben
, contended that the same processes of exclusion that were at work in the Holocaust could, and to an extent do, still come into play today.
where he warned against a "liquid" society embracing relativism and instability in human relations.
in 1992 and the Theodor W. Adorno Award
of the city of Frankfurt
in 1998. He has been awarded in 2010, jointly with Alain Touraine
, the Príncipe de Asturias
Prize for Communication and the Humanities.
The University of Leeds
launched the The Bauman Institute within its School of Sociology and Social Policy in Bauman's honour in September 2010.
is a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
who, since 1971, has resided in England after being driven out of Poland by an anti-Semitic campaign, engineered by the Communist government which he had previously supported. Professor of sociology at the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
(and since 1990 emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...
professor), Bauman has become best known for his analyses of the links between modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
and the Holocaust, and of postmodern
Postmodernity
Postmodernity is generally used to describe the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist after modernity...
consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
.
Biography
Zygmunt Bauman was born to non-practising Polish-Jewish parents in PoznańPoznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, Poland
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
, in 1925. When Poland was invaded by the Nazis in 1939 his family escaped eastwards into the Soviet Union. Bauman went on to serve in the Soviet-controlled Polish First Army
First Polish Army (1944-1945)
The Polish First Army was a Polish Army unit formed in the Soviet Union in 1944, from the previously existing Polish I Corps as part of the People's Army of Poland . The First Army fought westward, subordinated to the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front, during the offensive against Germany that led to...
, working as a political education instructor and taking part in the battles of Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg) and Berlin
Battle of Berlin
The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II....
. In May 1945 he was awarded the Military Cross of Valour.
According to semi-official statements of a historian with the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with lustration prerogatives and prosecution powers founded by specific legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and...
made in the conservative magazine Ozon in May 2006, from 1945 to 1953 Bauman held a similar function in the Internal Security Corps (KBW), a military unit formed to combat Ukrainian nationalist insurgents and part of the remnants of the Polish Home Army.
Bauman, the magazine states, distinguished himself as the leader of a unit that captured a large number of underground combatants. Further, the author cites evidence that Bauman worked as an informer for the Military Intelligence from 1945 to 1948. However, the nature and extent of his collaboration remain unknown, as well as the exact circumstances under which it was terminated.
In an interview in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Bauman confirmed that he had been a committed communist during and after World War II and had never made a secret of it. He admitted, however, that joining the military intelligence service at age 19 was a mistake even though he had a "dull" desk-job and did not remember informing on anyone.
While serving in the KBW, Bauman first studied sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
at the Warsaw Academy of Social Sciences. He went on to study philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at the University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
- sociology had temporarily been cancelled from the Polish curriculum as a "bourgeois" discipline -, where his teachers included Stanisław Ossowski and Julian Hochfeld
Julian Hochfeld
Julian Hochfeld was a Polish sociologist. Professor of the University of Warsaw, he is remembered as a major contributor to theories of Polish communism, Marxism and socialism. In his last years he worked for UNESCO....
.
In the KBW, Bauman had risen to the rank of major when he was suddenly dishonourably discharged in 1953, after his father approached the Israeli embassy in Warsaw with a view to emigrating to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. As Bauman did not share his father's Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
tendencies and was indeed strongly anti-Zionist, his dismissal caused a severe, though temporary estrangement from his father. During the period of unemployment that followed, he completed his M.A. and in 1954 became a lecturer at the University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
, where he remained until 1968.
During a stay at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
, where his supervisor was Robert McKenzie, he prepared a comprehensive study on the British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
movement, his first major book. Published in Polish in 1959, a translated and revised edition appeared in English in 1972.
Bauman went on to publish other books, including Socjologia na co dzień ("Sociology for everyday life", 1964), which reached a large popular audience in Poland and later formed the foundation for the English-language text-book Thinking Sociologically (1990).
Initially, Bauman remained close to orthodox Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
doctrine, but influenced by Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
and Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel was a major German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach laid the foundations for sociological antipositivism, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?',...
