Beyond Bauman: Critical Engagements and Creative Excursions 2016022527, 9781472476111, 9781315569178

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Beyond Bauman

Bringing together leading interpreters of Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology, this volume thinks with and beyond Bauman’s work in order to show its continued relevance as a theory in its own right, as an object of criticism and as a stepping stone towards a fuller understanding of contemporary society. The volume deals with some proposed omissions and absences in Bauman’s sociology, with chapters comparing Bauman’s ideas to those of other prominent social thinkers as well as chapters devoted to teasing out some problems and pitfalls in his work. Paying attention to central concepts and themes of Bauman’s thought, authors engage with various aspects of his work, considering potential deficiencies in his ethical perspective, his neglect of the religious dimensions of modernity, his lack of consideration for ethnicity and gender, his overlooking the importance of socialisation in liquid modernity and his problematic argument for individual choice and freedom in a world that is increasingly closed down by consumer capitalism. Beyond Bauman aspires to show that despite Bauman’s status as a key sociological thinker, there are also certain deficiencies in his work that demand critical discussion. It will be of use to scholars of sociology, contemporary society, social theory and modernity. Michael Hviid Jacobsen is Professor of Sociology at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has published extensively on the sociology of Zygmunt Bauman.

Classical and Contemporary Social Theory Series Editor: Stjepan G. Mestrovic, Texas A&M University, USA

Classical and Contemporary Social Theory publishes rigorous scholarly work that re-discovers the relevance of social theory for contemporary times, demonstrating the enduring importance of theory for modern social issues. The series covers social theory in a broad sense, inviting contributions on both ‘classical’ and modern theory, thus encompassing sociology, without being confined to a single discipline. As such, work from across the social sciences is welcome, provided that volumes address the social context of particular issues, subjects, or figures and offer new understandings of social reality and the contribution of a theorist or school to our understanding of it. The series considers significant new appraisals of established thinkers or schools, comparative works or contributions that discuss a particular social issue or phenomenon in relation to the work of specific theorists or theoretical approaches. Contributions are welcome that assess broad strands of thought within certain schools or across the work of a number of thinkers, but always with an eye toward contributing to contemporary understandings of social issues and contexts. Diagnostic Cultures A Cultural Approach to the Pathologization of Modern Life Svend Brinkmann

David Riesman’s Unpublished Writings and Continuing Legacy Edited by Keith Kerr, B. Garrick Harden and Marcus Aldredge

C. Wright Mills and the Criminological Imagination Prospects for Creative Inquiry Edited by Jon Frauley

Max Weber’s Theory of Modernity The Endless Pursuit of Meaning Michael Symonds

Fiction and Social Reality Literature and Narrative as Sociological Resources Mariano Longo

Sociological Amnesia Cross-currents in Disciplinary History Edited by Alex Law and Eric Royal Lybeck

A Sociology of the Total Organization Atomistic Unity in the French Foreign Legion Mikaela Sundberg Being Human in a Consumer Society Alejandro Néstor García Martínez Arendt Contra Sociology Theory, Society and its Science Philip Walsh Hegel’s Phenomenology and Foucault’s Genealogy Evangelia Sembou The Poetics of Crime Understanding and Researching Crime and Deviance Through Creative Sources Edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen Marx and Weber on Oriental Societies In the Shadow of Western Modernity Lutfi Sunar Imaginative Methodologies in the Social Sciences Creativity, Poetics and Rhetoric in Social Research Edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Michael S. Drake, Kieran Keohane and Anders Petersen The Gift and its Paradoxes Beyond Mauss Olli Pyyhtinen The Puritan Culture of America’s Military U.S. Army War Crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan Ronald Lorenzo

Violence, Society and Radical Theory Bataille, Baudrillard and Contemporary Society William Pawlett A Genealogy of Social Violence Founding Murder, Rawlsian Fairness, and the Future of the Family Clint Jones Liquid Sociology Metaphor in Zygmunt Bauman’s Analysis of Modernity Mark Davis Torture, Intelligence and Sousveillance in the War on Terror Agenda-Building Struggles Vian Bakir The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization Edited by Kieran Keohane and Anders Petersen Utopia Social Theory and the Future Edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester Fall Girls Gender and the Framing of Torture at Abu Ghraib Ryan Ashley Caldwell Beyond Bauman Critical Engagements and Creative Excursions Edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen

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Beyond Bauman Critical engagements and creative excursions

YORK YORK

Edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen

LONDON LONDON LONDON LONDON

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 selection and editorial matter, Michael Hviid Jacobsen; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Michael Hviid Jacobsen to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Jacobsen, Michael Hviid, 1971- editor. Title: Beyond Bauman : critical engagements and creative excursions / Michael Hviid Jacobsen (editor). Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Classical and contemporary social theory | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016022527| ISBN 9781472476111 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315569178 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Bauman, Zygmunt, 1925- | Sociology. Classification: LCC HM479.B39 B49 2017 | DDC 301--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022527 ISBN: 978-1-4724-7611-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-56917-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

List of contributors Preface and acknowledgements Introduction: Critical engagements and creative excursions with a contemporary sociological icon(oclast)

ix xii

1

MICHAEL HVIID JACOBSEN

1 Aesthetic and relational ethics: Beyond Bauman’s postmodern ethics

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NICHOLAS HOOKWAY AND DOUGLAS EZZY

2 Voice and the generalised other in the ethical writings of Zygmunt Bauman

46

SHAUN BEST

3 Race, imperialism and gender in Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology: Partial absences, serious consequences

65

ALI RATTANSI

4 The inevitable clerisy: A postsecular critique of Zygmunt Bauman

86

JOHN MILBANK

5 Critical theory old and new: Theodor W. Adorno meets Zygmunt Bauman in the shopping mall

107

MICHAEL HVIID JACOBSEN AND CLAUS D. HANSEN

6 Not yet: Probing the potentials and problems in the utopian understandings of Ernst Bloch and Zygmunt Bauman

136

MARTIN AIDNIK AND MICHAEL HVIID JACOBSEN

7 Exploring modernity’s hidden agenda in Europe: The complementary contributions of Zygmunt Bauman and Ernest Gellner DENNIS SMITH

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Contents

8 ‘Getting to Norway’: Do we need to go beyond Zygmunt Bauman and Pierre Bourdieu in order to understand contemporary Norwegian society?

182

RUNE ÅKVIK NILSEN

9 Overcritique and ambiguity in Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology: A long-term perspective

201

RICHARD KILMINSTER

10 Keeping other options alive: Zygmunt Bauman, hermeneutics and sociological alternatives

224

MATT DAWSON

11 Paradoxes and ambivalences of liquid modernity: Zygmunt Bauman and the peculiar solidity of liquidity

243

MICHAEL HVIID JACOBSEN

Index

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Contributors

Martin Aidnik is a sociology PhD student at the Institute of Social Sciences, Tallinn University, Estonia. He holds a master’s degree in Social and Cultural Theory from the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. His main research interests are classical and contemporary social theory, critical pedagogy and utopian social thought. He has published articles on the truthout and openDemocracy websites, as well as in the journal Studies of Transition States and Societies. Rune Åkvik Nilsen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University College of South East Norway. He teaches classical and modern sociological theory, and his research is concerned with topics such as social theory, modernity and theories of the contemporary era, capitalism, methodology and Norwegian society. His publications in Norwegian include two articles on Zygmunt Bauman: ‘Moderne lovgivere og postmoderne fortolkere: En romantisk kritikk av Zygmunt Baumans modernitetsforståelse’ (2004) and ‘Før var alt for fast, nå er alt for løst: En kritikk av Zygmunt Baumans samtidsdiagnose’ (2007). Shaun Best is Lecturer of Education, University of Winchester, United Kingdom. Publications include an intellectual biography of Zygmunt Bauman (2013), and a critique of the role of agency and structure in Bauman’s Modernity and the Holocaust, published in the Irish Journal of Sociology (IJS, 2014), which was selected as the inaugural winner of the IJS Distinguished Article Prize. Another recent article is ‘Education in the Interregnum: An Evaluation of Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid-Turn Writing on Education’ (2015). An intellectual biography titled Talcott Parsons: Despair and Modernity will be published in 2016. Matt Dawson is Lecturer of Sociology at the University of Glasgow. He has research interests in social theory, political sociology, the history of sociology and asexuality. He is the author of Late Modernity, Individualization and Socialism: An Associational Critique of Neoliberalism (2013), Social Theory for Alternative Societies (2016) as well as co-editor of Stretching the Sociological Imagination: Essays in Honour of John Eldridge (2015).

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List of contributors

Douglas Ezzy is Professor of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Australia. He is President of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion (2015–16) and editor of the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion. His research is driven by a fascination with how people make meaningful and dignified lives. His books include Qualitative Analysis (2002), Teenage Witches (2007, with Helen Berger), and Sex, Death and Witchcraft (2014). Claus D. Hansen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University, Denmark. His empirical research is mostly concerned with topics such as social inequality in health, masculinity/gender studies, work environment, sickness absence and occupational accidents. Articles recently published appeared in NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, BMC Psychology and Safety Science on topics such as masculinity ideals, bullying and masculinity and safety violations. Nicholas Hookway is Lecturer of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania, Australia. His principle research interests are morality, kindness, social theory and online research methods. He has published recently in Sociology and British Journal of Sociology (in press) and his book Everyday Moralities: Doing It Ourselves in an Age of Uncertainty is forthcoming in 2017. Michael Hviid Jacobsen is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Work, Aalborg University, Denmark. His research is concerned with topics such as crime, utopia, ethics, death and dying, palliative care, qualitative methods and social theory. Recent publications include Utopia: Social Theory and the Future (edited, 2012), Deconstructing Death (edited, 2013), Imaginative Methodologies in the Social Sciences (edited, 2014), The Social Theory of Erving Goffman (2014), The Poetics of Crime (edited 2014), Framing Law and Crime (edited, 2016), Liquid Criminology (edited, 2016), Postmortal Society (edited, 2017), The Interactionist Imagination (edited, 2017) and Emotions and Everyday Life (edited, forthcoming). Richard Kilminster is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, United Kingdom. His general research interests are in the sociology of knowledge, ‘postphilosophical’ sociology and the work of Norbert Elias. Current projects include re-evaluating the scientific stature of Karl Marx and individualism in American society, culture and sociology. Recent publications include The Sociological Revolution: From the Enlightenment to the Global Age (2002), The Symbol Theory: Collected Works of Norbert Elias, Volume 13 (edited 2011), Praxis and Method: A Sociological Dialogue with Lukács, Gramsci and the Early Frankfurt School (reissued 2014 with new foreword) and Norbert Elias: Post-Philosophical Sociology (2014).

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John Milbank is a theologian who has taught at the universities of Cambridge, Lancaster and Nottingham (United Kingdom) and Virginia (United States). He is currently Director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy and Chairman of the think tank ResPublica. Amongst his numerous books are Theology and Social Theory (1990), The Suspended Middle (2005), Beyond Secular Order (2013) and most recently, with Adrian Pabst, The Politics of Virtue: Postliberalism and the Human Future (2016). Ali Rattansi was previously professor and is now Visiting Professor of Sociology at City University, London, United Kingdom. His books include Marx and the Division of Labour (1982), Postmodernism and Society (1990), Race, Culture and Difference (1992) and Racism, Modernity and Identity (1994). His latest books are Racism (2007) and Multiculturalism (2011). He is currently writing Zygmunt Bauman: A Critical Introduction, to be published in 2017. Dennis Smith is Emeritus Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University, United Kingdom. His research is concerned with topics such as the European Union, the politics of globalisation, social and individual displacement, comparative-historical analysis, social theory and emotion. Recent publications include: ‘Dimensions of World Making: Thoughts from the Caspian Sea’ in The Shape of Sociology (2012), ‘Not Just Singing the Blues: Dynamics of the EU Crisis’ in Europe’s Prolonged Crisis: The Making or the Unmaking of a Political Union (2015), and ‘The Return of Big Historical Sociology’ in Global Powers: Michael Mann’s Anatomy of the Twentieth Century and Beyond (2016).

Preface and acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to Zygmunt Bauman. It is the outcome of years of reading, interpreting, grappling with, trying to understand as well as thinking with and thinking beyond his wonderful writings. These years have not only taught me a lot about sociology – they have also, and perhaps more importantly, taught me a lot about life and about how living the sociological life is indeed an enriching and rewarding but also a troublesome experience, and perhaps exactly enriching and rewarding because troublesome. For teaching me this I am immensely thankful to him. I remember one time discussing the classic film The Browning Version (1951) – adapted from a play by Terrance Rattigan – with Bauman, who is an adept film connoisseur. In that film, the young student Taplow presents his emotionally unstable but inspirational teacher of Classical Greek, Andrew Crocker-Harris, with a first-edition version of the Aeschylus by Agamemnon with the saying inscription: ‘A God from afar looks graciously upon a gentle master’. I think this line captures my personal sense of gratitude to Bauman much better than I could ever have hoped to phrase it myself. I would also like to take the opportunity, as always, to extend my gratitude to the commissioning editor at Routledge, Neil Jordan, for a professional collaboration throughout the process of completing this book.

Introduction Critical engagements and creative excursions with a contemporary sociological icon(oclast) Michael Hviid Jacobsen

The difficult art of ‘killing one’s darlings’ ‘Kill your darlings’, my mentoring professor Jens Christian Tonboe once proverbially insisted when reading through what later turned out to be my PhD thesis which dealt with, amongst the ideas of other great social thinkers, the work of Zygmunt Bauman. At that time I found his advice quite offensive and useless as I, with an unhindered drive coupled with the limited range of vision so characteristic of many a young and aspiring scholar with intellectual infatuation, plunged myself into adopting, consuming and identifying myself with the writings of such inspirational sociologists as C. Wright Mills, Erving Goffman and Zygmunt Bauman. Throughout the subsequent years I tirelessly published many pieces of work introducing, dealing with and analysing the wonderful writings of these three great men, and Bauman’s body of work in particular has been a continuous concern and dialogical partner in developing and qualifying my own ideas (see, e.g., Bauman et al. 2014; Jacobsen 2004a, 2006; Jacobsen and Poder 2008; Jacobsen et al. 2007; Tester and Jacobsen 2005). Also, Bauman’s thought-provoking and pioneering work on death and immortality analysed from a sociological perspective – as presented most comprehensively in the 1992 book Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies (Bauman 1992b) – has proven instrumental in informing my own studies on how society confronts and handles death and dying in contemporary society, and in this way his work has significantly contributed to my own academic career as a ‘sociologist of death’ (see, e.g., Jacobsen 2001, 2013a, in press). Thus, my intellectual indebtedness to Zygmunt Bauman is indeed enormous and his always generous, kind and accommodating personal ways have also served as an indispensable source of influence in my own life and as a cornerstone in our friendship. As I have matured – as a person and as a sociologist – I have come to see that my by now long since retired and insightful supervisor was indeed right. It is important – nay downright necessary – for everybody, and perhaps especially for young smart alecks like myself at that time, to be able to keep a keen and critical eye on those scholars or social thinkers who particularly impress and inspire you and who in important ways have shaped your

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own vision of the world. It takes courage to do so, to overcome the almost internalised awe that surrounds your intellectual heroes, to defy the reluctance to tamper with their work and to tear down the barriers preventing you from criticising their ideas, but nonetheless by starting to search for cracks in the wall of their work, you gradually become able to detach yourself and develop a much more fertile and playful approach to their ideas, which may serve as a springboard for developing your own ideas. This does not mean that you need to throw the baby out with the bath water, as it were, but that you can exactly retain your admiration for your intellectual heroes precisely because you begin to see and understand their work in another light. Zygmunt Bauman is indeed one of the most important social thinkers and towering figures in sociology in the early 21st century. Only very few who have read his books will be untouched by or unsympathetic to what he is saying. The praise for his work is well founded and is substantiated by the sheer sales numbers of his books, the frequent download of his journal articles, the many references to his ideas in published academic work, in the always crammed attendance at his public lectures, as well as in the amount of prestigious academic awards bestowed upon him throughout the years for outstanding scholarship. Throughout the world of sociology as well as in many neighbouring disciplines, his concepts, theories and ideas have gradually become widely accepted and are indeed now standard references, and his work inspires many students and trained scholars alike around the world in their teaching and researching endeavours. I have often heard my own students’ delight at reading Bauman and their comparison of his writing style with the at times rather ‘dull’, ‘tedious’ and ‘uninteresting’ texts of many other key sociologists less keen on making their ideas accessible or interested in providing their writings with a poetic edge or personal resonance, as is the case with Bauman’s work. In this respect, Bauman has a rare gift of being able to animate and capture his readers thereby making his sociological claims and ideas relevant to them as a source for understanding what is happening in our social world and why. It is therefore not presumptuous to claim that Bauman – despite his own personal humility – throughout the last few decades has acquired the status as a sociological superstar who is widely read, quoted, discussed and celebrated. However, Bauman has always been particularly keen to stress that he is not looking for ‘disciples’, ‘epigones’ or ‘followers’ – as Plato advised, he also encourages his readers to think for themselves as an important step towards getting to know themselves and the world they are part of. Moreover, he does not want to be associated with or promise loyalty to any particular paradigm or school of thought and the iconoclasm he preaches is also practised in his own work. In fact, he concluded his inaugural lecture at the University of Leeds where he served for several years with the following quote from Max Weber, emphasising the necessity freely to develop one’s own ideas and to counter existing ones: ‘If the professional thinker has an immediate obligation

Introduction

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at all, it is to keep a cool head in the face of the idols prevailing at the time, and if necessary to swim against the stream’ (Bauman 1972: 203). Despite this declaration of faith, it was difficult to ‘keep a cool head’ when deciding to do this book titled Beyond Bauman: Critical Engagements and Creative Excursions. So it was with the mixed emotions of trembling and great reassurance that I embarked on the endeavour because of my reluctance to commit ‘intellectual patricide’ on the one hand, and on the other knowing very well that the main character himself, Zygmunt Bauman, would indeed appreciate a sober, critical and creative discussion of his work. In this introductory chapter, I will first briefly outline some of the main characteristics of Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology, well aware that such an endeavour is almost destined to do gross injustice to the many important depths and intriguing dimensions of his work that I am unable to capture or deal with in any detail here. After this follows some considerations about different ways of and reasons for criticising the work of scholars and social thinkers with specific focus on the work of Bauman, which are intended to show that the character and purpose of critique is indeed a multifaceted phenomenon. Finally, I will chronologically introduce the content and main ideas of the chapters included in this book.

Bauman’s sociology: critical and humanistic cornerstones Introductions to, presentations and appreciations of, reflections on and critical dissections and interpretations of Bauman’s work abound (for some notable pieces of work but a far from complete list of titles see, e.g., Beilharz 2000, 2001; Best 2013; Blackshaw 2005; Davis 2008, 2014; Davis and Tester 2010; Jacobsen 2004a, 2006; Jacobsen and Poder 2008; Junge and Kron 2014; Rattansi in press; Smith 1999; Tester 2004). Each of these books focuses on different aspects of Bauman’s work and deciphers and evaluates it differently, thereby showing how interpretation and appreciation of intellectual ideas is always in the eye of the beholder. Despite such interpretative differences, there is, I sense, a general agreement that Bauman’s work can best be seen as a critical and humanistic contribution to sociology – something I suspect Bauman himself would hardly object to despite his strong reservations about any kind of intellectual or paradigmatic pigeonholing and despite insisting that he himself is a poor judge of such matters (see, e.g., Kilminster and Varcoe 1992: 205). First and foremost, Bauman’s sociology is a relentlessly critical and iconoclastic confrontation with everything that we – as sociologists as well as human beings in general – take for granted and uncritically accept as the only possible or only available version of reality. In Bauman’s view, such a position – by him characterised as the ‘TINA Syndrome’, spelling out loud and clear that ‘There Is No Alternative’ – is not only factually wrong, but it is also normatively deceitful and downright dangerous. In his view, every historical moment is an open-ended situation that is not entirely determined by

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its previous path and from which more than merely one trajectory of action and events may follow (Bauman 1976a: 10). By way of critiquing that which currently is or which parades as inevitable, natural, normal or unchangeable, we may come to discover that the world can always be made differently – even when it seems futile or even impossible – and that it is always possible for humans to remake it again, should they wish to do so. In Bauman’s dramatic words, the death knell to the ‘TINA Syndrome’, and to everything associated with it, sounds when we come to realise that we can do it (Bauman 1976b: 93). Second, and in close connection to this important insight, is Bauman’s humanistic perspective that places the human experience of the world at the centre of analytical attention as opposed to those strands of sociology that look at inanimate systems or solidified structures that relentlessly force themselves onto people’s lives, thereby making people puppets who are controlled by some omnipotent societal master. Although Bauman certainly admits that structures and systems indeed are at work in society, and that they in many different respects shape and interfere with the lives of humans, they are neither indestructible nor immortal. In the end, they are made up by people who may decide to challenge and demolish them again. It is evident that Bauman has an indomitable and unquenchable belief in humanity – one that is indeed shaped by his own dramatic life-biographical experiences as someone who had to flee persecution and to remake his own life in exile. In his inaugural lecture as the newly appointed professor of sociology at the University of Leeds in 1972, he stated the following, here quoted at length, related to his own personal experiences in Poland but also something with a much more principled meaning and extensive scope – namely that humans, time after time, seem capable of overcoming the many obstacles and setbacks that life is destined to hold in store for them: I have seen morally inspired, noble and lofty ideals smashed to pieces by the merciless logic of the reality their bearers failed to assess. I was with those who took … upon themselves to re-define the world they lived in, to fill the world with a new, better, more human meaning, to deny its repulsive reality in the name of the untrammelled human potential. I was with them still when they saw their ambition shattered against the wall of the same stubborn reality they refused to admit, and the same moral squalor sprouting again from below the thin film of ideals. And then, fortunately, I saw the same, always young and vigorous, indomitable spirit of exploration and perfection rising again to challenge the ungratifying reality. There seemed, indeed, to be no end to the drama in which the meaning and the reality, the subjective and the objective, the free and the determined, merge continuously to mould our present into our future. Such – contradictory and mischievously elusive to all clear-cut unilateral descriptions – is the shape of the human world (so I learned), my metier – sociology – is about. And the lesson I learned was, I think, congenial to the collective experience from which sociology in its modern form

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emerged. It was born of the painful realization of the vexing discrepancy between the ends people read into their actions and the consequences these actions bring about; between anticipations and results; ideals and reality; the ‘ought’ and the ‘is’. (Bauman 1972: 186–7) Apart from this humanistic moral sentiment underpinning Bauman’s work, his sociology is also humanistic in the sense that it seldom relies on advanced statistical analyses or insights gleaned from the use of quantitative methods. Every now and then Bauman consults and finds support in statistical findings (for example, regarding global inequality) to substantiate his ideas, but mostly his work reads as anti-positivist and interpretative. Thus, the attraction of Bauman’s writings for many readers derives perhaps not so much from the fact that what he states is necessarily empirically correct or methodologically tried and tested but, rather, from the sense that his ideas compellingly move and animate his readers towards trying to understand the world. The appeal of what Bauman writes does therefore not necessarily stem from the documented veracity of his observations, but is rather due to the fact that it is ‘interesting’ in the wonderful understanding of this term once proposed by Murray S. Davis as something that ‘stands out in [the readers’] attention in contrast to the web of routinely taken-for-granted propositions that make up the theoretical structure of their everyday lives’ (Davis 1971: 310). In short, Bauman’s ideas make us stop and think twice about what our world is like, how it became that way and what can possibly be done about it. Hence what Alfred McClung Lee (1990) once described as a ‘sociology for people’ is also part and parcel of Bauman’s humanistic approach. His work is not merely about people, it is also for people – it is intended to make people know in order to act, to make them masters of their own lives, and to take responsibility for the lives of others, in a world that often seems erratically uncontrollable or cynically determined by forces originating outside the individual. In these ways, Bauman’s sociology is decidedly and unmistakably critical and humanistic. Many other epithets – some fitting, others more far-fetched – could undoubtedly be applied in order to characterise Bauman’s work. However, any attempt at providing a compact overview of Bauman’s sociology quickly runs the danger of turning into an exegesis or an extended odyssey, firstly because there are so many important facets, aspects, depths and dimensions that need to be attended to, and secondly because the bulk of his work, spanning more than half a century of highly productive intellectual energy, is enormous – and continuously growing. Here I will therefore provide some brief comments on four cornerstones – sociological hermeneutics, sociological poetics, sociological dialectics and sociological indignation – that I believe to be particularly unmistakable trademarks of Bauman’s critical and humanistic sociology, which makes it stick out from, as well as relate to, so many other types of sociology.