, he became increasingly critical of Poland's communist government. Because of this he was never awarded a professorship even after he completed his habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
but, after his former teacher Julian Hochfeld was made vice-director of UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
's Department for Social Sciences in Paris in 1962, Bauman de facto inherited Hochfeld's chair.
Faced with increasing political pressure and the anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
campaign led by Mieczysław Moczar, the Chief of the Polish Communist Secret Police, Bauman renounced his membership in the governing Polish United Workers' Party
Polish United Workers' Party
The Polish United Workers' Party was the Communist party which governed the People's Republic of Poland from 1948 to 1989. Ideologically it was based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism.- The Party's Program and Goals :...
in January 1968. With the March 1968 events, the anti-Semitic campaign culminated in a purge, which drove most remaining Poles of Jewish descent out of the country, including many intellectuals who had fallen from grace with the communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
government. Bauman, who had lost his chair at the University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
, was among them. Having had to give up Polish citizenship to be allowed to leave the country, he first went to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
to teach at Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
, before accepting a chair in sociology at the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
, where he intermittently also served as head of department. Since then, he has published almost exclusively in English, his third language, and his repute has grown exponentially. Indeed, from the late 1990s, Bauman exerted a considerable influence on the anti-
Anti-globalization
Criticism of globalization is skepticism of the claimed benefits of the globalization of capitalism. Many of these views are held by the anti-globalization movement however other groups also are critical of the policies of globalization....
or alter-globalization
Alter-globalization
Alter-globalization is the name of a social movement that supports global cooperation and interaction, but which opposes the negative effects of economic globalization, feeling that it often works to the detriment of, or does not...
movement.
In a 2011 interview in the important Polish weekly "Polityka
Polityka
Polityka is a centre-left weekly newsmagazine in Poland. With a circulation of 170,000 it is the country's biggest selling weekly, ahead of Newsweek's Polish edition and Wprost. Today, the magazine has a slightly intellectual, social liberal profile, setting it apart from the more conservative...
" Bauman criticized Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
and Israel, saying Israel was not interested in peace and that it was "taking advantage of the Holocaust to legitimize unconscionable acts." He compared the Israeli West Bank barrier
Israeli West Bank barrier
The Israeli West Bank barrier is a separation barrier being constructed by the State of Israel along and within the West Bank. Upon completion, the barrier’s total length will be approximately...
to the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
where hundreds of thousands of Jews died in the Holocaust. However, Bauman has failed to provide any evidence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs being systematically murdered. Israeli ambassador to Warsaw, Zvi Bar, called Bauman's comments "half truths" and "groundless generalizations."
Bauman was married to writer Janina Lewinson (she died on 29 December 2009 in Leeds) and has three daughters, painter Lydia Bauman, architect Irena Bauman, and Professor of mathematics education Anna Sfard. The noted Israeli civil rights lawyer Michael Sfard
Michael Sfard
Michael Sfard, , is a lawyer specializing in international human rights law and the laws of war. He has served as counsel in numerous important cases on these topics in Israel. Sfard is identified with the left and has represented many left wing and Palestinian organizations at the Israeli Supreme...
is his grandson.
Work
Bauman's published work extends to 57 books and well over a hundred articles. Most of these address a number of common themes, among which are globalization, modernity and postmodernity, consumerism, and morality.Early work
Bauman's earliest publication in English is a study of the British labour movementLabour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
and its relationship to class and social stratification
Social stratification
In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...
, originally published in Poland in 1960. He continued to publish on the subject of class and social conflict until the early 1980s, with his last book on the subject being Memories of Class. Whilst his later books do not address issues of class directly, he continues to describe himself as a socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, and he has never rejected Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
entirely The Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
in particular remains one of his most profound influences.