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Sociological hermeneutics As Norman K. Denzin once proposed: ‘In the social sciences there is only interpretation. Nothing speaks for itself ’ (Denzin 1994: 500). Indeed, the social sciences are interpretative sciences, although some strands of sociology have dreamed of it to be prognostic and capable of advancing axiomatic propositions, bullet-proof explanations or law-like statements – often by using excessively technical jargon and trying to imitate the procedures and aspirations of the natural sciences. Any such illusions are not to be uncovered in Bauman’s work. He is first and foremost an ‘interpreter’ rather than a ‘legislator’ – to use his own famous words for different types of intellectual work (Bauman 1987). He has never assumed the status of divine authority or privileged expertise when it comes to describing or analysing the social world. Rather, his work oozes of an openness to interpretation and an invitation to dialogue – something which he has already made quite clear in Hermeneutics and Social Science, which is a book in which he showed his veneration for Jürgen Habermas’s idea of ‘ideal speech situations’, ‘mutual understanding’ and ‘undistorted communication’ (Bauman 1978). In fact, Bauman once defined sociology in a very down-to-earth and non-technical manner as an ‘ongoing conversation with human experience’ (Bauman 1992a: 213). Elsewhere he has stated ‘that dialogue neither knows nor admits a division into blunderers and people-in-the-know, ignoramuses and experts, learners and teacher. Both sides enter the conversation poorer than they will in its course become’ (Bauman 2008: 236). Hence his sociological hermeneutics are therefore as egalitarian as they are inclusive. Consequently, he has also expressed a strong aversion towards and critique of the closed systemness, iron-clad logic, causality and search for regularity and predictability of human affairs that he was taught in sociology lessons as a young man. And he is indeed teasingly proud to count himself ‘among the least systematic thinkers on record’, because ‘the merit of “conceptual clarity” can be conspicuous only through its absence’ (Bauman 2008: 235). Although Bauman is perhaps exaggerating his own lack of ‘conceptual clarity’, it is true that in his books one will not find any graphs, tables or complicated flowcharts – everything is text, everything is textual interpretation. Nor is there any attempt at operationalising, quantifying or validating his ‘findings’ – something we would ask of and expect from most of our students. Bauman has therefore described his own style of working as ‘sociological hermeneutics’ (sharing an affinity with but also being different from ‘hermeneutical sociology’). In many ways, his ‘sociological hermeneutics’ are akin to the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ as once proposed by Paul Ricœur that investigates the social world with the underlying sense of suspicion that everything is not what it seems. To Ricœur, this kind of interpretative and unmasking method ‘circumvents obvious or self-evident meanings in order to draw out less visible and less flattering truths’ (Felski 2012). This special sociological sensibility or ‘sixth sense’, as Bauman himself has also termed it, according to him entails the ‘realisation that there is more to what you see and hear than

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meets the eye, that the most important part is hidden from view, and that there is a huge and dense tissue of inter-human connections below the visible tip of the iceberg’ (Bauman quoted in Blackshaw 2002: 1). So Bauman’s ‘sociological hermeneutics’ is a way of insisting that we should not be fooled by appearances and that it is therefore important never to judge a book (or a society) simply by its cover. Sociological poetics According to Bauman, the sociologist is not only an interpreter of the social world but also a storyteller. The stories told by sociologists in many ways resemble those told by novelists and literary writers, so the sociologist does not have any monopoly in trying to capture and describe the human condition. As Bauman has once suggested, by quoting an insight from Milan Kundera, sociology is like good poetry in trying to tear down the walls behind which something eternal is hiding in the dark and in this way makes us better equipped to understand what is in fact going on in the world we inhabit (Bauman 2000: 202). Many Bauman interpreters have noted that Bauman’s way of doing and writing sociology is in many respects at odds with what conventional textbook sociology looks like or what is found in most sociology journals. For example, Tony Blackshaw (2005) has described Bauman as a ‘poet-intellectual’, Dennis Smith (1999) characterised him as an ‘accomplished sociological storyteller’, Peter Beilharz (2000) insisted that his sociology was ‘awesome’ and ‘different’, while Keith Tester (2004) stressed the particular ‘literary edge’ to his work. Indeed, Bauman’s work may strike many readers – perhaps particularly the most critical of them – as something that comes dangerously close to dissolving the sociological genre and it provocatively blurs the dividing lines between as well as bridges the ‘sociological’ and the ‘literary’ (Jacobsen 2013b). His frequent use of the essayistic form of expressing ideas (sometimes even writing letters to his readers or playfully making use of the diary-imitating form, see Bauman 2010, 2012), his many colourful metaphors, his elegant way of framing arguments and the use of persuasive language, as well as his admiration for and inspiration from some of the great Continental European novelists – such as Honoré de Balzac, Émile Zola, Georges Perec, Franz Kafka and Max Frisch – of the 19th and 20th centuries testify to how he consciously straddles different genres (the scientific and the poetic) and brings them into a creative contact with each other in order to fertilise arguments and develop ideas and present them in a cogent and poetic manner. To Bauman, as he once observed in an interview, these writers from whom he finds so much inspiration, ‘are exemplary of everything I learned to desire and struggled, in vain, to attain: the breath of vistas, the at-homeness in all compartments of the treasury of human thought, the sense of the manyfacetedness of human experience and sensitivity to its as-yet-undiscovered possibilities’ (Bauman quoted in Bunting 2003: 23). Moreover, his invention and analytical use of a multitude of colourful metaphors, such as ‘vagabonds’

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and ‘tourists’, ‘flawed consumers’ and ‘human waste’, ‘gamekeeping’, ‘gardening’ and ‘hunting’ utopias, ‘solid modernity’ and ‘liquid modernity’, is perhaps one of his most poetically potent sociological achievements, although the technique of how to invent and make use of metaphors is not something described – or advised – in most books on social research methods (Jacobsen and Marshman 2008). All in all, reading Bauman’s sociology is a poetic pleasure, because he is blessed with the rare ability among sociologists, or perhaps rather the gift of being able – at one and the same time – poignantly to provide thought-provoking and subtle sociological analyses and doing it in a thoroughly readable and inspired way. Sociological dialectics Another central characteristic of Bauman’s sociology – and perhaps something testifying equally to his early Marxist training as well as his continued veneration for the work of Georg Simmel – is his dialectical or oppositional thinking, however, with no aspiration to propose a final synthesis that resolves everything in one glorious unification as was the trademark of the work of the so-called ‘father of dialectics’, G. W. F. Hegel. Bauman’s dialectical sociology is in this respect less ambitious, although it is still aimed at showing the constant interplay between various opposites and conflicting forces in society. This is also one of the main reasons why a few books on Bauman have specifically used the concept of ‘dialectics’ in their subtitles, such as ‘dialectic of modernity’ (Beilharz 2000) or ‘dialectics of postmodernity’ (Jacobsen 2004a). Bauman’s work is therefore to a large degree characterised by his thinking in dualities – between those who have and those who have not, between the globals and the locals, between the producers and the consumers (even the ‘flawed consumers’), between those who follow orders and those who refuse, between the ‘gamekeepers’, ‘gardeners’ and the ‘hunters’, between ‘voluntary ghettos’ and ‘involuntary ghettos’, between de facto and de jure and so on. Everything gains its unique quality from its opposition to something else and through its relationship to its opposite. In and by itself it is nothing. Large proportions of Bauman’s arguments are structured around these opposites/dualities. Globalisation, freedom, socialism, culture, identity, community, morality, inequality, modernity, immortality, utopia – everything has (at least) two sides that are the mirror-opposite of each other, and which on the one hand distort and mutually exclude each other, but which on the other hand also rely on and derive its meaning from the presence of the other. Dennis Smith rightly observed that Bauman’s dialectical thinking seems to represent ‘a repeated pattern in the way Bauman presents his theories and models of the world’ (Smith 1999: 54). However, contrary to Smith, who insisted that Bauman seeks to reconcile these dualities into a unity (that would then again create yet another duality), I am more inclined to see it as a – for Bauman – perpetually unresolvable puzzle. If we were ever to arrive at such a grand synthesis, the epitome of everything that we have aspired to,

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then the smell of the stagnant waters of ‘perfect society’ or of ‘divine knowledge’ would become utterly unbearable. Another integral part of this dialectical sociological template that Bauman utilises in his work is heavily indebted to C. Wright Mills’s classic and much cited notion of the ‘sociological imagination’ (Mills 1959). According to this view, individuals are never entirely detached from society and society cannot be properly understood unless one pays due attention to the people who inhabit it. Bauman relies on Mills’s contention that we need to understand ‘private problems’ in the light of wider ‘social issues’ and vice versa when trying to answer the question of ‘how do our individual biographies intertwine with the history we share with other human beings?’ (Bauman and May 2001: 7). Although individuals make up society, society also – in various subtle and not so subtle ways – shapes and pierces the lives of its inhabitants. Moreover, only by appreciating the historical placement of a given society may we begin to understand where we come from, where we currently stand and where we are heading. This is also something from Mills that Bauman has carried forward in his own work. No historical moment can be understood in isolation – in and by itself – but only if it is juxtaposed and compared to other historical situations and eras from which it derives and from which it departs. In this way, all historical moments are stepping stones that only make sense because they are part of the same winding staircase. This dialectical understanding is thus an important part of Bauman’s sociological toolbox. Sociological indignation A final trademark of Bauman’s critical and humanistic sociology mentioned here is his unmistakable sociological indignation. His work is and has continued to focus intensely on topics such as social stratification, inhumanity and human suffering. Bauman is indignant because the wealth of the world is so unjustly distributed, and he is outraged that our moral responsibility for the weak, the poor, the unprivileged and the powerless falls way short of what would be regarded as common decency. He wishes that sociology is able to give power to the powerless unless it must admit its own powerlessness in understanding the social world (Bauman 1972: 186). He therefore believes that sociology shares the responsibility not only for understanding but also for improving the human condition when stating: ‘I believe that the propulsion to sociologize, to tell stories the sociological way – to compose the specifically sociological stories – is born from responsibility and driven by responsibility; it signals the assumption of responsibility for human choices and their consequences for the shape of humanity. I believe that to be a sociologist means to make one’s vocation out of that responsibility’ (Bauman 2008: 235). His work is therefore fuelled by a deep-seated sense that there is something wrong in the world and that we can do it better – as ordinary human beings and as sociologists. In this way, his work is a sort of ‘passionate sociology’ (Game and Metcalf 1996) that is motivated by a trembling moral impulse and which

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seeks to make us aware of our choices and responsibilities. Bauman is well aware that sociology is not capable of telling us how to live our lives, how to organise society or which goals to pursue and strive for. However, he insists that although ‘sociology cannot correct the short-comings of the world … it can help us to understand them in a more complete manner and in so doing, enable us to act upon them for the purpose of human betterment’ (Bauman and May 2001: 116). It is therefore not difficult to detect an unmistakable moral (but never moralising) dimension in Bauman’s work. Whereas some commentators and interpreters primarily see Bauman as a pessimistic observer of the world just slightly less gloomy than the ideas developed by Theodor W. Adorno (Rattansi 2014; see also Bac´ak, 2006) – apparently he has even been labelled a ‘sociologist of misery’ (Dawson 2012) – I rather read and regard him as an optimist who is more than confident that we can still do it and that there is still hope. True, he never tells his reading audience what to do or how to do it – but he nevertheless insists that if we want to change our current situation, the possibility is never entirely extinguished. It is, however, up to us – it is not the task of the sociologist (as ‘interpreter’ rather than ‘legislator’) to tell people what to do, but to insist that we can do it. According to Bauman, we are therefore far from facing the end, quite possibly not even the beginning of the end, and maybe not even the end of the beginning. As Keith Tester once admirably pointed out about Bauman’s work: ‘Within his sociology, Bauman tries to show that the world does not have to be the way it is and that there is an alternative to what presently seems to be so natural, so obvious, so inevitable’ (Tester in Bauman and Tester 2001: 9). A kernel in Bauman’s sociological indignation is constituted by his strong utopian undercurrents (Jacobsen 2004b), but contrary to many conventional utopians who propose grand schemas for social reform and improvement or provide wonderful maps of lands of milk and honey not yet discovered, Bauman is more of an ‘ambivalent utopian’, because he, as mentioned above, does not propose any grand plan or final solution for the alleviation of human problems and human suffering (Jacobsen 2016). According to him, utopia can lead astray and cause immense amounts of human misery as history bears painful evidence of, but as a mentality, as something telling us that we are not yet there, utopia is also a strong impulse and a constant in human life, and in this way Bauman is indeed a ‘utopian of hope’ (Tester and Jacobsen 2005). As such an impulse looking hopefully towards the horizon, utopian ideas ensure that options are always kept open and that alternatives are not sealed off prematurely. In Bauman’s view, there is also something utopian about sociology if it is to live up to its critical and humanistic potential. It is never quite satisfied with the world as it is. He has therefore suggested that to ask questions (for example, why is it like this, and could it not just as well have been different?), which is one of the primary purposes of sociology, is seldom wrong, but that the quest for definitive and incontrovertible answers might very well be (Bauman 1999: 8). So, in short, in Bauman’s view we should keep asking questions and remain inquisitive, curious, open-minded and critical

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about the world we inhabit in order to prevent it from ossifying and overwhelming us. Only by doing so may we hope to be able to counteract the misery, suffering and injustice that remain part of the human condition. These four cornerstones – hermeneutics, poetics, dialectics and indignation – each in their way, and each as indispensable cogs in the great wheel making up Bauman’s overall worldview, underpin his ideas and are detectable – sometimes blatantly, sometimes in a more subdued manner – throughout most parts of his enormously prolific and productive body of work. Taking a look at the breathtaking amount of books, chapters and journal articles published by Bauman throughout the years, one is struck not only by the sheer quantity of titles and the amount of life energy invested in writing, but also by the incredible scope of topics and areas covered. Bauman’s books are too many to mention here – at the time of writing this, close to fifty titles published in English since the early 1970s and still counting. As his most important intellectual milestone publications, however, I would first mention Socialism: The Active Utopia (1976a) in which he tries to reinvigorate socialism’s activist utopian potential – as something shattering and transcending the given empirical reality – instead of seeing it as a structural or economic system in its own right, which was fashionable among many Marxists at that time. Next up is the inevitable and award-winning Modernity and the Holocaust (1989) that contains Bauman’s all-out attack on modern scientific and bureaucratic rationality running berserk and his sociological account of the atrocities taking place in the concentration camps. Although modernity, in Bauman’s view, is not synonymous with the Holocaust, modern society made a thoroughly effective and rational mass murder possible and in the meantime provided the basis for absolving the perpetrations of their responsibility. They could therefore claim – at times even in good faith – that they ‘did not know’ or merely ‘followed orders’. The book also contains Bauman’s dramatic showdown with so-called ‘Durksonian’ sociology (a neologism created by the coupling of the surnames of Émile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons), a showdown already initiated in the 1976 book Towards a Critical Sociology, because it – in the end – removes moral responsibility from the individual person and shifts it in favour of social norms and societal ethics, and it thus sowed the seeds of Bauman’s subsequent interest in human morality as a pre-social phenomenon. Hence in close companionship with the conclusion and appendix of Modernity and the Holocaust, we also need to mention Postmodern Ethics (1993), inaugurating Bauman’s innovative and bold attempt to make morality a topic of sociological concern. In the book, Bauman – particularly inspired by the ideas of Emmanuel Lévinas and Knud Ejler Løgstrup – provides a comprehensive postmodern account of our unconditional moral responsibility for ‘the Other’. Finally, Liquid Modernity (2000), obviously, written in the aftermath of Bauman’s ‘postmodern period’, and which provides not only a novel vocabulary for understanding the present phase of modernity, but which also marks the starting point of a whole series of books devoted to the development and exploration of the concept of ‘liquidity’ and showing its

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viability within a variety of different areas. Apart from these four important titles many others could be mentioned, but this will suffice. In later years, Bauman has increasingly engaged himself in what might be termed ‘conversational sociology’ and this ‘conversational turn’ is evident in the many co-authored books and interview books that now seem to be his primary means of promoting and communicating his ideas, whereas previously the vast majority (with only a few exceptions) of his work was authored singlehandedly. In this way, Bauman’s own work now seems to embody very well the idea described earlier of sociology as ‘an ongoing conversation with human experience’ (see Dawson 2015). As should be obvious by now, it is difficult not to be spellbound by Bauman’s sociology – to be awe-inspired by the magnitude of his writings and to be touched by the deep humanism and critical mentality of his work. So really, what is there to be critical about when looking at this amazingly insightful sociological treat offered by Zygmunt Bauman – how is it possible to criticise such a formidable body of work?

Inroads for critique Nobody and nothing is immune to critique. Everything can in principle as well as in practice be subjected to critical inquiry. The nature of critique – especially as it is understood by so-called ‘critical theorists’ – is exactly that it never stops short of looking for inroads for critique in that which currently is and particularly in that which parades as official wisdom or which acquires the status of authority. Critique is also a systematic way to acquire new knowledge – to expand our understanding of something or to correct that which we currently think is true. In this way, critique is a gift – something to be cherished – although we, especially as the objects or recipients of critical comments, most often regard it as irritating, unwanted and way off the target. Moreover, critique is an incessant activity that – although in common-sense understandings it is often associated with either fault finding, uncompromisingly negative comments about others or with the X Factor type of shallow and swift personal judgement – in fact has the ambition to take us a step or two up the ladder of knowledge. Critique is an open invitation to dialogue and communication – without disagreements or different interpretations of the world, most interhuman communication would become predictable, stagnant and downright boring. Critique is an incisive and inquisitive look from the outside into the inside of something. This also goes for the critique of the writings of scholars and scientists. Hence reading, mentally digesting, interpretation, understanding and appreciation are also critical activities, which are, as mentioned earlier, activities showing that any kind of assessment is always in the eye of the beholder. When we read, we always assess what we read – its veracity, its quality, its credibility, its desirability, its likeability, its beauty. Bauman once stated in Hermeneutics and Social Science that ‘far from being once and for all fastened to the text by the author’s intention, meaning keeps changing together with the

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reader’s world. Of this latter world it is a part, and only inside can it be meaningful. The text the author has produced acquires its own life’ (Bauman 1978: 229). Once the text of the author acquires this life of its own, once it is published and made public in books or journals, it also becomes the object of potential critique: sometimes the author’s self-critique or self-loathing, but most often the critique advanced by readers who disagree, who are angered or annoyed by what they read, who find limitations or faults, who are disappointed, who cannot or will not understand and so on. In short, critique may grow from many different experiences – quite often negative but at times also positive. The starting point of any kind of critique is therefore always the experience of some sort of nagging doubt, disbelief or dissatisfaction with the way things are presented. To critical sociology, as it is practised by Bauman, the end point of critique is nothing less than human emancipation, and he once testified how the leitmotif and outcome of critical thinking and critical sociology exactly was that it ‘relativizes what seems to be absolute, pulverizes the solid contours of reality, transforms certainties into a mere game of chance, strips external pressures of their authority and brings them into the reach of human control’ (Bauman 1991: 289). Everything can be relativised through critique. Insofar as Bauman is not only a determined believer in but also, as mentioned earlier, himself a lifelong practitioner of critical sociology (see, e.g., Bauman 1976b, 1991), it would indeed strike one as paradoxical and inappropriate if his own work and his own ideas could not and should not be made the object of serious critique. In Bauman’s spirit, critique naturally also needs to be turned towards and against the critical – nobody and nothing is immune to critique. As mentioned above, the ambition of this book to think beyond Bauman – not against him – and to try and see if there are themes or arguments missing, to locate some blind spots and by way of juxtaposing his ideas with the work of other great scholars to tease out some potential or problems in his writings. There are many different ways to approach the phenomenon of Bauman critically. For example, several years ago his past life as a member of the Polish secret service during the period of 1945–53 was critically dissected and put on public display and questions were asked about what types of activities he had been engaged in during these years of which he has remained so silent (see Edemariam 2007; Musiał 2007). Also others have critically investigated and commented on some of the tensions in and connections between Bauman’s own biographical past and his later development of a theory of moral responsibility, just as it has been speculated that Bauman’s feverish publication strategy may in fact be seen as a sign of clever marketing and self-propaganda of an ‘intellectual entrepreneur’ (see Best 2013). More recently, Bauman has been accused of routinely reproducing his own ideas, for ‘self-plagiarising’, as it is commonly called in academic circles, without due recognition and appropriate attribution and also for quoting and relying one-sidedly on outdated statistical sources (see Walsh and Lehmann 2015). This book is much less concerned with Bauman’s personal past, with his motivations for publishing or with any ‘bad

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habits’ he might have acquired or relied on as a publishing academic. Not that this type of critique is indeed not relevant, but it seems less concerned with the actual sociological content of Bauman’s ideas and more preoccupied with his person or with his ways of working. Some might insist that these two dimensions – the man and his work – are indeed inseparable and that in order to fully appreciate an intellectual’s ideas and thoughts we must necessarily also pry into where they come from, the way they are presented and the personal motivations underlying such thoughts and ideas. Such a discussion – although indeed relevant – is hardly resolved here. Suffice to say that the critique covered and the creative excursions included in this volume are much more concerned with the actual sociological content and core of Bauman’s work. There are indeed many different ways to frame and mount one’s critique of a scholarly body of work. Here I will briefly present four such types of critique of a theory and/or of its protagonist and relate them specifically to the work of Bauman. Critiquing what Bauman says A relevant, perhaps even indispensable, question to pose whenever reading and assessing the work of any kind of scientist – which obviously also goes for sociologists – is whether their proposed theories are indeed ‘correct’. Another way of putting it is whether their theoretical constructions abide by conventional rules for and criteria of, for example, coherence and some sort of correspondence with what we would generally call ‘reality’ or if their work is corroborated by the findings of their colleagues and thus lives up to the so-called criteria of ‘communicative truth’. So important questions arise: Is Bauman ‘right’ – in a factual rather than normative sense of the term – in what he is saying in his many books and articles? Does his sociological work – or at least the substance of it – represent a relatively sober and truthful perspective on the world we inhabit? Are Bauman’s conclusions corroborated by the work of other sociologists? Or is Bauman rather ‘wrong’ in his proposed concepts, theories and diagnoses of society? I think there are many different answers to such questions – depending not only on who asks the questions, but also on which part of Bauman’s work we are indeed talking about. Throughout the years, Bauman’s ideas have been put to the test and subjected to critical interrogation by many other social scientists. Mostly, I think, he has passed the test, which is perhaps also one of the main reasons why his work ranks among the most prominent contemporary social thinkers. However, others have also objected that his ideas about, for example, the Holocaust are faulty and problematic (see, e.g., Best 2014; Vetlesen 2005), others insist that his understanding of ‘modernity’ and ‘modernisation’ is simplified and one-dimensional (see, e.g., Carleheden 2008; Joas 1998), and yet others claim that his description of ‘liquid modernity’ is either flawed or biased (see, e.g., Atkinson 2008; Bordoni 2016; Elliott 2007; Jay 2010; Lee 2011; Ray 2007). It would be overkill to

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summarise the many other important points of criticism raised against Bauman’s work here. However, I think an example of a particularly pertinent and substantial critique of what Bauman says was suggested by Marcel Stoetzler in a discussion of Bauman’s Holocaust thesis. Stoetzler here raised the important question of why Bauman specifically decided to use Stanley Milgram’s experiments as the primary source for many of the conclusions in his work, which, according to Stoetzler, ‘prevents Bauman from asking the obvious sociological question: why the participants in a particular series of experiments, as well as its countless replications in academic, and more recently, “reality TV” contexts, should be seen as representatives of (modern) “man” in general?’ (Stoetzler 2011: 52). This question is indeed important and substantial because it touches upon the topic of whether many of Bauman’s sociological stories about the Holocaust, but also about morality, globalisation, community, identity, liquid-modern life and so on, are in fact based merely on straw men, caricatures and overgeneralisations or whether they indeed capture broader social currents and developments. I think this sort of critique is very useful because it makes us alert, as readers and fellow researchers, to what Bauman – but for that sake also any other theoretically oriented social scientist – is suggesting and asks us to consider if it is in accordance with what we otherwise know and whether it is substantiated by existing empirical evidence. As mentioned above by Murray S. Davis (1971), theories might actually – based on such evidence – be deemed ‘wrong’, which is at times the case, but nonetheless such theories may still be ‘interesting’, because they will make us stop and consider, what if the world really looked like that? So this kind of substantial critique makes us question if a social thinker, even one of the most prominent ones – perhaps even one of our own personal ‘darlings’ – is in fact ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, and it makes us ponder if it, at the end of the day, is the apparent ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of that social thinker’s ideas that makes us read and want to understand his/her work. Were, for example, Michel Foucault, Niklas Luhmann, Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Baudrillard or Ulrich Beck ‘right’ when they were alive and writing? Are Anthony Giddens, Jürgen Habermas, Slavoj Žižek, Judith Butler, Luc Boltanski, George Ritzer, Guy Standing or any other of the present-day famous and celebrated social thinkers ‘right’? Or were and are their ideas and theories, plain and simple, just ‘interesting’? I will let this question stand. Critiquing how Bauman says it Any kind of value judgement of beauty and pleasure – as well as of taste and many other sensuous experiences – is indeed in the eye of the beholder. This is not just a fancy relativistic mantra – it is rather a testimony of how people seem to value the very same experiences differently. This also goes for reading. When it comes to assessing how Bauman is presenting his sociological ideas, there are probably as many views as there are readers of his work. Whereas some will wallow in his exquisite style and in his ability to

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persuade and touch his reader, others will find it unnecessarily ornamental and excessively ‘literary’. As stated earlier, a central characteristic of Bauman’s work is exactly his aforementioned unmistakable ‘sociological poetics’, which goes hand in hand with his ‘sociological hermeneutics’. And, indeed, Bauman’s work is animated by a special kind of poetic or literary sensibility – in the way he writes, in the sources he cites, in his construction of his essays and books, in his aspiration to move, persuade and communicate with his reader and so on (see Bauman and Mazzeo 2016). Throughout the years, many scholars have pointed to and defended the close affinity between sociology and literature (see, e.g., Lepenies 1988; Nisbet 1976/2002; White 1973). Others have lamented and remained less convinced or impressed by the positive potentials of such a comparison and conflation between social science and literature. For example, in an interview Pierre Bourdieu in merciless and definite terms once characterised Bauman’s understanding of ethics and his essayistic sociology (evident in works such as Postmodern Ethics from 1993 and Life in Fragments from 1995) as ‘bad philosophy’ and ‘not even sociology’ (Bourdieu quoted in Pécseli 1995: 15). Bourdieu – who later in life himself paradoxically began to write much more poetically and polemically – elaborated further on his appreciation (or rather lack of) of Bauman’s work and that of his like-minded postmodern thinkers: ‘This kind of people babble and joke about a serious matter … Basically, they are conservators of the present. They will say anything, any kind of banality that the media and semi-intellectuals will willingly lap up’ (Bourdieu quoted in Pécseli 1995: 15). Needless to say, this perspective is not shared by the editor of this book. However, it testifies to just how provoking Bauman’s work may seem to some who are not only critical of what he says but also of how he says it – critiquing him for conflating social science with literature (and also at times with politics) to no benefit to either side and raising the question whether this is even sociology at all. Others have insisted that ‘Bauman’s own writing style is very, very far from the mere assembly of arbitrary associations in postmodernist [writing]’ and insists that his writings ‘have all the flavour of good old European rhetoric’ (Joas 1998: 53). So there are indeed very different ways to perceive and to assess the way Bauman says what he says. I think Pieter Nijhoff once poignantly captured the potency, but perhaps also the peculiarity, of Bauman’s way of doing sociology when stating that with his self-confidence Bauman is not bothered too much by the boundaries between politics, social science and cultural history; socialpsychological analysis and existential reflections intermingle; he switches back and forth between literary and logical expositions; he changes the lenses from hermeneutical to systematical, analytical and back; finally his moral philosophy searches for indeterminacy beyond all definitions. All these combinations match his conception of sociology. (Nijhoff 1998: 95)

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So for some, Bauman’s writings are seen as exquisite examples of how good sociology should be written, whereas for others, his style and his textual mannerisms are undoubtedly regarded as tedious or downright problematic. Critiquing what Bauman does not say No writer can realistically hope to capture everything in the world with his or her work – no theory can possibly cover all the bountiful differences, variations, divergences and exceptions that the human world has to offer. Therefore, the Achilles heel of all scientific theories is the fact that they necessarily miss out on something and at times even on something important. There is no such thing as a TOE – a ‘Theory of Everything’ – and hence all theories suffer from the ‘deficiency’ of being able only partly and often only by way of condensation or caricature to capture what they attempt to contain within their theoretical universes. Bauman’s work is no exception to this rule. Also his work is characterised by its fair share of omissions and absences – some of these absences are thematic, others relate to whom or what he is quoting (or is rather refraining from quoting) and yet others derive from the humility of knowing one’s own limitations. Some of these omissions and absences are serious and conspicuous, others are merely misdemeanour offences. Moreover, some of these omissions and absences are accidental, whereas others are undoubtedly the outcome of a conscious choice on his behalf. Several of the chapters included in this volume concentrate on pointing to certain perceived omissions and absences in Bauman’s work. And true, although the breadth and the scope of Bauman’s writings is indeed impressive (covering structural, racial/ethnic, generational, cultural and global differences and inequalities and so on), a few conventional key sociological categories – such as perhaps most conspicuously that of gender – may seem to remain rather undertheorised in his work. Although Bauman does in fact touch upon the gender/ sex category, for example in his writings on love, eroticism and sexuality (see Bauman 1998b, 2003), the topic does admittedly not loom large in his analysis as compared to the importance and space allotted to other types of horizontal or vertical differentiation. Others have pointed to him significantly missing out on understanding continued motivations for showing altruism in contemporary liquid-modern consumer culture (Best 2013: 122), and yet others have suggested that Bauman’s analysis of modernisation processes first of all is excessively pessimistic, looking primarily at the sombre side of modernity, and that he therefore is also unable to consider alterative tracks or even positive paths of modernisation that contain more promise for politics and democracy (see, e.g., Carleheden 2008). In my view, however, Bauman’s sins of omission are not many, although some may be regarded as substantial, but it is only right to point to such omissions and then perhaps to use Bauman himself – or the ideas of other social thinkers – to think beyond them.

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Critiquing the purpose/outcome of what Bauman says Finally, apart from being critical about or sceptical of what Bauman says in his work, or about how he says it as well as being disappointed about what he is not saying or neglecting, one may also be critical towards what his ambition with his work is – or what he is attempting to achieve with his sociology. Whereas some may think that Bauman’s ideas are problematically normative and polemical (perhaps even verging on politics disguised as sociology), others might think that they are rather too clinical and inconsequential because they are concocted and conjured up within an intellectual ivory tower without any repercussions for real life and are removed from the distressing daily problems suffered by ‘real’ people. Obviously, there are many different types of critique on offer in sociology (see, e.g., Jacobsen and Petersen 2015), and some of these are more clinical than others, others yet again more aimed at being injected directly into the big muscles of the body of society in order to cure its diseases, pathologies and defects. It is true that Bauman believes that sociology can and indeed should make a difference in the world – to him sociology that has no relevance to people or to the ‘public’ (here understood not at the managerial-technical-bureaucratic layers of society but as the ordinary people who try to get by and find some sense of meaning in their lives) is itself irrelevant (see Bauman 2011: 160–72). He therefore once stated that ‘there is no choice between “engaged” and “neutral” ways of doing sociology. A non-committal sociology is an impossibility’ (Bauman 2000: 216). Howard S. Becker once provocatively insisted that sociologists are always ‘for the Negroes’ and ‘against the Fascists’ (Becker 1967: 33). Despite being formulated at a time when racial confrontations were tearing American society apart, there is perhaps still a ring of truth to this testimony. It is no secret that sociologists traditionally have often identified and associated themselves with left-wing ideas and progressive politics. Bauman is no exception to this rule – he is and remains a declared and die-hard socialist. It is therefore perhaps also unsurprising that he is always uncompromisingly defending the weakest and most vulnerable members of society – in his early years this category was reserved for and embodied by the ranks of the working class in capitalist society; in recent years he is more concerned with the plight of the ‘underclass’ consisting of all those ‘strangers’, ‘outcasts’, ‘weeds’ and ‘flawed consumers’ who are forced to live their lives in the shadows of liquid-modern consumer society or who are knocking on our doors hoping to be let in (Bauman 2016). In this way, Bauman’s sociology is indeed a sociology of the underdog. He is persevering in his critique of the way in which society seems to reproduce and perpetuate patterns of inequality and his sociology is thus aimed at ‘giving power to the powerless’. Does he achieve this? Does his sociology really change the world? It is obviously impossible to answer such a question. Doubtlessly, some would describe his critique as a toothless critique or what Czech economist Tomáš Sedlácˇ ek recently termed ‘critique with a condom’ (Görlach 2014) – a critique that is utterly inconsequential, because it

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provides no discharge into social reality. True, although Bauman believes that the world can be different from – and indeed better than – what it currently is, he is not a revolutionary who is fighting in the first ranks on the barricades. Bauman is first and foremost a sociologist, an intellectual interpreter, who despairs at what he sees, but who is also cautious not to become part of the problem himself by suggesting solutions, remedies, cures or prophylactics. He would therefore neither qualify as a ‘priest’ nor as a ‘prophet’ (but comes closer to the latter than the former) in Robert W. Friedrichs’s (1970) classic distinction between these two different intellectual roles. He is not searching for followers or disciples to enter his congregation (as the priests), but he is also not the isolated, quixotic or tragic figure as the prophet who will always remain on the outside and whose arguments therefore often fall on deaf ears. Bauman’s sociology is a motivated, engaged, animated and critical sociology that insists that sociologists have the possibility to make a difference in the world – if they dare – and that taking responsibility for this possibility is in fact the mark of distinction of a good sociologist. He once – by way of insight borrowed from Jürgen Habermas – thus compared a good sociologist to a good social worker who is constantly trying to work himself/herself out of his/ her job (Bauman 1998a: 48). Although this would entail that sociologists if successful in their endeavour would themselves eventually become superfluous and unemployed, it is, perhaps, difficult to disagree with, be critical of or unsympathetic towards such an ambition. As illustrated by this far from exhaustive listing of four forms of critique, criticism may come in many different guises, some of which will be practised and presented throughout this book. As mentioned earlier, by now there are many books published introducing and dealing with the work of Bauman. Many of these books, with a few exceptions (such as, e.g., Best 2013), have not been constructed as such critical dialogues or confrontations with Bauman’s work. In fact, most of them have primarily been introductory and predominantly appreciative. I think the most significant – and indeed essential – difference between this book and many of the other volumes available dealing with and dissecting Bauman’s writings is the fact that this volume tries to move beyond Bauman’s important contribution in a number of respects, such as digging out some of its limitations, inconsistencies, ambivalences, omissions and blind spots in, e.g., regarding gender and ethnicity, as well as seeking to substantially compare his work with a host of other classical and contemporary social thinkers, thereby suggesting unacknowledged kinships and showing possibilities for creative openings and dialogue.

Structure and content As suggested already in the title of the book – Beyond Bauman: Critical Engagements and Creative Excursions – the aim of this edited volume is to critically discuss and creatively engage with various aspects of the work of Zygmunt Bauman. Contributors have been invited to participate because they

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have something interesting to say about Bauman’s work and because they equally see potentials/possibilities and problems/pitfalls in his sociology. The overall organisation of the book is relatively loose as all contributions point out and provide certain inroads for critiquing or discussing Bauman’s ideas. However, the first group of chapters (Chapters 1–4) are primarily devoted to confronting and pointing out problems particularly in Bauman’s so-called ‘postmodern moral sociology’ as well as in his work on ethnicity, gender, justice, knowledge and the Other. The following four chapters deal with different comparisons between the work of Bauman and other prominent sociological thinkers in the 20th century. Here Bauman’s work will be compared to great critical thinkers such as Theodor W. Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Ernest Gellner and Pierre Bourdieu. Finally, the last three chapters look at some ambivalences, paradoxes and ambiguities in Bauman’s general sociology and particularly in his diagnosis and analysis of ‘liquid modernity’. Needless to say, all contributors in this book share a great deal of admiration for the work of Zygmunt Bauman coupled with years of interpretation and attempts to think with and think beyond Bauman’s own ideas. In this way, the book provides a loyal yet incisively critical reading of parts of Bauman’s work in order to discuss what he is saying, how he is saying it, what he is not saying and also looking into the purpose/outcome of what he is saying. The book aspires to open up for a variety of critical appreciations of Bauman’s sociology. In Chapter 1, written by Nicholas Hookway and Douglas Ezzy, we encounter a critical discussion of Bauman’s ‘postmodern moral sociology’, which is particularly indebted to the work of Emmanuel Lévinas, and an aspiration to expand the scope of the Bauman/Lévinas understanding of moral responsibility by invoking ideas and insights from a host of other contemporary social thinkers who in their work focus on emotions and embodiment. In the chapter the authors suggest that the Lévinas/Bauman notion of ‘infinite responsibility’ for the Other can be reconceptualised through a celebration of the uncertainty in the moment of human response to suffering. The otherness of the Other, the authors contend, is found through embracing the uncertainty associated with the possibility of trauma in the presence of the suffering Other. Chapter 2 by Shaun Best is also concerned with Bauman’s understanding of the Other. Like the foregoing chapter, this chapter also finds that Bauman’s ‘moral/ethical sociology’ is in certain respects deficient, first and foremost because it, according to the author, relies on a rather Kantian (and hence abstract, principled and generalised) notion of morality that is incapable of understanding real people as Others and real moral responsibilities. The chapter then proceeds to examine some of the possible negative consequences of conceiving of the Other as such a generalised Other. Moreover, the chapter critically discusses Bauman’s account of the so-called ‘adiaphorising’ effects of social processes that encourage moral irrelevance, degradation and dehumanisation of the Other as well as investigates the possibilities of a renewal of an ethical life through the creation of a new public sphere.