Modernity and rationality
In the late 1980s and early 1990s Bauman published a number of books that dealt with the relationship between modernityModernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
, bureaucracy, rationality and social exclusion. Bauman, following Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, came to view European modernity as a trade off; European society, he argued, had agreed to forego a level of freedom in order to receive the benefits of increased individual security. Bauman argued that modernity, in what he later came to term its 'solid' form, involved removing unknowns and uncertainties; it involved control over nature, hierarchical bureaucracy, rules and regulations, control and categorisation — all of which attempted to gradually remove personal insecurities, making the chaotic aspects of human life appear well-ordered and familiar. However, Bauman over a number of books began to develop the position that such order-making efforts never manage to achieve the desired results. When life becomes organised into familiar and manageable categories, he argued, there are always social groups who cannot be administered, who cannot be separated out and controlled. In his book Modernity and Ambivalence Bauman began to theorise such indeterminate persons by introducing the allegorical figure of 'the stranger.' Drawing upon the sociology of Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel was a major German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach laid the foundations for sociological antipositivism, asking 'What is society?' in a direct allusion to Kant's question 'What is nature?',...
and the philosophy of Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
, Bauman came to write of the stranger as the person who is present yet unfamiliar, society's undecidable.
In Modernity and Ambivalence Bauman attempted to give an account of the different approaches modern society adopts toward the stranger. He argued that, on the one hand, in a consumer-oriented economy the strange and the unfamiliar is always enticing; in different styles of food, different fashions and in tourism it is possible to experience the allure of what is unfamiliar. Yet this strange-ness also has a more negative side. The stranger, because he cannot be controlled and ordered, is always the object of fear; he is the potential mugger, the person outside of society's borders who is constantly threatening. Bauman's most famous book, Modernity and the Holocaust, is an attempt to give a full account of the dangers of these kinds of fears. Drawing upon Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
and Theodor Adorno's books on totalitarianism and the Enlightenment, Bauman developed the argument that the Holocaust should not simply be considered to be an event in Jewish history, nor a regression to pre-modern barbarism. Rather, he argued, the Holocaust should be seen as deeply connected to modernity and its order-making efforts. Procedural rationality, the division of labour into smaller and smaller tasks, the taxonomic categorisation of different species, and the tendency to view rule-following as morally good all played their role in the Holocaust coming to pass. And he argued that for this reason modern societies have not fully taken on board the lessons of the Holocaust; it is generally viewed - to use Bauman's metaphor - like a picture hanging on a wall, offering few lessons. In Bauman's analysis the Jews became 'strangers' par excellence in Europe; the Final Solution was pictured by him as an extreme example of the attempts made by societies to excise the uncomfortable and indeterminate elements existing within them. Bauman, like the philosopher Giorgio Agamben
Giorgio Agamben
Giorgio Agamben is an Italian political philosopher best known for his work investigating the concepts of the state of exception and homo sacer....
, contended that the same processes of exclusion that were at work in the Holocaust could, and to an extent do, still come into play today.
Postmodernity and consumerism
In the mid and late 1990s Bauman's books began to look at two different but interrelated subjects: postmodernity and consumerism. Bauman began to develop the position that a shift had taken place in modern society in the latter half of the 20th century - it had altered from being a society of producers to a society of consumers. This switch, Bauman argued, reversed Freud's 'modern' trade-off: this time security was given up in order to enjoy increased freedom, freedom to purchase, to consume, and to enjoy life. In his books in the 1990s Bauman wrote of this shift as being a shift from 'modernity' to 'post-modernity'. Since the turn of the millennium, his books have tried to avoid the confusion surrounding the term 'postmodernity' by using the metaphors of 'liquid' and 'solid' modernity. In his books on modern consumerism Bauman still writes of the same uncertainties that he portrayed in his writings on 'solid' modernity; but in these books he writes of these fears being more diffuse and harder to pin down. Indeed they are, to use the title of one of his books, 'liquid fears' - fears about paedophilia, for instance, which are amorphous and which have no easily identifiable referent.Liquid modernity
Liquid modernity is Bauman's term for the present condition of the world as contrasted with the "solid" modernity that preceded it. According to Bauman, the passage from "solid" to "liquid" modernity has created a new and unprecedented setting for individual life pursuits, confronting individuals with a series of challenges never before encountered. Social forms and institutions no longer have enough time to solidify and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long-term life plans, so individuals have to find other ways to organise their lives. Individuals have to splice together an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don't add up to the kind of sequence to which concepts like "career" and "progress" could be meaningfully applied. Such fragmented lives require individuals to be flexible and adaptable — to be constantly ready and willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of endemic uncertainty. Pope Benedict XVI contested this view in his speech in May 2011May 2011
May 2011 was the fifth month of the current year. It began on a Sunday and ended after 31 days on a Tuesday.- Portal:Current events :This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from May 2011....