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The topics of racism, imperialism and gender are at the centre of attention in Chapter 3 by Ali Rattansi. In Bauman’s writings, these issues have only a marginal presence. This chapter discusses how these absences weaken his analyses of the Enlightenment, the Holocaust and consumerism. First, Bauman’s understanding of the Enlightenment is interrogated and the neglect of questions of racism, gender and imperialism is shown to lead to an unduly narrow interpretation, one which then extends to his wider understanding of modernity. Second, the chapter argues that Bauman’s analysis of the Holocaust fails to grasp the interconnection between European imperialism and racism and the Holocaust: racial ideologies that underpinned imperialism and colonialism subsequently nourished forms of anti-Semitism, and practices that originated in European, and more specifically German imperial and colonial outposts were then used in techniques of incarceration and extermination in the Holocaust. Moreover, the Holocaust had important gendered dimensions that find no place in Bauman’s understanding. Bauman’s critique of consumerism, to take a final instance, is pitched at a level of abstraction where racialisation and gendering are written out of the narrative. Thus, his remarks on urban disorders and what he calls ‘flawed consumers’ neglect the role played by racism in the actions of black youth; and his generally negative views on consumerism ignore the specific manner in which men and women are positioned as consumers, the role of pleasure, the particular effects of consumer culture on working-class women and so forth. The author then relates these weaknesses to Bauman’s more general lack of awareness of the gendering and racialisation of Western modernity, so that the way in which women and racialised minorities come to be central to the ambivalences of modernity find little or no place in his sociology. Chapter 4 by John Milbank engages with the work of Bauman along the axes of knowledge, culture and power. Milbank starts out by outlining Bauman’s understanding of the importance of the intellectual elite for the shaping of culture. To Milbank, this can be seen as a combined but also inherently ambiguous Marxist/Platonic trait of Bauman’s work. The author then applies Bauman’s insights about the elite specifically to a discussion of the rise of a modern secular priesthood – the intellectuals or the philosophes. According to Milbank, Bauman does not take his critique of this secular priesthood far enough, as he stops short of recognising that it is also just as oppressive as the religious priesthood or the clerisy it was supposed to supplant during the course of modernity. According to the author, Bauman fails to see that the project of the new counter-priests must inevitably be even more oppressive than the older priestly project, which was of course very often oppressive in various degrees. It is therefore Milbank’s contention that Bauman leaves unresolved the perhaps inevitable tension that exists between regarding the intellectual elite as either saviours or oppressors. In Chapter 5 by Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Claus D. Hansen, the comparison presented is one between Bauman’s critical sociology and the work of classical critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno. Although there are many quite

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substantial differences between these two writers, there are also quite a few rather obvious overlaps and similarities between what Adorno stated during the mid-20th century and what Bauman is now saying half a century later. Despite this, their close affinities have remained largely overlooked and surprisingly unrecognised by Bauman himself as well as by many of his interpreters. This chapter provides some examples of the common concerns evident in Adorno’s and Bauman’s writings. In the chapter, the authors look at topics such as the critique of the Enlightenment and modern society, the rise of the culture industry and liquid-modern consumerism, morality and responsibility, negative dialectics and utopia, as well as the importance of critique as some of the most fertile themes selected for comparison between these two critical thinkers. Chapter 6 is also devoted to a discussion between Bauman’s ideas and the work of another of the great classical critical theorist, namely Ernst Bloch, who was in many respects regarded as an outlaw Marxist because he, with his provocative ideas on utopia and utopianism, challenged many tenets of orthodox Marxism. The authors, Martin Aidnik and Michael Hviid Jacobsen, show how there are many important connecting points – but also some substantial differences – between the works of Bloch and Bauman when it comes to their understanding of utopia. For example, whereas for Bloch utopia is something that can be made tangible (and indeed is tangible not only in glimpses but as something ‘concrete’) and is hence a realistic social project to pursue, for Bauman utopia is more of a hopeful and imaginative impulse guiding human action but always disappearing into the horizon. Bauman sees the danger of utopia becoming totalitarian if put into practice by planners or politicians, whereas for Bloch the utopian ‘principle of hope’ can eventually manifest itself and be perfected into a positive utopia that ultimately alleviates human suffering. The chapter thus shows how Bloch and Bauman are kindred utopian spirits but also that there are significant differences in their work. Chapter 7 by Dennis Smith provides a comparison between the work of Bauman and the ideas of another contemporary German social thinker, Ernest Gellner. Both writers became heavily engaged in Europe’s intellectual, political and military struggles. Smith argues that these struggles were shaped, first, by the 20th-century agenda of modernity, which emphasised liberation and rights, especially for nations and individuals, and, from the 1970s onward, by a still-emerging agenda that shifts the focus towards the challenges of global rebalancing, regulation and restraint. Drawing on Bauman’s diverse analyses of liquid modernity as well as Gellner’s approach to nation formation and the dynamics of Islamic societies, Smith asks what is at stake for Europe as it attempts to cope with shifts in global power balances without triggering destructive cycles of humiliation and violence. Chapter 8 by Rune Åkvik Nilsen – with a view from Norwegian society as the very incarnation of the ‘consumer society’ criticised by Bauman – presents a comparison between Bauman’s ideas and the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who is perhaps one of the few contemporary sociologists who has been able to

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match the popularity of Bauman’s own work. In the chapter, the author confronts Bauman’s liquid vision of society with Bourdieu’s more solid one. The thrust of the argument is that Bauman’s perspective seems to be too liquid, whereas Bourdieu’s is too solid. By outlining first Bauman’s understanding of privatised and consumerised liquid modernity and comparing this with Bourdieu’s notions of capital, habitus, field and power, Nilsen – drawing on empirical details from Norwegian society – claims that Bourdieu may in many respects provide a more convincing analysis than Bauman and may be better equipped to capture what is really at stake in consumer society. However, he also concludes that we need an understanding of agency, power and democracy different from both Bauman’s and Bourdieu’s in order to explain the social order and the development of Norwegian society. Chapter 9 by Richard Kilminster locates Bauman’s worldview in his biography and brings a long-term perspective to bear on the nature and status of his work. It discloses the character and consequences of the Marxian transcendental discourse of ‘dialectics’ implicit in his entire corpus, which burdens it with an ambivalent attitude towards empirical evidence and other theoretical perspectives. This framework poses the problems he tries to solve and shapes the parameters of their solution, resulting in a severe narrowing of sociological scope and the relentless, one-sided, rhetorical ‘overcritique’ of modern society. Moreover, the author suggests, his works lack a sociological psychology, a theory of social development, an adequate understanding of psychoanalysis and a conception of affective bonding. The chapter concludes with remarks on the futility of trying to bring about a sociologically infeasible and hence unachievable utopian society. Chapter 10 is written by Matt Dawson and brings into conversation two interlinked, though rarely combined, elements of Bauman’s work. The first is his sociological method, the aforementioned ‘sociological hermeneutics’, and the second is his views on the role of intellectuals found in the distinction between ‘legislators’ and ‘interpreters’. While the former suggests that sociologists are interested in ‘keeping other options alive’ in a conversation with lay people, the latter indicates that, in a liquid-modern time suspicious of utopian thinking, this does not include the offering of alternatives. Dawson argues against this and suggests that the sociological hermeneutics method will only fulfil the goals Bauman assigns to it when it makes use of ‘sociological alternatives’. Drawing upon the work of Ruth Levitas, Dawson links this to what she sees as the implicit utopianism within sociology, which Bauman marginalises. He concludes the chapter by suggesting that such an approach also makes us aware of how our neoliberal times are fundamentally utopian. Chapter 11 is written by Michael Hviid Jacobsen and provides a critical reading and discussion of some of the main paradoxes and ambivalences found in Bauman’s sombre diagnosis of liquid-modern society which are, in many respects, directly at odds with Bauman’s own critical and humanistic understanding of sociology and of the social world. For example, the apparent ossification of the liquid-modern world seems to be opposed to Bauman’s

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ontological insistence that the world can always be made different from what it currently is. The chapter provides a number of examples of how Bauman’s diagnosis at times seems to ‘slip’ into a seemingly paradoxical and inadvertently defeatist position. In the chapter, this apparent ‘slip’ is by the author regarded more as an expression of an inherent ‘methodological ambivalence’ rather than as a momentary lapse or even worse as a genuinely problematic fallacy. The purpose of the chapters of this book is therefore to show how a positive reception and appreciation of the work of Zygmunt Bauman necessarily entails keeping a critical eye on some of the omissions, absences or problematic aspects of his sociology. As mentioned earlier, the book aspires to think ‘beyond’ Bauman with an eagerness to engage with and to try and tease out problems as well as potentials in his writings that will allow us to take his ideas and interpretations even further. This book and its chapters also testify to how an important – nay indispensable – task of doing sociology is not only to study society (‘out there’, as it were) but also to study the discipline of sociology itself (‘in there’) through analysing, dissecting and critiquing the ideas and theories developed and published by fellow sociologists. This also constitutes a fertile path for developing and expanding the scope of the discipline of sociology and for sharpening its theoretical and analytical knife. By way of doing so, we may also be better able to understand some of the challenges lying ahead not only for sociology but also for society. In personal correspondence with myself and my colleague Keith Tester some years ago, Bauman answered the following question in a way that seems quite fitting to kick off this book. We asked him: What next for sociology? Do you have any idea what waits around the corner for sociology? What will be the main challenges for the discipline in the years to come? To this, Bauman bluntly responded: How many times should I repeat that I have no skills of a prophet – and that all suggestions of sociologists possessing such skills thanks to their professional training are in my view fraudulent? When I scan my life experience, what I see is a huge graveyard of failed forecasts overgrown by plants sown and sprouting with no warning … Future is not reachable through extrapolation of current statistical trends. As Vaclav Havel put it in his inimitable poetic idiom, to predict the future one needs to know what songs the nation likes to sing; but there is no way to guess what songs the nation will sing next year … The future of sociology will be composed (brought into being!) by the sociologists’ choices. This statement of what sociologists should and should not do, or could and could not do, I think, is an important testimony of Zygmunt Bauman’s work in general and may serve as a clarion call for us to keep in mind that we, as sociologists as well as members of the human species, always have the possibility and choice to discover and follow our own paths and that sometimes this path might only be discovered exactly by criticising that which currently is.

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References Atkinson, Will (2008): ‘Not All that Is Solid Melts into Air (or Liquid): A Critique of Bauman on Individualization and Class in Liquid Modernity’. Sociological Review, 56(1): 1–17. Bac´ak, Valerio (2006): ‘Book Review: Modernity, Insecurity and Simplified Narratives: Zygmunt Bauman: Liquid Modernity’. Journal of Baudrillard Studies, 3(2). Available online at: http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol3_2/bauman.htm. Bauman, Zygmunt (1972): ‘Culture, Values and Science of Society’. University of Leeds Review, 15(2): 185–203. Bauman, Zygmunt (1976a): Socialism: The Active Utopia. London: Hutchinson. Bauman, Zygmunt (1976b): Towards a Critical Sociology: An Essay on Common Sense and Emancipation. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bauman, Zygmunt (1978): Hermeneutics and Social Science: Approaches to Understanding. London: Hutchinson. Bauman, Zygmunt (1987): Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1989): Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991): ‘Critical Theory’, in Henry Etzkowitz and Robert M. Glassman (eds): The Renascence of Sociological Theory: Classical and Contemporary. Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992a): Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992b): Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1993): Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (1995): Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Moralities. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998a): ‘Sociological Enlightenment: For Whom, about What?’ Dansk Sociologi, 9 (Special Issue): 43–54. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998b): ‘On Postmodern Uses of Sexuality’. Theory, Culture and Society, 15(3–4): 19–33. Bauman, Zygmunt (1999): In Search of Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2000): Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2003): Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2008): ‘Pro domo sua’, in Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Poul Poder (eds): The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman: Challenges and Critique. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 231–240. Bauman, Zygmunt (2010): 44 Letters from a Liquid Modern World. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2011): Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2012): This Is Not a Diary. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2016): Strangers at Our Doors. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Tim May (2001): Thinking Sociologically (2nd Edition). Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt and Riccardo Mazzeo (2016): In Praise of Literature. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Görlach, Alexander (2014): ‘“The Perfect Society is an Illusion”: Interview with Tomáš Sedlácˇ ek’. European, May 19. Available online at: http://www.theeuropean-magazine. com/tomas-sedlacek–3/8477-the-failure-of-the-left-and-communism-today. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2001): Dødens mosaik: en sociologi om det unævnelige [The Mosaic of Death: A Sociology of the Unspeakable]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2004a): Zygmunt Bauman: den postmoderne dialektik [Zygmunt Bauman: Dialectics of Postmodernity]. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2004b): ‘From Solid Modern Utopia to Liquid Modern Anti-Utopia? Tracing the Utopian Strand in the Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman’. Utopian Studies, 15(1): 63–87. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (ed.) (2006): Baumans mosaik: essays af Zygmunt Bauman om etik, kritik og utopi, 1990–2005 [Bauman’s Mosaic: Essays by Zygmunt Bauman on Ethics, Critique and Utopia, 1990–2005]. Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (ed.) (2013a): Deconstructing Death: Changing Cultures of Death, Dying, Bereavement and Care in the Nordic Countries. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2013b): ‘Blurring Genres: A Conversation with Zygmunt Bauman on Metaphors, Science versus Art, Fiction and Other Tricks of the Trade’, in Mark Davis (ed.): Liquid Sociology: Metaphor in Zygmunt Bauman’s Analysis of Modernity. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 13–26. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2016): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: An Ambivalent Utopian’. Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 70(277/3): 347–364. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (ed.) (in press): The Postmortal Society. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid and Sophia Marshman (2008): ‘Bauman’s Metaphors: The Poetic Imagination in Sociology’. Current Sociology, 56(5): 798–818. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid and Anders Petersen (eds) (2015): Kritik: klassiske og kontemporære sociologiske perspektiver [Critique: Classical and Contemporary Sociological Perspectives]. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid and Poul Poder (eds) (2008): The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman: Challenges and Critique. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid, Sophia Marshman and Keith Tester (2007): Bauman beyond Postmodernity: Critical Appraisals, Conversations and Annotated Bibliography 1989–2005. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. Jay, Martin (2010): ‘Liquidity Crisis: Zygmunt Bauman and the Incredible Lightness of Modernity’. Theory, Culture and Society, 27(6): 95–106. Joas, Hans (1998): ‘Bauman in Germany: Modern Violence and the Problems of German Self-Understanding’. Theory, Culture and Society, 15(1): 47–55. Junge, Mathias and Thomas Kron (eds) (2014): Soziologie zwischen Postmoderne, Ethik und Gegenwartsdiagnose (3rd Edition). Wiesbaden: Springer/VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Kilminster, Richard and Ian Varcoe (1992): ‘Sociology, Postmodernity and Exile: An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman’, in Zygmunt Bauman: Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge, pp. 205–228. Lee, Raymond L. M. (2011): ‘Modernity, Solidity and Agency: Liquidity Reconsidered’. Sociology, 45(4): 650–664. Lepenies, Wolf (1988): Between Literature and Science: The Rise of Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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McClung Lee, Alfred (1990): Sociology for People: Toward a Caring Profession. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Mills, C. Wright (1959): The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Musiał, Bogdan (2007): ‘“Agent Semjon”: Der soziologue Zygmunt Bauman im Stalinismus’. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 20. Nijhoff, Pieter (1998): ‘The Right to Inconsistency’. Theory, Culture and Society, 15(1): 87–112. Nisbet, Robert (1976/2002): Sociology as an Art Form. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Pécseli, Benedicta (1995): ‘La Misère du monde og sociologiens kald: Interview med Pierre Bourdieu’ [‘La Misère du monde and The Calling of Sociology: An Interview with Pierre Bourdieu’]. Social Kritik, 37: 5–15. Rattansi, Ali (2014): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: An Adorno for “Liquid Modern” Times?’ Sociological Review, 62(4): 908–917. Rattansi, Ali (in press): Zygmunt Bauman: A Critical Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Ray, Larry (2007): ‘From Postmodernity to Liquid Modernity: What’s in a Metaphor?’ in Anthony Elliott (ed.): The Contemporary Bauman. London: Routledge, pp. 63–80. Smith, Dennis (1999): Zygmunt Bauman: Prophet of Postmodernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Stoetzler, Marcel (2011): ‘Sociology’, in Jean-Marc Dreyfuss and Daniel Langton (eds): Writing the Holocaust. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 41–61. Tester, Keith (2004): The Social Thought of Zygmunt Bauman. London: Palgrave/ Macmillan. Tester, Keith and Michael Hviid Jacobsen (2005): Bauman before Postmodernity: Invitation, Conversations and Annotated Bibliography 1953–1989. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. Vetlesen, Arne Johan (2005): Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walsh, Peter W. and David Lehmann (2015): ‘Problematic Elements in the Scholarship of Zygmunt Bauman’. Available online at: http://www.academia.edu/15031047/Pro blematic_Elements_in_the_Scholarship_of_Zygmunt_Bauman. White, Hayden (1973): Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Aesthetic and relational ethics Beyond Bauman’s postmodern ethics Nicholas Hookway and Douglas Ezzy

Introduction Zygmunt Bauman’s postmodern ethics as unfolded in books such as Postmodern Ethics (1993) and Life in Fragments (1995) signals an important new direction in contrast to the orthodoxy of Émile Durkheim’s ‘normative’ morality. Bauman’s (1993, 1995) postmodern ethics develops out of his sociological excavation of the sources of the Holocaust (Bauman 1989). In response to the manifest failure of modern forms of normative rationality and bureaucratic organisation, Bauman turns to the relational moral theory of Emmanuel Lévinas (1979). Morality does not arise out of the ‘rational order’. Rather morality is ontologically prior to social organisation, integral to our relational engagements. While others have taken up and extended this Lévinasian approach to morality (Irigaray 1991; Ahmed 2004a; Butler 2004), Bauman’s later work turns away from Lévinas. The Lévinasian inspired relational morality of Bauman’s ‘postmodern phase’ contrasts with his later analyses of liquidity. His analyses of liquidity focus on exposing the failures of the highly individualised consumer age marked by speed, disposability and ‘until-further-notice’ relations, and created by ‘negative globalisation’ (Bauman 2006), citing the critical theory of Theodor W. Adorno and Karl Marx. It would be an oversimplification to describe the relational morality of Bauman’s postmodern phase as ‘optimistic’ and his liquid analyses as ‘pessimistic’, but there is certainly a change in the tone of his utopianism (Jacobsen 2007), that echoes a longer-term intellectual shift in modern thought from the ‘self-confidence and audacity of young Icarus to the scepticism and circumspection of the elderly Daedalus’ (Bauman 2006: 161). In contrast to Bauman’s turn to critical theory in his later analyses of liquidity, in this chapter we suggest that the Lévinasian relational morality of his ‘postmodern phase’ can be developed to address some of its shortcomings. Following a brief overview of Zygmunt Bauman’s ‘moral sociology’ and how it fits with his recent liquid analysis, the first part of the chapter makes a case for the importance of Bauman’s postmodern ethics for grasping moral life outside decline accounts. The second part of the chapter argues that Bauman’s ethics of ‘infinite responsibility’ needs to be grounded within particular, emotional and embodied encounter. Taking a cue from Jeffrey C. Alexander’s (2010)

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conceptualisation of ‘iconic consciousness’, the chapter suggests that Bauman’s relational theory can be extended to include aesthetics and symbols as integral to ethical practice and needs to provide space for the self to establish itself as a self. The approach also draws on Sara Ahmed’s sociology of emotions, Luce Irigaray’s analysis of embodiment, and Judith Butler’s Lévinasian-inspired analysis of relations with the ‘other’. Bauman, Ahmed and Alexander are all concerned with human responses to systemic cruelty, suffering and trauma. We conclude that the Lévinasian/Baumanesque ‘infinite responsibility’ to the Other can be reconceptualised through a celebration of the uncertainty in the moment of human response to suffering. The otherness of the Other is found through embracing the uncertainty associated with the possibility of trauma in the presence of the suffering Other. Butler’s (2004) analysis of the US response to 9/11 carries this argument.

From postmodern audacity to liquid scepticism Zygmunt Bauman’s postmodern ethics stands as a challenge to the orthodoxy of Émile Durkheim’s moral sociology. Instead of the coercive normative regulation of Durkheimian qua modern model of morality, Bauman maintains that the ‘unfounded foundation’ of morality in the postmodern is ‘being for the Other before one can be with the Other’ (Bauman 1993: 13). Heavily indebted to the philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas, morality is based for Bauman on the idea of ‘the original encounter with the Other’, on our existential condition as being in some sense always ‘for one another’ (Bauman 1998: 15). Moral behaviour is ignited into action by the presence of the Other, who in the realm of the ‘face to face’ calls upon you, demands of you and ultimately needs you. As Bauman puts it, morality ‘is triggered off by the mere presence of the Other as a face: that is, as an authority without force’ (Bauman 1991: 143). Taking his cue again from Lévinas, Bauman explains that responsibility toward the Other is summoned by the unspokenness of the demand, a silent command which is unconditional, limitless and infinite. Morality starts in saying I have not done enough, I am not settled with meeting the conventions of the ‘average person’: in saying, I will awaken my conscience and ‘make the silent demand audible, I will make the responsibility mine’ (Bauman 1998: 17). Responsibility is thus ‘shot through with ambivalence’ as ‘no one could ever know where responsibility begins and where it ends’ (Bauman 1998: 16). It is by nature vague, non-specific, and infinite – never ending. This entails a non-reciprocal and unconditional moral obligation between ‘I’ and ‘Other’ where the ‘Other’ exists before ‘I’ do. In Lévinas’s terms ‘ethics precedes ontology’, meaning ‘man’s [sic] ethical relation to the Other is ultimately prior to his ontological relation to himself ’ (Lévinas and Kearney 1986: 21). The moral self is constituted in its very relationship of responsibility for the Other. It is through responsibility – non-reciprocal, unconditional and infinite – that the self is constituted as a moral agent. It is my responsibility constituted in relation to the Other before me that ‘my freedom, my ethical freedom, comes

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to be’ (Bauman 1993: 86). Bauman (1993: 74) writes that ‘I am for the other’ when ‘I give myself to Other as hostage’. It is this ‘hostage relation’ that constitutes my own ethical subjectivity. Moral obligation to the Other is prior or transcends any ontological notion of being or self. Bauman’s (postmodern) ethics centres therefore on the release and cultivation of moral sentiment and emotion within the contours of this asymmetrical ‘I–Thou’ relationship as conceptualised by Martin Buber (Bauman 1993: 110). The feeling moral self (the I), and the selfless responsibility that it entails to the ‘face’ of the Other (the Thou), is fundamentally incompatible with the adiaphorising (morally indifferent) tendencies of a reason dictated and heavily rationalised bureaucratic modernity. Bauman’s postmodern hope rested in the possibility of emotions and affective dispositions being released from modern attempts to control and stifle the moral impulse (Bauman and Tester 2001: 45). Bauman argued that postmodernity could reinstate the morally autonomous subject and reinject emotions and feelings as sites of moral energy. The postmodern moral challenge, as Bauman saw it, was whether the moral self could handle the ‘primal moral scene’ of selfless responsibility to the ethical Other and the relentless ambivalence of living without the absolute ethical rules of modern morality (Bauman 1991: 48). More recently, Bauman’s ‘postmodern optimism’ has tipped into ‘liquid scepticism’: the leitmotif of ‘liquid modernity’ is not ‘being for the Other’ but moral insensitivity cultivated by semi-detached and unfixed social bonds (Bauman and Donskis 2013). If Bauman’s ‘moral impulse’ was silenced in modernity by bureaucratic rules and legislation, in liquid conditions it is silenced by the seductive force of a consumer modernity; a liquid age, in which there is a profound vulnerability and fear of becoming ‘waste’: of being overlooked, of not making the cut, of being deemed past your use-by date. Sensitivity to others is rendered a difficult, if not dangerous pursuit in a world of hurried, short-term and ‘no strings attached’ relations (Bauman and Donskis 2013: 14, 41). Accordingly, Bauman writes of a new ‘moral blindness’ as relationships become disposable, connections replace relationships, privacy is traded for security and public life is colonised by the trivial chattering of a ‘confessional’ society. If George Orwell and Aldous Huxley provide the vision of moral dystopia in ‘solid modernity’ for Bauman – oppression in Orwell, seduction in Huxley – Michel Houellebecq’s novel Possibility of an Island offers the vision of a liquid-modern dystopia. A self-made or DIY world where each is set on their ‘own orbit, [but] never criss-crossing’ (Bauman and Donskis 2013: 49). Bauman retains a utopian sensitivity in this later phase (Jacobsen 2007), but he is more pessimistic about the possibilities. For example, he concludes his volume on Liquid Fear with a contrast between a future of ‘ultimate catastrophe’ and one of a new compact: ‘Let’s hope that the choice between these two futures is still ours’ (Bauman 2006: 177). The focus of this chapter is Bauman’s postmodern ethics, not his ‘liquid ethics’. Bauman’s original postmodern ethics provides a theoretically rich and empirically constructive account of contemporary moral practice outside a

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‘decline’ genre of moral sociology (Hookway 2013). His postmodern work signals an important new direction from the orthodoxy of the Durkheimian position and moves sociological theorising away from models of ‘narcissism’ and ‘community breakdown’, which his more recent thinking has slipped into (Hookway 2014). At the same time as defending Bauman’s moral theory, there are distinct problems with his postmodern ethics that largely hinge on his philosophical debt to a Lévinasian ‘ethics of infinity’. Taking up this respective defence and opposition of Bauman, the following section defends Bauman’s ethical theory in terms of moving away from the decline assumptions of ‘cultural pessimist’ and ‘communitarian’ perspectives and for providing a set of fruitful lines for empirical sociological enquiry. Following this defence, the final section shows how Bauman’s ‘being for the Other’ can be extended to include the role that emotions, embodiment and aesthetic experience play in the ethical encounter.

Defence: moving beyond decline sociology Bauman’s postmodern ethics provides an important sociological perspective for theorising the dynamics of contemporary moral action outside diagnoses of decline or the ‘end of morality’. Narratives of moral decline are influential in current popular and intellectual Western debate but also run deep in a sociological tradition of moral crisis or loss. Two dominant camps of moral decline sociology can be identified: the ‘cultural pessimists’ and the ‘communitarians’ (Hookway 2013). The cultural pessimists maintain that with the decline of religion and traditional forms of authority, Westerners have become ‘narcissistic’ and uncaring as they become absorbed by a ‘therapeutic culture’ of hedonism, consumption and self-improvement (Rieff 1966/1987; Bell 1976; Lasch 1979). ‘Communitarians’, on the other hand, claim that the fragmentation of community life and an accompanying individualism have undermined a common moral culture and a shared sense of responsibility toward others (Etzioni 1994; Bellah et al. 1996; MacIntyre 1985). Constructions of morality tend to be top down in the cultural pessimistic and communitarian accounts of moral decline focused as they are on the negative moral consequences of weakening tradition, religious authority and community. It is only through authoritative social structures that preside over and regulate the inherently egoistic and appetitive individual that moral commitments and sentiments can be harnessed, endorsed and affirmed. A key strength of Bauman’s ‘postmodern ethics’ position is that he problematises community and religion as the proper origins of morality, highlighting how ‘society-cum-religion’ can operate as a ‘morality-silencing’ force (Bauman 1989: 174). Bauman underlines the overly optimistic readings the communitarians and the cultural pessimists give community and organised religion, ignoring the obvious point that community and religion can ‘tear’ as much as they ‘bind’ – they fragment and puncture societies, groups and the individual body as much as they anoint and sacralise. This was powerfully

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argued in Modernity and the Holocaust (1989), where Bauman asserts that the Holocaust functioned as a monstrous falsification of the Durkheimian model of socially injected morality, showing how following the moral code of society can be synonymous with carrying out the most morally depraved of human actions. The nub of Bauman’s critique is that analyses focused on the achievement of morality in ‘community’, ‘society’, ‘religion’ or ‘tradition’ endorse conformity and rule following, sapping individual moral freedom and promoting intolerance of moral difference. Bauman’s question to the communitarians is what happens to those outside the social role, the community, the tribe or the nation? If values are defined relative to community goals, what happens to individuals or groups who do not share the communal position? Bauman’s answer is that they are branded as strangers, dangerous threats to the shared values and beliefs that hold the community together – or as outsiders who provoke nothing but ‘indifference’ from the ‘we’ (Tester 1997). Bauman warns that the obsessive search for communal moral foundations in the face of moral uncertainty can promote fundamentalist positions, which emancipate individuals from freedom and ambivalence but promote an intractable intolerance of difference and ambiguity. As a consequence, Bauman encourages an acceptance of moral contingency and uncertainty rather than a desperate attempt to shore up moral ambivalence in the false safety of moral islands of sameness (Bauman 1991: 234–5). There is a determination in Bauman’s postmodern phase to confront the moral challenges of the present without a nostalgic return to the past (Bauman and Tester 2001: 36). Instead of casting morality in the negative – the ‘it’s not what it used to be’ rhetoric popular in decline theorising – Bauman offers a positive theory for grasping current moral experience. While Bauman’s moral theory has been critiqued for not providing an adequate sociological theory of morality due to his focus on a pre-social moral impulse (Junge 2001), this criticism ignores the sociological insights he does provide into the central features of current moral practice. The ‘non-sociological’ criticism overplays Bauman’s theory of innate moral capacity and underplays his evocation of the social configuration of a ‘postmodern’ morality. This criticism also misunderstands the Bauman/Lévinasian point. Their argument is not that morality is ‘innate’ or ‘biological’. Rather, the argument is that morality is integral to ‘being’ – it is part of what it is to be human, not something that comes after, as a secondary development. Being human is both integrally social and integrally moral. Bauman is condemned as failing to capture the social aspects of moral practice yet these claims ignore the obvious micro-sociological insights his theory provides for grasping current moral realities. This can be examined in relation to three areas of moral experience: source, strategies and experience. First, in detailing the shift from modern ‘ethics as law’ to the postmodern authority of the self, Bauman offers an analysis of the contemporary form or sources of morality. For Bauman, the postmodern destruction of modern legislated ‘ethics’ means contemporary actors are obliged to confront their

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own ‘moral’ autonomy rather than being ethical rule followers. Instead of an ontological debt to Durkheim’s homo duplex, where the self is taken as inherently egoistic and impulsive, Bauman (1993: 49) reinstates the moral self within sociology as morally capable. Although compromised by his theory of infinite responsibility to the Other, Bauman’s theoretical system does provide moral space for morality to become ‘the first reality of the self ’ (Bauman 1993: 13). Second, Bauman highlights emotion and feeling as key strategies of moral action enacted within relations of unconditional responsibility to the Other (Bauman 1993: 67, 1995: 62). Bauman’s postmodern hope rested in the possibility of emotions and affective dispositions being released from modern ethical attempts to control and stifle the moral impulse (Bauman and Tester 2001: 45). Rather than morality being based in conformity to rules and norms given down from above, the emotions are seen as key drivers of moral action prompted by the authority of ‘face’. Morality is not a social construction beaten down by society, tradition or community or the rational operation of universal laws but a matter of moral feelings commanded by the Other (Bauman 1995: 62). Here Bauman (1993: 67) takes critical aim at the Kantian project which he reads as nullifying the emotions and the feelings for the rational and rule-bound calculations of the categorical imperative. Bauman reads Kant as being ‘haunted’ by any idea of moral action motivated by emotion rather than reason, of morality as ‘acting out of affections’ rather than according to ‘heteronomous rules’ (Bauman 1993: 67–9). Last, Bauman is instructive for grasping the experiential dimensions of contemporary moral decision making. In making the shift from an ethical rule follower to the freedom of an autonomous moral creator, modern individuals pay the price of inescapable insecurity (Bauman 1993: 248). As individuals contend with the restoration of moral autonomy in the postmodern West, individuals must grapple with the experience of uncertainty and anxiety as they forge moral lives without the comforts of absolute authority and moral universals (Bauman 1993: 37, 1995: 73). Uncertainty and ambivalence are core features of the experience of morality in Bauman’s ethical theory. Bauman’s moral sociology – like the majority of his work – hangs on this portrayal of the precarious balance to be struck between the poles of security and freedom: too little security renders a practice of freedom impossible and too much freedom is experienced as a painful excess of insecurity. While contemporary social theory (Beck 1992; Giddens 1991: 65) points to ‘risk’ and ‘ontological insecurity’ as key experiential categories in late modernity, the value of Bauman is that he casts these experiences fundamentally as problems of morality and ethics. Bauman’s analysis of the sources, strategies and experience of contemporary moral action provide a set of insights that translate into important empirical research questions. First, is the self an important source of moral guidance in late-modern settings – if so, how is this understood and experienced? How might this articulate with current cultural values of self-authenticity, self-improvement

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and self-discovery? Or contra to Bauman, do different types of external ‘rule following’ still play an important role in our secular times? Perhaps strict moral rules become appealing in conditions of moral ambiguity. Second, do the emotions and feelings work as key strategies for moral decision making as Bauman suggests? Anecdotally at least, notions of ‘going with your gut’ or ‘doing what feels right’ have a powerful cultural currency in contemporary life. Third, is uncertainty and anxiety the dominant experience of moral decision making for social actors? Perhaps the freedom of moral choice is felt as exhilarating and pleasurable rather than anxiety provoking? Or in our time-pressured lives do we have little time to get anxious over morality, acting instead according to pre-determined moral structures or so-called ‘grammars of conduct’ (Wood and Skeggs 2004)? These questions highlight the value of Bauman’s theory – although twenty years old – for thinking through how contemporary moralities might be conceptualised and set into projects of empirical research. Moving now to the ‘opposition’ part of the chapter, the next section argues that Bauman’s relational theory of morality overemphasises a distant and out-of-reach Other and can be developed to incorporate the self, emotions, symbols and aesthetic forms of ethical engagement.

Particularising Otherness Bauman’s theory of radical sensitivity to the moral demands of the Other while offering an exemplary model of practice – a utopian statement on the ‘ought’ of moral life – can be critiqued on a number of levels. These criticisms largely stem from the Lévinasian philosophy that informs Bauman’s moral theory. The first question to be asked of Bauman – and this is a question that can be equally levelled at Lévinas – is who is included in the relational category of the Other? Is the Other man or woman, God, my neighbour, my colleague, the stranger in the street, my sister, my partner – my dog? If they are all Others, are some Others, both human and non-human, not more Other than others? The work of Sara Ahmed (2000) and Luce Irigaray (1991) are instructive here. Ahmed (2000) argues that the figure of ‘the Other’ is universalised in Lévinas and Bauman, denying the differentiated, specific and embodied ways in which Others are encountered. Ahmed (2000: 5) accuses a Lévinasian-styled ethics as possessing an inherent ‘stranger fetishism’ where ‘the stranger has a life of its own’, where the Other is taken as singular in its Otherness. In Ahmed’s (2000: 143) terms: ‘the other becomes a fetish: it is assumed to contain otherness within the singularity of its form’. The fetishism of the stranger fails to recognise how the ‘face’ of the Other, and more specifically, the body of the Other, is delineated according to visual, touch and bodily regimes of sameness and difference. Ahmed claims that ‘the Other’ is someone who is always already recognised as familiar and known, as different and other, someone who is read at the level of the body as ‘not like us’, as strange. Ahmed (2000: 144) wants to resist the Lévinasian focus on ‘Others’ as ‘the Other’ by addressing the

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specificity of Otherness and how this is produced within finite and bodily circumstances. She asserts that it is within the particular rather than the universal that the ethical call of the Other is responded to (Ahmed 2000: 147). This is important as Ahmed can extend Bauman’s theory of ‘being for the Other’ by naming the specific modes of encounter that ‘flesh out’ Others as different and same, known and unknowable, strange and not strange. Similarly, Luce Irigaray (1991, 1996) ‘particularises’ Otherness, but does so within the realm of sexual difference. For Irigaray (1991: 171), the ‘unknowable other’ is the Other of sexual difference: that irreducible difference between men and women. Irigaray constructs an ‘ethics of sexual difference’ that occurs between fleshy, sexed and sexualised bodies (Irigaray 1991: 170). She questions, then, who the Other could be in Lévinas if the Other of sexual difference is excluded. Irigaray accuses Lévinas of writing the feminine Other ‘without her own specific face’ (Irigaray 1991: 159). The feminine becomes ‘the other of the same’; conceived not in relation to itself but in relation to man (Irigaray 1996: 63, 1991: 180). Like Ahmed, but with a focus on sexual difference, ethical singularity (this ‘woman’) is erased for Irigaray within sameness – the sameness of the male subject (Irigaray 1991: 180). Following Ahmed’s and Irigaray’s emphasis on the specificity of the Other, it is worth questioning whether the non-human animal constitutes an ethical Other deserving of human responsibility. If moral responsibility ‘soars up in the face of an Other’ (Bauman 1998: 19), does the animal, ostensibly lacking language, subjectivity and reason – a Descartian wind-up machine – count as face? Is the animal capable of summoning the ‘unspoken demand’ of human responsibility for the Other or is the animal an ‘othered other’, too Other to be included in the range of ‘infinite responsibility’? To bring the animal into Bauman’s ‘being for the Other’ works not only to uncover the implicit ‘speciesism’ (Law 1991: 6) of his ethics but also to particularise the notion of infinite responsibility by questioning whether some Others are not more Other than Others. As Ahmed suggests (2000: 147), we need to recognise the ‘particularity of the call’ by delineating the concrete and specific modes in which we encounter or ‘face’ up to different Others – in this case, others who are differentiated by species. These questions are important in light of the central, but morally paradoxical, nature of human–animal relations in late modernity (Franklin 1999).

The emotional and embodied Other Ahmed (2000) and Irigaray (1991) not only help uncover the ‘particularity’ of Others hidden in the universal ethics of Lévinas and Bauman, they are also helpful in terms of thinking through questions of morality in relation to emotion, feelings and bodies. They draw attention to how Otherness operates within and between bodily and emotional encounters. Irigaray, for instance, introduces the sexual body as a site of almost moral and spiritual reverence. The body is not passive and inert, but a dynamic and acting moral and

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spiritual agent. Ahmed is valuable in terms of extending Bauman’s suggestion regarding the role of emotions as postmodern moral guides. Bauman considers moral feeling and sentiment as contemporary substitutes for modernist ethical rules and regulations, but Ahmed operationalises how the emotions work and ‘particularly’ how they are implicated within concrete embodied encounters. Generally speaking, feminist theory highlights the need to fully incorporate the body and the emotions into Bauman’s ethic of Otherness: ‘[K]nowledge cannot be separated from the bodily world of feeling and sensation; knowledge is bound up with what makes us sweat, shudder, tremble, all those feelings that are crucially felt on the bodily surface, the skin surface where we touch and are touched by the world’ (Ahmed 2004a: 171). For Ahmed, emotions are ‘relational’, moving ‘toward’ and ‘away’ from certain bodies and objects (Ahmed 2004a: 8). They are not just ‘psychological dispositions’ but are ‘performative’; ‘they do things’ (Ahmed 2004b: 26–32). Emotions act as vehicles of demarcation between ‘us’ and ‘them’, inscribed and played out on the surfaces of bodies: ‘[t]he strange encounter is played out on the body, and is played out with the emotions’ (Ahmed 2004a: 39). In other words, emotions circulate and move to give ‘surface’ and ‘borders’ to individual and collective bodies. Emotions circulate between bodies but also become ‘sticky’ adhering to particular objects and bodies as they become ‘saturated with affect’ (Ahmed 2004a: 11). Disgust or pain, for example, ‘stick’ or attach to certain bodies inscribed by previous histories of touch and encounter. When we look or touch somebody we see and feel these previous touches and we ‘press’ on these histories of touch and feeling. Ahmed writes of an ‘ethics of touch’ which recognises how the skin appears differently and how it materialises its own memories of touch – how it has been touched differently by different Others (Ahmed 2000: 155). Irigaray also brings the question of the body directly into a consideration of an ethics of Otherness. As mentioned above, for Irigaray, one of the key issues with Lévinas is the absence of the flesh and the sexual body. She argues that his ethics severs the ‘we’ of sexual difference and love for a disconnected and masculine ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ (Ahmed 1996: 48). Lévinas, Irigaray (1991: 180) claims, misses the ‘communion in pleasure’: the pleasurable openness, relatedness and bodily exchange experienced between lovers across the boundaries of sexual difference. Although Lévinas and Bauman both write of ‘the caress’, for Irigaray it is a caress that is always elusive, always in the future. An inaccessible future ‘where no day is named for the encounter with the other in an embodied love’ (Irigaray 1991: 179). Irigaray argues that it is the relation between man and woman, crossed between the boundary of the skin through wonder and shared energy, rather than domination and control, which offers opportunity for an ‘ethic of the passions’ (Irigaray 1991: 172, 1996: 48). By integrating the embodied relation within the ethical encounter Irigaray shifts focus from Bauman’s examination of the uncertainty and anxiety of the ethical relation to the joy and pleasure of relatedness. The body is a model of

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openness and receptivity; neither separate nor fused, neither swallowing the Other or losing the self. She highlights how the ethical theory of Bauman/ Lévinas appears to be bound to an ontological consideration of humans as alone and disconnected. As Bauman (1993: 61) declares: ‘at the heart of sociality is the loneliness of the moral person’. In contrast, ethics appears in Irigaray (1993: 9) as a ‘double loop in which each can go toward the other and come back to itself ’. In Ahmed and Irigaray, the Other is not someone to whom I just give endlessly without return. Rather, the Other is the one whom I face within particular and finite bodily and emotional circumstances. To be responsible implies a system of emotional response, receptivity, speaking and communication occurring through and within embodied relations (Ahmed 2000: 147). As Nel Noddings (1984: 134) writes, if ‘relatedness rather than aloneness is our fundamental reality and not just hopelessly longed for state, then recognition or fulfilment of that relatedness might well induce joy’. The Other is not someone distant and abstract, always out of reach and a cause of anxiety, but one rooted in emotional exchange, communication and thus joy and pleasure. Ahmed and Irigaray help push an ethics beyond an abstracted Other to a bodily Other, an Other of touch and emotion that works within relations of affectual response, exchange and pleasure.

Iconic consciousness Jeffrey C. Alexander’s (2010) conception of ‘iconic consciousness’ also focuses on the sensuous experience of embodied and emotional interaction highlighted by Ahmed and Irigaray. Through an analysis of the symbolic function of icons, Alexander highlights how meaning is communicated through experiential engagement rather than cognitive knowing. To be iconically conscious is: ‘to understanding by feeling, by contact, by the “evidence of the senses” rather than the mind’ (Alexander 2010: 11). Icons are material, but they must not be understood within the modernist frame of materialism. Similar to Bauman, Alexander resists the Kantian tradition that undervalues aesthetic experience. Aesthetic experience and an engagement through feeling are what give icons their significance: ‘With icons, the signifier (an idea) is made material (a thing). The signified is no longer only in the mind, something thought of, but something experienced, something felt, in the heart and the body’ (Alexander 2010: 11). Alexander rejects a modernist conception of morality as separate from aesthetic experience. He also rejects the radical postmodern aesthetics of ‘absence’. Alexander refuses to dichotomise aesthetic experience and meaning structures. ‘Aesthetic experience is always there, even when we don’t focus upon it. So is the moral experience that it conceals and makes visible at the same time, even if we are not morally self-conscious in any way’ (Alexander 2010: 14). That is to say, ‘iconic consciousness’ points toward a middle ground between the infinite variability of the ethical demands of the individual

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encounter, and the abstract authority of logical articulated normative frameworks. Alexander draws on a neo-Durkheimian sensibility to articulate this tension between the aesthetic experience of material artefacts and the abstract nature of morality. Quoting Émile Durkheim’s (1976) analysis of the ‘Crow people’, he argues: When the Crow people affirm that they ‘are crows’, it is because they believe that mana has the ‘outward form of the crow’ (p. 201). It is only this outward form of the totem that ‘is available to the senses’ (p. 222). They ‘attach themselves’ to this ‘concrete object’, and display it everywhere, ‘engraved on the cult implements, on the sides of the rocks, on shields’ (p. 222). (Alexander 2010: 16) The sensual, embodied, emotional and aesthetic experience of the relational encounter with the symbol of a crow articulates both a moral obligation to specific others, and a more abstract, and aesthetically articulated, commitment to a moral culture. In the concluding paragraphs of Alexander’s article he returns to Karl Marx’s theory of the fetishisation of commodities in capitalism. Commodities are not valued for their usefulness, but the fantasies and desires they stimulate: ‘Fetishism camouflages the “real” meaning of commodities, Marx insisted, a meaning which is actually exchange value and, more deeply, the exploitative relations of production’ (Alexander 2010: 20). Bauman’s (2006: 169) later work returns to ‘the prospects of human emancipation’, as articulated by Karl Marx and Theodor W. Adorno, with a somewhat sceptical response. In contrast, Alexander problematises the emancipatory role of ‘critical social science’ to discover the ‘“real” meaning of commodities’. Alexander points to the aesthetic significances of commodities that are often not instrumental, but rather moral and relational.