where he warned against a "liquid" society embracing relativism and instability in human relations.
Awards and honours
Bauman was awarded the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social SciencesEuropean Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences
The European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences is a prestigious Italian award in the social sciences...
in 1992 and the Theodor W. Adorno Award
Theodor W. Adorno Award
The Theodor W. Adorno Award is a highly prestigious German award for outstanding achievement in philosophy, theatre, music, and film. It was established by the city of Frankfurt in 1977 to commemorate the sociologist and philosopher Theodor Adorno, who had taught at the University of Frankfurt for...
of the city of Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
in 1998. He has been awarded in 2010, jointly with Alain Touraine
Alain Touraine
Alain Touraine is a French sociologist born in Hermanville-sur-Mer. He is research director at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, where he founded the Centre d'étude des mouvements sociaux . He is best known for being the originator of the term "post-industrial society"...
, the Príncipe de Asturias
Asturias
The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages...
Prize for Communication and the Humanities.
The University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
launched the The Bauman Institute within its School of Sociology and Social Policy in Bauman's honour in September 2010.
Warsaw period
- 1957: Zagadnienia centralizmu demokratycznego w pracach Lenina [Questions of Democratic Centralism in Lenin's Works]. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza.
- 1959: Socjalizm brytyjski: Źródła, filozofia, doktryna polityczna [British Socialism: Sources, Philosophy, Political Doctrine]. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.
- 1960: Klasa, ruch, elita: Studium socjologiczne dziejów angielskiego ruchu robotniczego [Class, Movement, Elite: A Sociological Study on the History of the British Labour Movement]. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.
- 1960: Z dziejów demokratycznego ideału [From the History of the Democratic Ideal]. Warszawa: Iskry.
- 1960: Kariera: cztery szkice socjologiczne [Career: Four Sociological Sketches]. Warszawa: Iskry.
- 1961: Z zagadnień współczesnej socjologii amerykańskiej [Questions of Modern American Sociology]. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza.
- 1962 (with Szymon Chodak, Juliusz Strojnowski, Jakub Banaszkiewicz): Systemy partyjne współczesnego kapitalizmu [The Party Systems of Modern Capitalism]. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza.
- 1962: Spoleczeństwo, w ktorym żyjemy [The Society We Live In]. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza.
- 1962: Zarys socjologii. Zagadnienia i pojęcia [Outline of Sociology. Questions and Concepts]. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.
- 1963: Idee, ideały, ideologie [Ideas, Ideals, Ideologies]. Warszawa: Iskry.
- 1964: Zarys marksistowskiej teorii spoleczeństwa [Outline of the Marxist Theory of Society]. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.
- 1964: Socjologia na co dzień [Sociology for Everyday Life]. Warszawa: Iskry.
- 1965: Wizje ludzkiego świata. Studia nad społeczną genezą i funkcją socjologii [Visions of a Human World: Studies on the social genesis and the function of sociology]. Warszawa: Książka i Wiedza.
- 1966: Kultura i społeczeństwo. Preliminaria [Culture and Society, Preliminaries]. Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe.