The traumatising Other Bauman’s postmodern ethics inherits Lévinas’s overemphasis on the moral demands of the Other, in addition to Lévinas’s elision of the aesthetic, embodied and emotional dimensions of Otherness. Lévinas has been charged with going too far in his opposition to a philosophical tradition that negates ‘Otherness’ for ‘being’. He appears to negate the self in priority for the extreme anteriority of the Other and thus underestimates the need to establish oneself as a self (Kemp 1997: 2; Caputo 1993: 124). Bauman’s theory of morality falls into a similar trap, adopting Lévinas’s notion of the ethical self, constituted in ‘hostage’ to the Other. Michel Haar and Marin Gillis (1997) suggest that the precedence Lévinas gives to the Other means that the subject or self loses meaning as it is ‘besieged’ and ‘occupied’ by the Other. The self is commanded and called into action only as a result of the radical alterity of the Other. The self is accorded

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‘no name, no situation, no status … [it is] stripped of all qualities’ (Lévinas 1989: 81 cited in Gardiner 1996: 132). In Lévinas’s words: ‘[t]o revert to oneself ’ is not to ‘establish oneself at home’ but to be ‘like a stranger, hunted down in one’s home’. Bauman (2008: 34) commits a similar transgression, claiming that we can only have ‘self-love’, that we can only love ourselves, when the Other loves us first. Like Lévinas, the self only exists as an outcome of the relation to the Other, and provides no space for self-love, self-interest or self-enrichment (Caputo 1993: 124). The self is besieged by the Other – ‘deeper within the self than the self’ – but having no hold over the demands of the Other (Haar and Gillis 1997: 101). The Other is the true meaning of the self but at the same time has no say ‘who he/she/it is’ (Harr and Gillis 1997: 96). This leads Haar and Gillis to argue that Lévinas not only gives no space for a conception of the self but also gloomily conceives the Other as a traumatising force: ‘an extreme imposition on me, to me and in me’ (Harr and Gillis 1997: 99). The Other becomes an ‘abysmal wound’ that ‘empties’ the subject of any ‘self-sufficient ground’ (Haar and Gillis 1997: 104). The self is homeless and estranged as it is persecuted by the Other but at the same time has no ground to stand and respond to the Other. Haar and Gillis conclude that the self needs to be rehabilitated in Lévinas’s ethics ‘against the literally unbearable excess of the Other’, to find a place where there is a balance between the enormity of the Other and the ‘privacy of myself ’. This is a criticism that again rings true for Bauman. Without such a balance, ‘being for the Other’ can become a ‘totalitarian’ relation as the self is effaced by the ‘persecution of the Other’. ‘Being for the other’ may be an apt concept for understanding the excessive demands of infinite responsibility but it falls short as a structure for theorising everyday moral action. It captures the ‘moral exception’ – the moral saint (Wolf 1982/2007) – but fails to tap the moral everyday: forms of ethical understanding and practice that lie outside unconditional and infinite responsibility.

The precarious self The ‘traumatising other’ is not simply a product of conceptions of the self that overemphasise the ‘other’. The ‘other’ may be traumatising in a way that is central to ethical relationships. Robert Bernasconi (1997) observes that early interpretations of Lévinas that emphasised the injunction to non-violence of the face-to-face relationship are too simplistic. It can similarly be argued that accounts that emphasise the other as a traumatising ‘extreme imposition’ (Haar and Gillis 1997) are also too simplistic. Rather, the ethical moment is a disruptive one that ‘does not confirm one’s identity but places it in question’ (Bernasconi 1997: 90). That is to say, the liquid moment of insecurity and uncertainty can be an ethical moment of disruptive self-transformation, to be valued, as much as a political strategy of reverse globalisation. This is clearly illustrated in the differing analyses of the US responses to 9/11 that emerge from Bauman’s ‘liquid’ theory and, in contrast, a Lévinasian relational ethics.

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Bauman’s (2006) analysis of the US response to terrorism turns on the manufacture of fear and insecurity, and the politics of the search for security. Donald Rumsfeld may have promised that sending the troops into Iraq will win a war that will make ‘Americans feel secure again’ (Bauman 2006: 102). However, the consequence of this, and other similar actions, was to generate heightened levels of insecurity and expand the ‘training grounds for global terrorism’. This analysis is framed within the context of Bauman’s ‘liquid phase’, in which individualised society is the source of the ‘dissipation of social bonds’ that might otherwise provide the ground for a politics of resistance and ‘solidary action’ (Bauman 2006: 21). Bauman also rehearses a nostalgia for normative ethics: ‘We may be looking in radically different directions and avoid each other’s eyes, but we seem to be crowded in the same boat with no reliable compass – and no one steering’ (Bauman 2006: 114). In contrast, Judith Butler (2004) develops an analysis of the US response to terrorism based on a Lévinasian relational ethics. In this context, loss and vulnerability are integral to being embodied humans, entangled in webs of social relationships. It is these entanglements, and the associated vulnerability, that generate moral responses. The aim here is not to ‘know myself ’, because such knowledge is impossible in the context of the webs of relationships with others that always exceed our ability to understand. Rather, the aim is to find strategies to live with the vulnerability and fragility generated by our relational and ethical entanglement with Others. Suffering, such as the very real and traumatic suffering generated by the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, generates a desire for revenge and violence, the desire to kill, to use Lévinas’s language. This desire is primary for human beings. The ethical imperative is to resist this desire. Alternatively, in a psychoanalytic turn, Butler (2004: 104) argues that the emotions generated by suffering ‘must be mobilized in the service of a politics that seeks to diminish suffering universally, that seeks to recognize the sanctity of life, of all lives’. The search for moral agency in the authority of an individual’s will or in generalised normative structures is misdirected. Morality emerges in the emotions, aesthetics and embodied performance of relationships, and our responses to those entanglements, including and particularly when those experiences are traumatising. The US response to terrorism revels in the waging of war, succumbing to the desire to destroy the Other, rather than embracing the uncertainty and vulnerability that are generated by relationships. Butler emphasises that her analysis does not ‘exonerate’ or condone the terrible actions of suicide bombers. They too have chosen to embrace the desire to destroy and murder the ‘Other’. Rather, Butler (2004: 149) argues that the decision to engage in ‘murderous acts’ was made too quickly and easily: Suffering can yield an experience of humility, of vulnerability, of impressionability and dependence, and these can become resources, if we do not ‘resolve’ them too quickly; they can move us beyond and against the

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Put another way, Butler’s point is that the politics of mass-mediated terror distances audiences from the face of those who suffer. In the Vietnam War it was the images of napalmed children that turned public opinion. More recently, it was the image of a lifeless 3-year-old Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish shore that helped shift the debate on Middle Eastern refugees. In contrast, the mainstream media did not publish similar images of ‘children maimed and killed by US bombs’ during the war in Iraq (Butler 2004: 149). Such images may have done more than to problematise the US-led war. They have the potential to lead into a complex moral ontology that values the disruptive presence of the other. More broadly, Butler calls for cultural criticism that embraces the frailty of being human and the uncertainty of knowledge. Dissent and ‘oppositional voices’ need to be valued as integral to ‘sensate democracy’. We are poorer when they are ‘feared, degraded or dismissed’ (Butler 2004: 151). Theodor W. Adorno (1967: 34) famously wrote: ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. If by ‘poetry’ we interpret Adorno as referring to the culture that celebrates the ‘reification’ of ‘total societies’ (phrases from the context of Adorno’s quote), then his argument has some merit. However, ‘poetry’ in a broader sense, and its many ‘iconic’, artistic and aesthetic correlates, also generates a sensuous engagement with the suffering of others that makes us human. Without such connection we also engage too easily in barbarism.

Conclusion This chapter began with a defence of Zygmunt Bauman’s postmodern ethics before mounting a critique built around the effacement of the self in his ethical system. Bauman’s postmodern ethics confronts the moral present, providing a set of micro-sociological insights for grasping contemporary moral life. Highlighting the sources, strategies and experiences of contemporary morality, Bauman shows how in current conditions morality takes a form that privileges the self, relies on emotions and feelings as strategies for decision making and creates a sense of uncertainty and discomfort. The chapter rehearsed the criticisms of Bauman’s postmodern ethics. His heavy ontological debt to the Lévinasian model of ethics is expressed in his theory of ‘infinite responsibility’ or ‘being for the Other’. Sara Ahmed and Luce Irigaray highlight how Bauman is guilty of ‘stranger fetishism’ (Ahmed 2000: 143), collapsing the Other within singularity and sameness and ignoring concrete and particular forms of relatedness. Bauman’s ethical Other is

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singular in its Otherness, meaning that the particular ‘face’ – as racialised (Ahmed 2000), sexed (Irigaray 1991) or even non-human – is concealed, alongside other visual and bodily regimes of sameness and difference (Ahmed 2000: 143). Further, Ahmed and Irigaray underscore how Bauman’s theory needs to be extended to incorporate the body, feelings and emotions. Bauman goes little beyond an acknowledgement of the role of emotions in his postmodern ethics. Ahmed helps fill this gap, offering a sophisticated analysis of how emotions and bodies ‘do things’, while Irigaray highlights the role of the corporeal in understanding ‘communion in pleasure’ between self and Other. Ahmed and Irigaray move ethics from the desertedness of the self in the Bauman/Levinas system, taking it from lonely and endless responsibility to the Other to reciprocal and joyful relations constituted within acts of communion, alliance and receptivity. Bauman constructs a ‘solitary love’ that misses the ‘shared outpouring … the loss of boundaries which takes place for both lovers when they cross the boundary of the skin into the mucous membranes of the body’ (Irigaray 1991: 180). Jeffrey C. Alexander’s (2010) neo-Durkheimian theory of iconic consciousness underlines the role of aesthetics and feelings in the development of both understanding and morality. Ethical obligations can be articulated normatively, but they can also be articulated iconically, represented symbolically, and engaged aesthetically. This is another form of relational morality that can be used to extend Bauman’s Lévinasian postmodern moral theory. Bauman’s later ‘liquid phase’ of thinking is more pessimistic, even as he returns to the theory of Karl Marx and Theodor W. Adorno for an analysis of the social sources of contemporary individualism and a nostalgia for normative morality. In contrast, we suggest that the Lévinasian moral theory of Bauman’s earlier postmodern phase can be developed in ways that retain the relational foundations of morality whilst avoiding the extremes of an overbearing other and an undervalued self. This develops through the aesthetic experience of the embodied engagement with specific others, and the iconic representation of abstract morality. Bauman (2006) is certainly correct when he argues that the politics of reverse globalisation rides a wave of mediatised fear, insecurity and liquidity. An aesthetic iconic extension of Lévinasian relational ethics, and Zygmunt Bauman’s postmodern ethics, suggests that the way forward is to embrace the fragility of the postmodern self. The ethical moment is precisely the moment of response to this fragility, rather than the freedom from it.

References Adorno, Theodor W. (1967): Prisms. London: Neville Spearman. Ahmed, Sara (2000): Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality. London: Routledge. Ahmed, Sara (2004a): Cultural Politics of Emotion. London: Routledge. Ahmed, Sara (2004b): ‘Collective Feelings, or, the Impressions Left by Others’. Theory, Culture and Society, 21(2): 25–42.

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Alexander, Jeffrey C. (2010): ‘Iconic Consciousness: The Material Feeling of Meaning’. Thesis Eleven, 103(1): 10–25. Bauman, Zygmunt (1989): Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991): ‘The Social Manipulation of Morality: Moralizing Actors, Adiaphorizing Action’. Theory, Culture and Society, 8(1): 137–151. Bauman, Zygmunt (1993): Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (1995): Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998): ‘What Prospects of Morality in Times of Uncertainty?’ Theory, Culture and Society, 15(1): 11–22. Bauman, Zygmunt (2006): Liquid Fear. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2008): Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Leonidas Donskis (2013): Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Keith Tester (2001): Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge: Polity. Beck, Ulrich (1992): Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage Publications. Bell, Daniel (1976): The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. New York: Basic Books. Bellah, Robert N., Richard Madsen, William, M. Sullivan, Anne Swidler, and Steve M. Tipton (1996): Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bernasconi, Robert (1997): ‘The Violence of the Face: Peace and Language in the Thought of Lévinas’. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 23(6): 81–93. Butler, Judith (2004): Precarious Life. London: Verso. Caputo, John D. (1993): Against Ethics: Contribution to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Etzioni, Amitai (1994): The Spirit of Community: The Reinvention of American Society. London: Simon and Schuster. Franklin, Adrian (1999): Animals and Modern Cultures: A Sociology of Human– Animal Relations in Modernity. London: Sage Publications. Gardiner, Michael E. (1996): ‘Alterity and Ethics: A Dialogical Perspective’. Theory, Culture and Society, 13(2): 121–143. Giddens, Anthony (1991): Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Haar, Michel and Marin Gillis (1997): ‘The Obsession of the Other: Ethics as Traumatization’. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 23(6): 95–107. Hookway, Nicholas (2013): ‘Emotions, Body and Self: Critiquing Moral Decline Sociology’. Sociology, 47(4): 841–857. Hookway, Nicholas (2014): ‘Moral Decline Sociology: Critiquing the Legacy of Durkheim’. Journal of Sociology, 51(2): 271–284. Irigaray, Luce (1991): ‘Questions to Emmanuel Lévinas’, in Margaret Whitford (ed.): The Irigaray Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Irigaray, Luce (1993): Sexes and Genealogies. New York: Columbia University. Irigaray, Luce (1996): Love to You. New York: Routledge. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2007): ‘Solid Modernity, Liquid Utopia: Liquid Modernity, Solid Utopia’, in Anthony Elliott (ed.): The Contemporary Bauman. London: Routledge, pp. 217–240.

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Junge, Matthias (2001): ‘Zygmunt Bauman’s Poisoned Gift of Morality’. British Journal of Sociology, 52(1): 105–119. Kemp, Peter (1997): ‘Introduction’. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 23(6): 1–3. Lasch, Christopher (1979): The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Law, John (1991): A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology, and Domination. New York: Routledge. Lévinas, Emmanuel (1979): Totality and Infinity. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Lévinas, Emmanuel and Richard Kearney (1986): ‘Dialogue with Emmanuel Lévinas’, in Richard A. Cohen (ed.): Face to Face with Lévinas. New York: State University of New York Press. MacIntyre, Alaisdair (1985): After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. London: Duckworth. Noddings, Nel (1984): Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rieff, Philip (1966/1987): The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud. New York: Harper and Row. Tester, Keith (1997): Moral Culture. London: Sage Publications. Wolf, Susan (1982/2007): ‘Moral Saints’. Journal of Philosophy, 79(8): 419–439. Wood, Helen and Beverly Skeggs (2004): ‘Notes on Ethical Scenarios of Self on British Reality TV’. Feminist Media Studies, 4(1): 205–208.

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Voice and the generalised other in the ethical writings of Zygmunt Bauman Shaun Best

Introduction According to Zygmunt Bauman most sociological narratives tend to ignore moral and ethical issues in relation to issues of cultural belonging and mechanisms of cultural exclusion. In contrast, in Bauman’s work ethical and moral problems have been recurrent concerns, and can be found in every aspect of his writing from his understanding of the Holocaust to later concerns about the transition of a solid to a liquid form of modernity, consumption, the Other and ambivalence. In his conversations with Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester, Bauman explains that the ‘moral law inside me’ as identified by Immanuel Kant ‘is to me an axis around which all other secrets of the human condition rotate’ (Bauman et al. 2014: 68). Bauman’s ethical concerns are Other-directed in that whatever constitutes ethics should be beyond ourselves and our own desires and self-interest. Bauman’s ethical stance was most clearly outlined initially in Postmodern Ethics (1993) and Life in Fragments (1995) in which he identifies the place of contemporary of morality within what appears to be the postethical, postlegislative postmodern/liquid modern condition. The chapter explores what Bauman identifies as the ‘moral law inside me’ and how this shapes our relationship with the Other. Bauman goes on to draw upon Emmanuel Lévinas’s opinion that the ‘primal scene’ of morality is the sphere of the ‘face to face’ and that being with the Other and for the Other should form the basis of contemporary ethics. The chapter will explore Bauman’s underpinning acceptance of Immanuel Kant, which manifests itself most forcefully in Bauman’s underpinning anthropological conception of culture that leads to a misunderstanding of Lévinas within Bauman’s ethical writing. For Bauman the moral capacity of people that allows them to form communities is established via a cultural link between self and Other in which the moral self becomes its own interpreter of the needs of the Other. The Other is not known to us as a specific human individual Other, rather we come to understand the Other as type of person or set of characteristics, not a unique individual. The chapter examines the possible negative consequences of conceiving the Other as a generalised Other; Bauman’s account of the adiaphorising effects of social processes that encourage moral irrelevance and dehumanisation of the Other

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and the possibilities of a renewal of an ethical life via the creation of a new public sphere.

Bauman, Buber and the Other It is commonly assumed that Zygmunt Bauman’s work is concerned with giving voice to the excluded Other. Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Sophia Marshman suggest that Bauman’s metaphors are inherently moral, ‘they give voice to the voiceless, they recall us to our inescapable human and moral responsibility for “the Other”’ and, in addition, that ‘Bauman’s work on postmodernity/“liquid modernity” has been dedicated to providing a voice for the “new weeds”; the poor, the indolent, the socially excluded, essentially those flung to the margins of society by the unstoppable march of global capitalism and consumer society’ (Jacobsen and Marshman 2008: 22). In a similar fashion Tony Blackshaw suggests that Bauman’s metaphors ‘provide him with a means for giving voices to the socially excluded’ (Blackshaw 2005: 76). Bauman himself has also made it clear that the silencing of the voice of the Other is a central aspect and precondition for genocide (Bauman 2009: 98): ‘Whenever and wherever an omnipotent force stifles the voices of the weak and the hapless instead of listening to them, it stays on the wrong side of the ethical divide between good and evil’ (Bauman 2009: 96). Bauman has also warned against ‘abstract standards imposed from without’ upon the Other and describes the damaging consequences for managing the Other without a voice in the following terms: But as one could only expect in the case of an asymmetrical social relation, quite a different sight greets the eyes when the relationship is scanned from the opposite, receiving end (in other words, through the eyes of the ‘managed’), and quite a different verdict is then voiced (or rather would be voiced, if people assigned to that end acquired a voice) it is the sight of unwarranted and uncalled-for repression, and the verdict is one of illegitimacy and injustice. (Bauman 2009: 196–7) The central focus of Postmodern Ethics (1993) is an evaluation of what Bauman understands by ‘the postmodern perspective’ or the ‘postmodern moral crisis’, much of which remains applicable in Bauman’s liquid-turn writings. Liquid modernity is identified by Bauman as a contemporary interregnum; a period of transition without clear direction in which the solid modern ways of working are no longer effective, but new ways of working have yet to be devised. For Bauman the way out of the contemporary interregnum is by the creation of a new public sphere rooted in moral proximity. Taking his starting point from Emmanuel Lévinas, for Bauman moral responsibility involves ‘being for the Other before one can be with the Other’. Being with and for the Other is ‘the first reality of the self, a starting point rather than a product of

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society’ (Bauman 1993: 13). This principle for engagement with the Other is said to have no foundation, cause or determining factor. However, there is an inability in Bauman’s work to draw upon Lévinas effectively because of two overlapping underpinning assumptions that Bauman makes: first, his underpinning Kantian perspective on morality and second his underpinning anthropological conception of culture. Martin Buber’s I and Thou (1958) provides an informed critique of Kant’s epistemology that had a significant influence on Lévinas’s ethical stance in relation to the Other; a stance that has been ignored by Bauman. Buber makes a distinction between I-It and I-Thou. These terms describe two possible ways of being in relation to the Other. For Buber, the self is always in a relation of some description with the Other. The central issue is how the self will relate to the Other. In the I-It mode of being which Bauman adopts, the self considers the Other as an object of his or her activities and thoughts and fails to understand the true presence of the Other. In contrast, the I-Thou/I-You mode of being involves mutuality between the self and other, a ‘meeting’ between self and other; in which the self is affected by the relation just as much as the Other is: ‘the primary word I-Thou can be spoken only with the whole being. Concentration and fusion into the whole being can never take place through my agency, nor can it ever take place without me. I become through my relation to the Thou as I become I, I say Thou. All real living is meeting’ (Buber 1958: 11). Buber uses the term ‘between’ to describe an ontological category where a ‘meeting’ occurs between self and Other; ‘the narrow ridge between subjective and objective where I and Thou meet’ (Buber 1955: 204). It is ‘a sphere which is common to them but which reaches out beyond the special sphere of each’ (Buber 1955: 203). It is here that ‘genuine dialogue’ takes place between self and Other and this is central to Buber’s conception of inclusion. When ‘genuine dialogue’ occurs ‘each of the participants really has in mind the other or others in their present and particular being and turns to them with the intention of establishing a living mutual relation between himself and them’ (Buber 1955: 19). If the self ‘turns’ towards the standpoint of the Other, and if the other ‘turns’ toward the standpoint of the self, genuine dialogue can arise: The extension of one’s own concreteness, the fulfilment of the actual situation of life, the complete presence of the reality in which one participates. Its elements are first, a relation of no matter what kind, between two persons, second an event experienced by them in common, in which at least one of them actually participates, and third, the fact that this one person, without forfeiting anything of the felt reality of his activity, at the same time lives through the common event from the standpoint of the other. (Buber 1955: 97) The moral law that Immanuel Kant identified within the person is described as a categorical imperative; underpinning the categorical imperative is what Kant refers to as ‘duty’. For Kant the action is the same whether the person

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is acting from duty or acting in accordance with duty. The difference relates to the motivation underpinning the action. However, the categorical imperative is not in itself moral, because its use does not involve thinking about morals. The individual is assumed by Kant to act without agency, rather the self acts because it is their duty; even if the action is against the self ’s own interests or desires. In a similar fashion, Bauman argues that morality has a ‘primal’ status that pre-dates socially constructed rules of proper behaviour and assumes that people are existentially moral beings. This does not mean that people are by their nature ‘good’ but it does mean that evil presents itself as a distortion of our moral responsibilities, making our position both uncomfortable and our responsibility for the Other ambivalent. The Kantian subject regards the Other beings as an ‘It’ rather than a ‘Thou/You’. Kant is primarily interested in discussing human freedom within the context of what he considered to be the universal validity of moral principles within a transcendental sphere, and Kant has little interest in the interactions between real persons. For Kant the ‘I’ is not meant to be me as a first-hand, individual person but me as a rational member of a ‘kingdom of ends’ which because of its universal nature also includes the opinion of myself within an abstract idea of a community – with a pre-established harmony, regulated by practical reason, common to all members that guarantees universality. In Bauman’s work, ‘kingdom of ends’ becomes the anthropological conception of culture. In Kant’s ethics there is no conflict or strain between individual autonomy and universalism; because ‘we’ as the plural form of ‘I’ and the will of rational beings is as such universal. The ‘kingdom of ends’ provides the universal perspective of rational members of the community. Accepting a universalising procedure requires observance of the rule and asking how I would feel if I were in the position of the Other. However, this is not the same as taking into account the real opinions and feelings of a concrete Other. As such Kant’s philosophy has difficulty coming to terms with a concept of alterity. In contrast to the attitude of the Kantian subject where the attitude of an I toward the Other is that of an It, for Buber when we enter into a relationship with a You, we engage in a dialogue with an actually existing whole person and as such transcend the Kantian universal perspective provided by the ‘kingdom of ends’. The I-Thou/I-You relation is ‘unmediated’ in that there is no prior knowledge or preconceived conceptual understanding of You.