Leeds period
- 1972: Between Class and Elite. The Evolution of the British Labour Movement. A Sociological Study. Manchester: Manchester University Press ISBN 0-7190-0502-7 (Polish original 1960)
- 1973: Culture as Praxis. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7619-5989-0
- 1976: Socialism: The Active Utopia. New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers. ISBN 0-8419-0240-2
- 1976: Towards a Critical Sociology: An Essay on Common-Sense and Emancipation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7100-8306-8
- 1978: Hermeneutics and Social Science: Approaches to Understanding. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-132531-5
- 1982: Memories of Class: The Pre-history and After-life of Class. London/Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7100-9196-6
- c1985 Stalin and the peasant revolution: a case study in the dialectics of master and slave. Leeds: University of Leeds Department of Sociology. ISBN 0-907427-18-9
- 1987: Legislators and interpreters - On Modernity, Post-Modernity, Intellectuals. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University PressCornell University PressThe Cornell University Press, established in 1869 but inactive from 1884 to 1930, was the first university publishing enterprise in the United States.A division of Cornell University, it is housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage....
. ISBN 0-8014-2104-7 - 1988: Freedom. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-15592-8
- 1989: Modernity and The Holocaust. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press 1989. ISBN 0-8014-2397-X
- 1990: Paradoxes of Assimilation. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
- 1990: Thinking Sociologically. An introduction for Everyone. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-16361-1
- 1991: Modernity and Ambivalence. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University PressCornell University PressThe Cornell University Press, established in 1869 but inactive from 1884 to 1930, was the first university publishing enterprise in the United States.A division of Cornell University, it is housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage....
. ISBN 0-8014-2603-0 - 1992: Intimations of Postmodernity. London, New York: Routhledge. ISBN 0-415-06750-2
- 1992: Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-1016-1 - 1993: Postmodern Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-18693-X
- 1994: Dwa szkice o moralności ponowoczesnej [Two sketches on postmodern morality]. Warszawa: IK.
- 1995: Life in Fragments. Essays in Postmodern Morality. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19267-0
- 1996: Alone Again - Ethics After Certainty. London: Demos. ISBN 1-898309-40-X
- 1997: Postmodernity and its discontents. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-7456-1791-3
- 1995: Ciało i przemoc w obliczu ponowoczesności [Body and Violence in the Face of Postmodernity]. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika. ISBN 83-231-0654-1
- 1997: (with Roman Kubicki, Anna Zeidler-Janiszewska) Humanista w ponowoczesnym świecie - rozmowy o sztuce życia, nauce, życiu sztuki i innych sprawach [A Humanist in the Postmodern World - Conversations on the Art of Life, Science, the Life of Art and Other Matters]. Warszawa: Zysk i S-ka. ISBN 83-7150-313-X
- 1998: Work, consumerism and the new poor. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-20155-5
- 1998: Globalization: The Human Consequences. New York: Columbia University PressColumbia University PressColumbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
. ISBN 0-7456-2012-4 - 1999: In Search of Politics. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-2172-4 - 2000: Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
ISBN 0-7456-2409-X - (2000 [ed. by Peter BeilharzPeter BeilharzPeter Beilharz is an Australian sociologist. Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Beilharz is also a co-founder and editor of the international journal of social theory Thesis Eleven: critical theory and historical sociology published by Sage...