Culture In the introduction to the second edition of Culture as Praxis (1973/1999) Bauman explains that an influential conception of culture emerged from orthodox anthropology which looked at culture as providing regularity: ‘an aggregate … a coherent system of sanction-supported pressures, interiorized values and norms, and habits which assured repetitiveness (and thus also predictability) of conduct at the individual level’ (Bauman 1973/1999: xvii). Although in his liquid-turn writings Bauman strongly rejected the

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continuation of anything like a ‘structure of society’ or a ‘culture’ in the orthodox anthropological sense, he also understands that human interaction has a non-random quality. Bauman does not escape this view of culture in the orthodox anthropological sense of ‘the way we do things around here’ in his social analysis and ethical writings. The role of the sociologist for Bauman remains the task of coming to an understanding of the non-random quality of human interaction. It is this non-random quality of human interaction that allows us to have an understanding of ‘we’, the people who share the culture. Apart from the practical problem that without an understanding of culture, the Other could not be encountered through consciousness, Bauman understands the role of culture as an important resource in the processes of creating an individual’s social identity as distinct from personal identity and which underpins the processes in the formation of the Other. If we want to capture the nature of cultural identity, Bauman explains, we need to accept that ‘identities retain their distinct shape only in as far as they go on ingesting and divesting cultural matter seldom of their own making. Identities do not rest on the uniqueness of their traits, but consist increasingly in the distinct ways of selecting/recycling/rearranging the cultural matter which is common to all’ (Bauman 1973/1999: xlv). Bauman remains a sociologist and does not reject or ignore the concept of culture in social life. Culture is more than simply common knowledge or customary ways of behaving, the practice of the way we do things around here. Our understanding of ‘humanity’ is a cultural project with Bauman’s ethical writings, as are the skills of dialogue and negotiation. Individual people rely upon knowledge of how to deal with situations and culture provides guidance on duty, on how to behave in any given situation, the responses we can expect from those around us and if we choose to behave in one way rather than another what responses we can expect. Our cognitive frames of reference, the resources that underpin our ability to interpret the world around us, are shaped by the culture we are socialised into. In its conceptual role as a sociological conception of Kant’s ‘kingdom of ends’, Bauman’s conception of culture provides the tools for consciousness – knowledge, cognition, language. To think beyond culture is beyond a person’s cognitive power and ability. Culture also provides ontological solidarity, a foundation to the ‘we’ experience that allows us to view people like us, who share our culture, as the same and not as the Other. The appearance of the Other is never a pleasant surprise because it damages the perception of the world as ‘our’ world. We now know that the other also exists in the world but they are not part of the ‘we’ relationship: ‘moral selves may be dissolved in the all-embracing “we” – the moral “I” being just a singular form of ethical “s/he”; whatever is moral when stated in the first person remains moral when stated in the second or third’, the first premise when considering moral phenomena is ‘to treat the “we” as the plural form of “I”’ (Bauman 1993: 47). For Bauman a moral life must have an objective aspect beyond feelings of pleasure and personal satisfaction. Bauman’s refusal to engage with, or listen

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to the voice of the Other is seen most clearly in Bauman’s views on sexuality. Sexuality is a central aspect of the affective aspect of human life. It is unclear why some of the behaviours identified by Bauman in relation to sexuality are necessarily immoral. Eroticism and the conscious enjoyment of sexual relations, for example, are identified by Bauman as immoral even when the activities are engaged in by consenting adults. As enjoyment when ‘severed from its age-old integration with reproduction, kinship and the generations’ makes identity fragment into episodes and prevents a cohesive life strategy to emerge and leads to the floating of responsibility. The enjoyment of sexuality in this manner ‘denies the moral significance of even the most intimate inter-human interaction. As a result, it exempts core elements of human interrelationships from moral evaluation. It adiaphorizes the parts of human existence which the adiaphoric mechanisms of bureaucracy and business could not (nor did not need, or wish, to) reach’ (Bauman 1995: 269). Bauman’s unsupported comments on sexuality suggest that he views such activities as warranting a ‘primal’ exclusion and demonstrate that he makes a distinction between ‘good’ desires and untamed or ‘bad’ desires; and that such ‘bad’ desires should be rejected and excluded from the public sphere into the realm of the ‘private’. What Bauman is doing here is the recreation of the ‘closet’ in liquid-modern form; and as such attempting to undermine one of the success stories of life politics, the politicisation of the personal in the area of sexuality. Effective participation in the public sphere is not possible if exclusion on the basis of sexuality is permissible. Since Michel Foucault’s work on sexuality, it is no longer possible to look at sexuality solely in terms of the natural cycle of generations. Life politics is a politics of the first person with a focus on quality of life issues in relation to personal identity.

Bauman, ethics and the Other In Life in Fragments (1995) Bauman builds upon his discussion of the place of morality within the postethical, postlegislative postmodern condition. Solid modernity signals the end of God’s commandment and the emergence of reason as the basis for legislating morality. Solid modernity contained within it an impulse or desire for ‘societal self-improvement’ based upon the ‘urge to construct a perfect, harmonious world for humans’ (Bauman 1995: 173). Morality within solid modernity was based upon the imposition of a moral code that does more than describe what people do but prescribes moral behaviour. The code was designed to prevent evil and abolish ambivalence. However, such moral codes lift personal responsibility for wrongs committed by the individual. The solid modern person does not need to trust their own moral judgement as they become increasingly dependent on the expertise of experts. Moral codes are designed to allow the solid modern person to escape from fear, but have the unforeseen consequence of enhancing the fear and feeling of powerlessness in the face of threats identified by experts. As Bauman often repeats, in solid modernity moral responsibilities are taken

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away from the individual and placed in the hands of agencies and become subject to what Hannah Arendt described as the ‘rule of nobody’, generating a tendency towards ‘adiaphorization’. However, the crisis of ethics in the postmodern condition does not necessarily mean the end of morality: ‘it is possible now, nay inevitable, to face the moral issues point blank, in all their naked truth, as they emerge from the life experience of men and women, and as they confront moral selves in all their irreparable and irredeemable ambivalence’ (Bauman 1995: 43). We only share that small part of ourselves that is relevant for the encounters we engage in and nothing more, in that the postmodern condition encounters between people are fragmentary and episodic; we only ever interact with a fraction of the self with much of the Other classed as private and as such it remains unknown to us. Most encounters have no lasting legacy, the events pass with little or no significance for the individuals concerned. In the postmodern/liquid-modern era of ‘unadulterated individualism’, ethics has become derided as typically modern and there has been a significant degree of emancipation from such constraints by an aestheticisation of ethics. Postmoderns do not trust any moral authority. For Bauman people are morally ambivalent, filled with uncertainty and neither by nature good or bad. Moreover, moral behaviour is ‘non-rational’ and based in the realm of personal autonomy and as such cannot be guaranteed by the state or other authorities designing the context in which behaviours take place, rather people have to learn to live morally without such guarantees. Moral behaviour is described by Bauman as ‘aporetic’, meaning that no action is unambiguously good or bad and all actions ‘if acted upon in full, leads to immoral consequences’ (Bauman 1993: 11). In an argument that follows John Macmurray’s communitarianism, Bauman argues that the moral self has to act in a manner that is unselfish, in that the moral self must give up some aspect of themselves. Bauman acknowledges that being with the Other and for the Other can lead to the destruction of the individual autonomy of the Other, to the domination and oppression of the Other, although this issue and how liquid-modern people can avoid destroying the individual autonomy of the Other is not explained. Bauman’s opinion is that morality is ‘not universalizable’, but because his starting point is Kant, Bauman does make universal statements to support his position and at the same time from a Kantian perspective rejects the nihilist idea of morality as something that is local and temporary. Such universal statements include that we should not do harm to others as this agrees with their self-interest and in addition, that ‘every reasonable person must accept that doing good to others is better than doing evil’ (Bauman 1993: 27). For Bauman it is the moral capacity of people that allows them to form communities; to recognise and have concern for the emotions of others (Bauman 1993: 33), we have the capacity to do this because we have a cognitive frame of reference that gives us the skills to read the emotion of the Other and because we share such emotions and their meaning is clear to us. Morality becomes personalised when it is released from the artificial and rigid ethical

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codes found within solid modernity. It is the appeal to abstract principles that saps the moral prerogatives of communities. When such abstract ethical codes make their appearance then our moral impulse is suppressed. Institutions that attempt to morally protect the community release the individual from any personal moral responsibility for the Other. In solid modernity there is a public space but it contains no moral proximity, such public space is characterised by estrangement from intimacy with the Other. Again taking his starting point from Lévinas, Bauman argues that the ‘primal scene’ of morality is the sphere of the ‘face to face’; we encounter the Other as a naked and defenceless face, not an abstract face but the face of another person, which dissolves alterity and individuality. Proximity becomes important for the link between self and Other. We become isolated individuals reaching to a state of being for the Other, a ‘we’ relationship in which we are better with each other than without. We are better when we are side by side and physically close. The ‘we’ is ‘the plural form of “I”’ (Bauman 1993: 47). As a moral person the ‘I’ has to take responsibility for the Other and it is this taking of responsibility, triggered by the gaze of the Other, that creates the ‘I’ as a moral self. As in Lévinas’s contribution to ethics, Bauman’s postmodern ethics is the ethics of love and caress. Bauman looks at caress as a metaphor for a moral relationship, reflecting a gesture like lovingly stroking the contours of the other’s body: The sight of l’Autre that triggers the moral impulse and recasts me as a moral subject through exposing me and surrendering/subordinating to the object of my responsibility (this happens already before l’Autre has a chance to open her/his mouth, and so before any demands or requests could be heard by me …) – even if the tactile, the caress, is a better metaphor for Lévinas’s model of what follows the awakening of the moral self. (Bauman 2011a) The passage from being-with the Other to being-for the Other involves ‘love’ which Bauman describes as resistance to objectification, an ‘awakening to the face’; the removal of masks that hides empathy and emotion that allows us to see the nakedness of the face and hear the ‘inaudible call for assistance’ that allows us to comprehend the ‘vulnerability and weakness’ of the Other. The Other becomes my responsibility, a target for emotion, with responsibility-forthe-Other, power-over-the-Other and freedom vis-à-vis the Other identified by Bauman as the component parts of our ‘primal moral scene’ (Bauman 1995: 64). Bauman explains that to act morally the self has to come to terms with what was thought to be incurable ambivalence. He makes clear what this relationship and commitment to the Other’s welfare involves in ‘practical terms’ (Bauman 1995: 69): My responsibility for the Other … includes also my responsibility for determining what needs to be done to exercise that responsibility. Which

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The post/liquid-modern experience of intimacy is a ‘de-ethicized’ intimacy rooted in ‘flotation’, a condition which neutralises moral impulses and moral considerations. The ‘primal scene’ of morality is the face to face of the intimate; the moral party of two, which changes with the appearance of the third. It is with the presence of the third that our moral impulse pauses and awaits instruction. The presence of the third transforms the postmodern/liquidmodern self into a sensation-gatherer; and for sensation-gatherer the Other ‘is made of rarefied and ethereal substance of impressions’ and to caress the Other is to explore the Other as a surface to be ‘stroked or licked – an object of tasting’ that ‘enters the world of the ego as an anticipated source of pleasure’ (Bauman 1995: 122–3). Adiaphoria is a ‘floating of responsibility’ for the Other, with the separation of ‘pleasure/use value’ from the commitment to ‘love’. Adiaphoria leads to ‘the stripping of human relationships of their moral significance, exempting them from moral evaluation, rendering them “morally irrelevant”’ (Bauman 1995: 133). Adiaphorisation is set in motion when our relationship with another person is less than total; the person becomes ‘useful’ to us. It is only if a relationship is full in that it is with the whole self that it becomes ‘moral’, argues Bauman. In the postmodern condition, and one might assume in liquid modernity as well, there are four distinct life strategies, or life models, identified by Bauman; each one self-contained and self-enclosed, restricting the creation of moral duties and responsibilities and potentially making our relationship with the Other fragmentary even in the most intimate of interactions; there is an ambivalence towards the Other, with the Other evaluated on aesthetic grounds in terms of their ability to promise joy and provide sensations rather than in terms of morality and responsibility for the Other’s welfare. At the same time the Other retains an element that is regarded as ‘sinister, menacing and intimidating … Mixophilia and mixophobia vie with each other’ (Bauman 1995: 138). Adiaphoria excludes some categories of people from claiming to be moral subjects and as such they are treated with moral insensitivity and are more likely to be exposed to suffering. There is then a causal connection for Bauman between moral insensitivity and the ability to commit acts of cruelty: ‘Modernity did not make people more cruel; it only invented a way in which cruel things could be done by non-cruel people’ (Bauman 1995: 197–8). Not only does the Other have no voice when we take responsibility for them but their ‘consent was not called for’ (Bauman 1995: 201). The moral self is its own interpreter of the needs of the Other; the command of the Other is ‘unspoken’: ‘It is the Other who commands me, but it is I who

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must give voice to that command, make it audible to myself’ (Bauman 1993: 90). Bauman continues: ‘The Other is recast as my creation … I have become the Other’s plenipotentiary, though I myself signed the power of attorney in the Other’s name. “The Other for whom I am” is my own interpretation of that silent, provocative presence’ (Bauman 1993: 91). When Bauman’s moral self takes on the plenipotentiary role, the moral self becomes the all-powerful, perhaps even absolute representative of what she or he considers to be the interests and wishes of the Other. For Bauman the ‘I’ appears to become both legislator and interpreter of the Other, with the right to decide what is true in relation to the Other, and also maintains the right to decide what is just for the Other. When the third appears on the scene this changes the situation of ‘the moral party of two’ to a ‘moral society’ in which our innate moral impulse becomes ‘baffled’, pauses and requires instruction. The arrival of the third constitutes a group, and our moral proximity with the Other is replaced by ‘aesthetic proximity’; a condition in which ‘the Other’ becomes one of ‘the many’, the faceless crowd. Social space becomes a complex interaction of three interconnected processes for Bauman – cognitive spacing, aesthetic spacing and moral spacing. Cognitive spacing informs us of who we live with. This information becomes part of our taken-for-granted background knowledge or our ‘natural attitude’. The Other is not unknown to us but we may not know one specific human Other, we come to understand individuals as types of people, not individual persons. Bauman identifies the origin of hostility towards the Other as a product of the ‘inner demons’ of frightened people who draw upon the culture to see anything that is not indigenous or alien as a source of pollution. Social organisation neutralises our moral impulse by firstly creating distance in place of proximity, exempting some Others from our moral responsibility, assembling humans into aggregates. The effect of these changes is that social action becomes adiaphoric and as human agents we find ourselves in an ‘agentic state’ (Bauman 1993: 123). Our moral capacity and responsibility for the Other becomes ‘floated’ and we engage in civil indifference ‘effacing the face’ of the Other who comes to be recognised as a set of traits rather than a person. In place of being with and for the Other we direct our concern away from the Other and towards ‘intermediaries’ within the immediate proximity of our community, people with whom we have physical co-presence such as ‘comrades in arms’ or ‘loyalty to mates’ (Bauman 1993: 126). Culture is the assertion of our collective identity and its role with sociality is to be a mechanism of self-perpetuation or self-reproduction. Cognitive spacing helps to reduce such anxiety by informing people within the culture on how to view and respond to the Other and reminding the individual who they share a ‘we-relationship’ with. The Other argues Bauman ‘is a by-product of social spacing’ and ‘the otherness of the Other and the security of the social space (also, therefore, of the security of its own identity) are intimately related and support each other’

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(Bauman 1993: 237). Social spacing takes the form of a ‘cultural homogeneity’ and is maintained by the intensity of the ‘member’s dedication’ and ‘popular emotion’ and, as such, has a central role to play in identity building. When Bauman chooses to use the term ‘member’ to describe individuals within a community this explains why individuals who are seen not to be members are classed as ‘strangers’. The culture that members share is not based upon an innate impulse but based upon an ‘exclusivist ideology’ that stresses human differentiation and the categorical. This ‘exclusivist ideology’ has intensified with the dismantling of the welfare state because without the state having as significant a role in providing a safety net, moral responsibility for providing help for the poor and people in need becomes a private matter. As such, claims Bauman, ‘those who can buy themselves out from collective provisions – an act which turns out to mean, sooner or later, buying themselves out of collective responsibility’ (Bauman 1993: 244). Culture, in its postmodern and liquid-modern form, still maintains its ability to separate and banish on the basis of a ‘collective fear-fed zeal’ for self-defence (Bauman 1995: 177–8). This ability, which Bauman calls the ‘anthropoemic strategy’, is endemic to every society, through concepts such as tradition, community and ‘forms of life’ or ‘rhetoric of blood and soil’. Culture provides the underpinning communal cohesion, consensus and shared understanding for social spacing and is both inclusive and exclusive in that the Other comes to have their conditions and choices defined by it, asserting ‘simultaneously its own identity and the strangehood of the strangers’ (Bauman 1995: 190). Bauman (2011b) maintains that culture provides a communal belonging and ‘identity stories’ that make meaningful interaction within communities possible. Such human bonds are not given by nature but based upon ‘fervour and commitment’ that they should continue (Bauman 2011b: 80–1). Bauman reflects upon this anthropological conception of culture with an examination of human rights. Human rights were established for the benefit of individuals and were secured by joint effort. However, with rights come boundaries and borders between the members of the community and the Other (Bauman 2011b: 90). There is an imaginary, hypothetical and elusive character to Bauman’s ethical perspective. Bauman adopts a culture-driven, abstract, disembodied approach to issues of ethics and morality, which contains an abstract conception of a generalised Other, applicable to all peoples classed as Other in all places and at all times. According to Seyla Benhabib, the generalised other is problematic because it abstracts real human individuals from their particular circumstances: The standpoint of the generalized other requires us to view each and every individual as a rational being entitled to the same rights and duties we would want to ascribe to ourselves. In assuming the standpoint, we abstract from the individuality and concrete identity of the other. We assume that the other, like ourselves, is a being who has concrete needs,

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desires and affects, but that what constitutes his or her moral dignity is not what differentiates us from each other, but rather what we, as speaking and acting rational agents, have in common … The standpoint of the concrete other, by contrast, requires us to view each and every rational being as an individual with a concrete history, identity and affectiveemotional constitution. In assuming this standpoint, we abstract from what constitutes our commonality, and focus on individuality. We seek to comprehend the needs of the other, his or her motivations, what she searches for, and what s/he desires. (Benhabib 1992: 158–9) Bauman’s ethical stance is universalistic in that it is restricted to the standpoint of the ‘generalized other’, his ethical stance is not preoccupied with the details of specific relationships or with a ‘particular other’. Bauman falls into the trap identified by Hannah Arendt of transforming a who into a what. The Other for Arendt is often viewed as a lonely, politically marginal figure who: ‘usually enter[s] the historical scene in times of corruption, disintegration, and political bankruptcy’ (Arendt 1958: 180). Otherness is an important aspect of plurality but human distinctiveness, the distinct quality of alteritas possessed by all things, is not the same as Otherness. Through speech and action people distinguish themselves rather than being merely distinct. It is through speech that people present themselves to others not as physical objects, or sets of characteristics, but as unique individuals: as Arendt explains: ‘With word and deed we insert ourselves into the human world’ (Arendt 1958: 176). Moreover, the unique personal identity of the Other can only be hidden in silence. It is silence that transforms a who into a what: ‘The moment we want to say who somebody is, our very vocabulary leads us astray into saying what he is; we get entangled in a description of qualities he necessarily shares with others like him; we begin to describe a type or a ‘character’ … With the result that his specific uniqueness escapes us’ (Arendt 1958: 181). In developing his care-and-responsibility orientation Bauman has no inclination to take the standpoint of a ‘particular other’ and as such Bauman has no respect for a ‘particular other’s’ needs. The Other for Bauman is a disembedded and disembodied being. Bauman defines the Other, decides the needs of the Other and what should be done in the interests of the Other. The acquisition of moral competencies in relation to the definition of and needs of the generalised Other are derived from the culture ‘we’ not the Other share. Ethical impartiality and the application of responsibility are based upon learning to recognise the claims of the Other as defined by the culture we are socialised into. The Other has a culturally defined identity that makes the Other different but should be treated as a person just like oneself and as such needs no voice because as long as we accept the moral imperative that the Other should be treated as we would treat ourselves, this stance constitutes fairness and justice in the public sphere. Rights and duties are culturally defined and not negotiated with the Other, as is the most appropriate way to

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arbitrate conflict and distribute rewards. Such a stance confirms the common humanity that the Other shares with us and our understanding of their human individuality. Moreover, the process of abstracting from his or her identity and ignoring the distinct content standpoint of the concrete other leads to epistemic incoherence in universalistic ethical theories. Bauman rejects reciprocity in our ethical dealings with the Other yet it is reciprocity that provides the capability and skill to adopt the standpoint of the Other, to imaginatively put ourselves in the position of the other and see the other as different with distinct needs and desires. In Bauman’s position there is no attempt at a mutual understanding of Otherness. Taking our starting point from Benhabib (1992), we can also identify that Bauman makes a distinction between ‘an ethics of justice and rights’ that is communitarian in nature and rooted in culture and an ‘ethics of care and responsibility’ that involves the imposition of what we feel to be right and wrong for the concrete real Other person. We see here the assumption Bauman (1993, 1995) makes is that what is good for us is good for the Other. We understand the care that we need and so understand the care that the Other needs. Care and responsibility also become abstract, universal and imposed upon the Other. What is good for us in our society and culture is assumed to be good for all, everywhere, including the Other. Bauman’s responsibility for the Other with no voice is little more than blind domination. Culture compels us to think and act towards the Other in specifically determined ways. The distinctive and unique elements of the individual’s humanity are emptied from the Other and they appear before us as an object for our responsibility. The Other is unable to articulate how they should be judged or treated, unless such a request is in accord with the view established within the ‘we’ relationship.