]: The Bauman Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-21492-5) - 2001: Community. Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-2634-3 - 2001: The Individualized Society. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-2506-1 - 2001 (with Keith Tester): Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-2664-5 - 2001 (with Tim May): Thinking Sociologically, 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-21929-3
- 2002: Society Under Siege. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-2984-9 - 2003: Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-2489-8 - 2003: City of fears, city of hopes. London: Goldsmith's College. ISBN 1-904158-37-4
- 2004: Wasted Lives. Modernity and its Outcasts. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-3164-9 - 2004: Europe: An Unfinished Adventure. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-3403-6 - 2004: Identity: Conversations with Benedetto Vecchi. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-3308-0 - 2005: Liquid Life. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-3514-8 - 2006: Liquid Fear. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-3680-2 - 2006: Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-3987-9 - 2006: Moralność w niestabilnym świecie [Morality in an instable world]. Poznań: Księgarnia św. Wojciecha. ISBN 83-7015-863-3
- 2007: Consuming Life. Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-4002-8 - 2008: Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
. ISBN 0-6740-2780-9 - 2008: The Art of Life. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN 0-7456-4326-4
- 2009: Living on Borrowed Time: Conversations with Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN 978-0745647388
- 2009: (with Roman Kubicki, Anna Zeidler-Janiszewska) Życie w kontekstach. Rozmowy o tym, co za nami i o tym, co przed nami. [Life in contexts. Conversations about what lies behind us and what lies ahead of us.] Warszawa: WAiP. ISBN 978-83-614-0877-2
- 2011: Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age. Cambridge: Polity. ISBN 978-0745652948
Books on Bauman
- 1995: Richard Kilminster, Ian Varcoe (eds.), Culture,Modernity and Revolution: Essays in Honour of Zygmunt Bauman. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415082668
- 2000: Peter BeilharzPeter BeilharzPeter Beilharz is an Australian sociologist. Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Beilharz is also a co-founder and editor of the international journal of social theory Thesis Eleven: critical theory and historical sociology published by Sage...
, Zygmunt Bauman: Dialectic of Modernity. London: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-6735-4 - 2000: Dennis Smith, Zygmunt Bauman: Prophet of Postmodernity (Key Contemporary Thinkers). Cambridge: PolityPolity (publisher)Polity is an international publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It publishes around 100 books a year in sociology, politics, philosophy, media and cultural studies, health studies, literary studies, history, anthropology and related subjects. Its books range from core textbooks for...
. ISBN 0-7456-1899-5 - 2004: Keith Tester, The Social Thought of Zygmunt Bauman. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 1-4039-1271-8
- 2005: Tony Blackshaw, Zygmunt Bauman (Key Sociologists). London/New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-35504-4
- 2006: Keith Tester, Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Bauman Before Postmodernity: Invitation, Conversations and Annotated Bibliography 1953-1989. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. ISBN 87-7307-738-0
- 2007: Keith Tester, Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Sophia Marshman, Bauman Beyond Postmodernity: Conversations, Critiques and Annotated Bibliography 1989-2005. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. ISBN 87-7307-783-6
- 2007: Anthony Elliott (ed.), The Contemporary Bauman. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415409691
- 2008: Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Poul Poder (eds.), The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman: Challenges and Critique. London: Ashgate. ISBN 0754670600.
- 2008: Mark Davis, Freedom and Consumerism: A Critique of Zygmunt Bauman's Sociology. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-7271-5.
- 2010: Mark Davis, Keith Tester (eds), Bauman's Challenge: Sociological Issues for the 21st Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230221345
External links
- The Bauman Institute. University of Leeds, UK.
- Regular columns by Zygmunt Bauman. Social Europe Journal.
- Inhumanity is part of human nature, English, in wwww.salon.eu.sk, first published in Gazeta Wyborcza, May 2009
- Posts by Zygmunt Bauman. The Bauman Institute.
- Free full-text download of Alone Again – Ethics After Certainty (1996) from the official publisher Demos (PDF)
- Europe of Strangers – Oxford University Transnational Communities Programme Working Paper (PDF, 41 kB)
- Culture in a Globalised City – Zygmunt Bauman's contribution to Occupied London
- "Does ethics have a chance in a world of consumers?" – Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, 2009 - "The Global Factory of Wasted Humans." A filmed conference of Z. Bauman published 2003 on the French video portal "Audiovisual Research Archive"
- Review of Consuming Life, Barcelona MetropolisBarcelona MetropolisBarcelona Metrópolis is a magazine of urban information and thought dedicated to monitoring the evolution of the city of Barcelona.Barcelona...
, 2010. - Bauman talks about democracy, Facebook and other contemporary issues in a 30 minutes interview, 2011
- Video: The Ambiance of Uncertainty - Interview on Reset - Dialogues on Civilizations