New public sphere: the way out of the contemporary interregnum In his post-2000 ‘liquid-turn’ writings, Zygmunt Bauman has come to identify the public space in terms of ‘collectivities of belonging’ in which new forms of communitarian politics can emerge that give the community some influence or direction over the consequences of liquefaction. However, the task of establishing this new public sphere is all the more difficult because ‘culture’ has been distorted by market forces from its original Enlightenment-inspired form in which there were ‘people’ to ‘cultivate’, into a form within liquid modernity which consists of ‘offerings’, a ‘warehouse of meant-for-consumption products’ not ‘norms’ and is described as something which is ‘willingly pursued’; and within which choice is unavoidable, regarded as both a ‘life necessity’ and a ‘duty’ for the individual consumers. Choice is characterised by ‘seduction, not normative regulation; PR, not policing; creating new needs/desires/wants, not coercion’ (Bauman 2009: 157, 2010: 333). This liquid-modern culture allows the individual clients to be seduced without ‘stiff standards’, a culture that serves all tastes while privileging none, a culture that encourages fitfulness

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and ‘flexibility’. Unlike solid modernity there is an abandonment of the attempts at assimilation of the stranger into the dominant culture in an effort to take away the strangeness of the stranger. We can no longer assume ‘collectivities of belonging’ or the ‘integrating of communities’. Culture within liquid modernity is characterised by difference but not necessarily a celebration of difference. Bauman argues in favour of an expanded role for a new public sphere that emerges out of life politics. Bauman takes his starting point an understanding of the public sphere from Hannah Arendt who suggests that the public sphere gathers us together: ‘the public realm relies on the simultaneous presence of innumerable perspectives in which the common world presents itself and for which no common measurement or denominator can ever be devised’ (Arendt 1958: 57). The term ‘public’ for Arendt signifies two closely related phenomena: first, ‘everything that appears in public can be seen and heard by everybody and has the widest possible publicity’, in which no activity can become excellent if it is outside of the public sphere. Second, the public life is distinct from the intimate life. The public sphere is a space in which reasoned arguments about the contested aspects of social and political life can be addressed. However, one might ask how engagement within a public sphere is possible given Bauman’s assumptions about the nature of solidarity in post and liquid modernity. Also, because inequalities of power continue to pervade the public sphere, issues are raised about how the public sphere is to be constituted and how the legitimacy of the sphere is to be maintained. Why would a politics of such a public sphere not be manipulated by the powerful? There is then a contradiction in Bauman at this point, as life politics is the politics of the new public sphere and yet life politics is a politics of rebellious subjectivity. In addition, there are practical problems in terms of how such a public sphere could emerge, given that both post and liquid moderns define themselves first and foremost as consumers and orientate themselves and their life strategies towards the enjoyment of acquired-use values within their personal/ private sphere. There is the additional question of what is the public sphere expected to do. Is this sphere a recreation of the political community in which the existing legislators are replaced by new people? Or is the role of the public sphere to get the existing legislators to make better decisions, by giving voice to the community so that the legislator’s decisions are more responsive? Is the role of the public sphere to stop the process of liquefaction, strengthen social solidarity and allow the emergence of socialism as an active utopia? The conceptual problems and difficulties that affect Bauman’s social analysis surface with renewed force when he reflects upon life on the far side of the contemporary interregnum. One of the reasons why his conception of the public sphere is not convincing is because Bauman does not present a convincing account of how post and liquid-modern identities emerged. How and why did it come about that rampant consumerism emerged and made people adopt life strategies in which they came to view themselves and others in terms of use values? In Bauman’s work there is no account of how the changes in global

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capitalism that brought about the shift from the society of producers to the society of consumers came about. Bauman does explain that in the liquid-modern world political boundaries have become porous and the state has limited abilities to counteract the consequences of the flows of capital: ‘the fast accelerating vehicle of progress’ (Bauman 2010: 40). Given that problems affect us on a global scale such problems can only be solved if we ‘raise human integration to the level of humanity, inclusive of the whole population of the planet’ (Bauman 2010: 69). The ‘democratic paradigm’ remains important in the creation of a ‘good society … invested in the democratic form of human cohabitation and selfgovernment’ (Bauman 2010: 56) supported by a culture of values and practices to ‘nurture equality, cooperation and freedom’ by self-critique and reform. To this end the state is ‘indispensable … for the sake of making the equality of humans feasible (I would say “dreamable”) if not real’ (Bauman 2010: 60). And what is this global public sphere aiming to achieve? What will the new global public sphere achieve as an alternative to the contemporary interregnum? Bauman makes his position clear: we need ‘intervention in the markets’: ‘to impose limits on consumption and raise local taxation to the levels required by the continuation, let alone further expansion, of social services’ (Bauman 2010: 69). Such an approach does not address the very real quality of life issues, for example in relation to the sexuality of the Other that underpin life politics, ethical issues where solutions are not to be found in the distribution of tax income or welfare state expansion. Within the individual there are two contradictory forces at work; on the one hand Bauman identifies an innate moral impulse that identifies the moral way forward as being with and for the Other and to demand nothing back in return: ‘moral impulse, moral responsibility, moral intimacy that supplies the stuff from which the morality of human cohabitation is made’ (Bauman 1993: 35). Alternatively, people are socialised into a common culture that provides individuals with cognitive frames of reference; this culture has an adiaphoric effect on the individuals – in both solid and liquid modernity – but for different reasons. The adiaphoric state is a common explanatory mechanism in Bauman’s analysis of solid modernity, including both Nazism and Stalinism, postmodernity and liquid modernity; it is the concept that Bauman draws upon to explain what it is that makes ‘ethical considerations irrelevant to action’ (Bauman 1973/1999: 46). The agentic state is then the opposite of a state of individual autonomy and responsibility. In terms of the Holocaust, the sociality of the face-to-face relationship was dispersed into a field of technological representation. Actions are said to become ‘morally adiaphoric’ (Bauman 1993: 125) when authority for an action is removed from the agent’s behaviour. Individuals do not have to face the moral content of their actions, what Bauman describes as a situation of ‘floated responsibility’ (Bauman 1993: 126) or what Arendt described as the ‘rule of nobody’ (Bauman 1993: 126). The adiaphoric state is rooted in a hatred of impurity. Bauman accepts Arendt’s position that the reality of human existence is a ‘conditioned existence’ and

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the ‘world’s reality’ is experienced as a ‘conditioning force’. The processes of rationalisation or liquefaction impact directly upon the central nervous system of the individual as a determining or conditioning force external to the individual, suspending the individual’s moral agency to the degree that the moral content of an action is placed outside of the consciousness of the agent. In the same way that switching off the lights in a room makes us blind to the objects about us, rationalisation or liquefaction simply enters the mind as the uninvited guest, brings about a set of behaviours and leaves without agency being affected by the contact or the experience. In his work with Leonidas Donskis, Bauman returns to the adiaphorising effects of social processes that encourage moral irrelevance and the dehumanisation of the Other: ‘the liquid modern variety of adiaphorization is cut after the pattern of the consumer-commodity relation, and its effectiveness relies on the transplantation of that pattern to inter-human relations’ (Bauman and Donskis 2013: 15). Mass consumption has come to have an overwhelming grasp on the happiness of post and liquid moderns. Bauman appears to agree with Herbert Marcuse in An Essay on Liberation (1969) that consumerism has created a second nature that ties people libidinally to the commodity. Although Bauman does not address the questions of how it was that the moral impulse did not become commodified. And why did our soul and humanity not also become commodified? Bauman ends up presenting a contradictory image of the individual who is on the one hand endowed with a moral impulse and on the other prevented from acting upon this impulse because of the adiaphorising effects of external social processes which prevent the individual viewing their own actions as cruel or immoral and such adiaphorising effects are assumed to exist in all forms of solid and liquid modernity. In solid modernity adiaphoria is generated by the processes of rationalisation and the ‘reality principle’, whilst in postmodernity and liquid modernity adiaphoria is generated by consumption and the ‘pleasure principle’. However, the creation of a new public sphere is problematic for Bauman because in his work the relationship between self and other is a relationship of beingto-being mediated by culture, making the relationship both being-to-being and knowledge-to-knowledge. We perceive the Other through culture, and it is culture that underpins the very thing that others the Other, making Bauman’s Other both particular and abstract; an individual human being perceived as a generalised other. This is as we would expect, by taking his starting point from Kant’s categorical imperative and understanding a moral act as ‘duty’. Being with the Other and for the Other can only be conceived on the basis of the knowledge we possess, within the context provided by culture. However, there is a problem with this position, as Keith Tester (1997) explains: ‘Bauman is too aware of history not to know that hatred cannot be ignored. But his commitment to a narrative of Culture which stresses universal and almost spiritual human qualities and capacities means that he gives the chance of hatred rather less weight than it merits’ (Tester 1997: 140). To fully accept the Other we would

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have to develop the capacity to think beyond our culture, to stretch the limits of our knowledge, cognition and language. This process would in the first instance involve a form of intrasubjective separation from our ontological framework as the first step in allowing us to think of the world that is different from what we previously imagined so that a possibility for non-antagonistic interhuman relationships with the Other could be possible. However, this raises the cultural issue of trust. How can we trust a person who is not one of us? The Other appears to have knowledge that we do not possess and that is the source of the perceived threat they pose; the culture of all forms of modernity makes people weary of difference and it is this culturally bound concern about difference that is contained within our cognitive frame of reference that underpins the process of Othering with modernity.

Conclusion There is an impartial and universal nature to the argument in Zygmunt Bauman’s deontological ethical analysis. Individuals do not make moral choices alone in an isolated context but rather an individual’s mode of moral subjectivity and moral choices are made within a cultural context. To quote Keith Tester again: ‘Bauman’s work is fully within the compass of Culture’ (Tester 1997: 135), making the moral world regular, orderly and linked to solidarity. The generalised Other becomes a ‘concocted homunculi’, an ‘aggregate of spare parts and aspects’. If the Other has a voice in Bauman’s ethical writings, that voice is provided by Bauman himself. Members of the culture are presented by Bauman as the legislators and interpreters of the needs, wishes and desires of the Other. In addition, there is a Manicheanism underpinning Bauman’s approach to ethics most clearly seen in his comments on sexuality; a belief that there is a fundamental division between forces of good and forces of evil in the world. Taking his starting point from the division of orientation between an ‘ethic of ultimate ends’ versus an ‘ethic of responsibility’, first outlined by Max Weber in his 1918 lecture, ‘Politics as a Vocation’, Bauman suggests that an ‘ethic of ultimate ends’ is based upon the idea that the end justifies the means: it may be necessary to engage in actions which are morally questionable such as bombing civilian targets in order to achieve an important political goal. The alternative is to be with and for the Other and to take responsibility for the Other. Both positions involve taking what is assumed to be the morally superior standpoint, in that the intention in both positions is to bring about a better situation. However, both positions in the last analysis lead to human beings coming to be viewed as objects in the world. Zygmunt Bauman’s ethical stance places an emphasis on social justice, social and political rights that are by their nature simply right not wrong and that the moral content of an action is not dependent on its consequences. The only ‘good’ thing in itself is a good intention, however, acting on the basis of a ‘good’ motive or good intention can also cause harm, such as the unwanted imposition of ‘love’ or ‘caress’, if the Other is allowed no voice. If individuals

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do not examine what may be achieved from an ethical action, including what good can come from their acting ethically and speculating on possible unforeseen consequences of their action, then harm to the Other may result. This is more so if the needs of the Other are assessed solely from our own point of view. As Bauman rightly points out a self-founding morality is ‘blatantly and deplorably, ethically unfounded’ (Bauman 1995: 18), but this does not prevent him from developing such a self-founding morality in his own work. It is the voice of the Other which Bauman chooses to silence in his ethical writings, the very thing that makes that person unique and allows the Other to express their autonomy and choice of outcome. For Bauman, it is unreasonable to ignore dispossessed Others but this is not in itself an ethical stance if there is no possibility of entering into a dialogue with the Other, allowing them to come into the new public sphere and allowing the Other to participate in the formation of a shared understanding of what needs to be done. Bauman needs to deconstruct the paternalistic, benevolent emotions and feeling states that underpin the ethical perspective of doing things on behalf of the Other because we feel it is in their own best interest. Bauman’s ethical stance raises the question of who will guard the ethical consequences of Bauman’s individual having unlimited power over the Other. Who is going to identify if the loving, caressing and being with and for the Other is in the interests of the Other or meets the needs of the Other? Zygmunt Bauman’s ethics does not have the commitment to the Other’s alterity as the starting point of ethical responsibility as in the work of Emmanuel Lévinas. For Lévinas every individual is unique and maintains a quality of otherness that he terms alterity, by which he means that the Otherness transcends all other categories and concepts. For Lévinas there is much to be discovered within the individual interpersonal encounters with the Other. For Lévinas the relationship with the Other is one that involves learning from the Other, without the purpose of placing one’s own interpretation of need onto the Other. It is this unknown content that the self uncovers in its encounter with the Other that initiates the ethical quality or the association between self and Other. There is an a posteriori element in Lévinas’s approach to ethics that is missing from Bauman’s approach. Bauman’s ethical account is insufficient because, despite being focused on being with and for the Other, it rejected the idea of the Other as a unique individual, thus failing to provide a suitable basis for ethics in Lévinas’s terms. There is a duty of the self to the Other in Bauman’s approach but at a cost in terms of undermining the Other’s reciprocal role in providing content to the ethical relationship. As such Bauman’s voiceless and passive Other is denied full ethical status within the ethical relationship. Bauman’s underpinning socialism means that the emphasis between self and Other is on material considerations. In Lévinas’s terms the Other cannot be comprehended by knowledge derived from the self ’s own perception of need in the way that Bauman attempts to do so. We may also want to question Bauman’s assumption that we can only flourish in a socialist utopia, an egalitarian society where there are strict controls over the level of

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consumption one person can engage in, and in which the state intervenes to distribute income spent on unnecessary consumption to people less fortunate via a welfare state. As suggested above the Other may not want to live in a socialist utopia and many of the problems that people, including the Other, face in relation to self-realisation in relation to identity, such as their preferred gender or sexual identity, are not going to be resolved by a forced redistribution of other people’s income.

References Arendt, Hannah (1958): The Human Condition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1973/1999): Culture as Praxis (2nd Edition). London: Sage Publications. Bauman, Zygmunt (1993): Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (1995): Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (2009): What Chance of Ethics in the Globalized World of Consumers? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2010) ‘Culture: Liquid Modern Adventure of an Idea’, in J. R. Hall, L. Grindstaff and M. Lo (Eds): Handbook of Cultural Sociology. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 326–334. Bauman, Zygmunt (2011a): ‘Interview with Simon Dawes’. Theory, Culture and Society. Available online at: http://theoryculturesociety.org/interview-with-zygm unt-bauman/. Bauman, Zygmunt (2011b): Culture in a Liquid Modern World. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Leonidas Donskis (2013): Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt, Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester (2014): What Use Is Sociology? Conversations with Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester. Cambridge: Polity Press. Benhabib, Seyla (1992): ‘The Generalized and the Concrete Other’, in Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics. New York: Psychology Press, pp. 148–177. Blackshaw, Tony (2005): Zygmunt Bauman. London: Routledge. Buber, Martin (1955): Between Man and Man. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Buber, Martin (1958): I and Thou. New York: Charles Scribner. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid and Sophia Marshman (2008): ‘Bauman on Metaphors: A Harbinger of Humanistic Hybrid Sociology’, in Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Poul Poder (Eds): The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman: Challenges and Critique. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 19–41. Marcuse, Herbert (1969): An Essay on Liberation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Tester, Keith (1997): Moral Culture. London: Sage Publications.

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Race, imperialism and gender in Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology Partial absences, serious consequences Ali Rattansi

Introduction Zygmunt Bauman rightly has a large number of admirers, some of whom (see, e.g., Smith 1999; Beilharz 2000; Tester 2004; Blackshaw 2005) have written favourable exegeses of his voluminous output. He is not, of course, without his critics, and some of the best critical essays have been published in two edited collections (Elliott 2007; Jacobsen and Poder 2008). Even the current director of the Bauman Institute at the University of Leeds, Mark Davis, has written a thoughtful, appreciative critique of Bauman’s work (Davis 2008). There have also been many objections to Bauman’s pioneering and influential thesis set out in Modernity and the Holocaust (see, for example, Mann 2005) and his views on consumerism have not gone unchallenged either (see, for instance, Warde 1994a, 1994b). However, none of the critics has conducted an interrogation of the myriad ways in which the limited attention Zygmunt Bauman pays to issues of racism, imperialism and gender have led to a damaging selectivity in his interpretations of the Enlightenment, modernity, the Holocaust and consumerism. It is the effect of these partial absences in Bauman’s work that I focus on here. Another way of expressing this would be to argue that what I am attempting to accomplish here is a critique of Bauman’s work in the light of the extensive interventions by postcolonialist and feminist researchers which have had the effect of exposing the limitations of the ‘imperialist gaze’ and the ‘male gaze’ in many mainstream disciplines, including sociology. A more extensive and detailed critique of these and other themes in Bauman’s work form part of my larger project, to be published soon in book form (Rattansi in press). It should go without saying – but to avoid misunderstanding is worth pointing out – that my critique is not meant to detract from the great many achievements that Bauman’s admirers have highlighted, and indeed my book will add to an appreciation of his many profound contributions. But that is not the purpose of this chapter. Here I am only concerned to turn the spotlight on a number of absences in his work which in my view significantly weaken Bauman’s analyses of some of the themes that are central to his work and

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reputation. I am well aware that Bauman’s weaknesses with regard to these issues are not his alone. Similar criticisms can be made of most major Western, white, male sociologists, including Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck (see Connell 2007; Bhambra 2014), with whom Bauman is often bracketed as one of the greats of modern sociology (Bauman and Donskis 2012: 1). Inevitably, then, broader questions of Eurocentrism and a masculinist bias in sociology are at stake here; Raewyn Connell (2007), for example, also presents a postcolonialist critique of the work of Pierre Bourdieu. And of course, there have been a number of feminist critiques of contemporary sociology (for one useful contribution see Marshall and Witz 2004). Unfortunately, I will not be able to do justice to these sets of issues within the confines of this brief chapter except for a few brief remarks in the conclusion. Nevertheless, they should be borne in mind as forming the essential backdrop against which my critique of Bauman’s later works should be viewed. Other caveats need to be entered here, too. First, I shall only be concerned with Bauman’s ‘Postmodern’ and ‘Liquid Modern’ phases. Second, I will have to scrupulously restrict myself to issues of racism, imperialism and gender, setting aside broader issues that arise from Bauman’s interpretation of the Enlightenment, modernity, the Holocaust, consumerism and so forth, which will form part of my book-length discussion.

The Enlightenment, modernity and ambivalence It was in Legislators and Interpreters (1987) that Bauman first announced his adoption of a distinctly postmodern standpoint, and it was in this text that some of his key theses on modernity were first explicated, which were subsequently developed in Modernity and the Holocaust (1989), Modernity and Ambivalence (1991), Intimations of Postmodernity (1992), Postmodern Ethics (1993), Life in Fragments (1995), Work, Consumerism and the New Poor (1998) and In Search of Politics (1999). The European Enlightenment of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has long been regarded as a key moment in the development of Western modernity (Cassirer 1951; Gay 1973; Geras and Wokler 2000), and it is thus not surprising that Bauman, in developing a genealogy of modernity, also focuses his attention on the key intellectual and political transformations that are usually associated with the Enlightenment. In particular, the Enlightenment of course has come to be called the ‘Age of Reason’, signalling the attempt at establishing rationality and scientific method as against superstition and religion, a belief in progress as a consequence of the application of instrumental rationality, and the beginnings of liberalism and pluralism in politics. With the immense influence of the seminal writings of Michel Foucault, the Enlightenment has also come to be seen as part of the development of a disciplinary social formation for the government of national populations, with an emphasis on Panopticon-like institutions such as schools, the army, prisons, mental asylums and so forth. It is important to bear in mind Foucault’s reinterpretation of the Enlightenment and modernity, for it had a profound

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influence on how Bauman thought of the Enlightenment in Legislators and Interpreters (see, for instance, Bauman 1987: 45), a text deeply indebted to Foucault’s analysis of what Bauman refers to as ‘the self-perpetuating mechanism of power/knowledge’ (Bauman 1987: 11). The originality of Bauman’s interpretation of the Enlightenment lies in the way he connects the emergence of intellectuals as a separate group with the emergence of the modern state, seeing in this alliance a powerful bloc that helped usher in the ‘Age of Reason’. In seeing the Enlightenment as the Age of Reason – he refers to it as being an age characterised by the ‘Kingdom of Reason’ (Bauman 1987: 111) – Bauman remains within the bounds of a conventional interpretation that I question in my forthcoming book. For the time being, note that Bauman primarily focuses on the French version of the Enlightenment but mentions very few actual French Enlightenment intellectuals and their writings – Marquis de Condorcet and Denis Diderot get brief mention; Destutt de Tracy is given more attention. Roy Porter (2000), a major Enlightenment scholar, has remarked that those who see the Enlightenment only as the Age of Reason, thus overemphasising the hold of scientific, mathematical and instrumental rationalism on the era, have a tendency to cite only a few French thinkers, overlooking a host of intellectuals, of French or other nationality, who held a variety of differing views. Be that as it may, I want to highlight other issues: gender, and Europe’s imperial expansion, amongst them. A number of arguments are worth making here in relation to the account of the Enlightenment that Bauman provides, which then affects his broader interpretation of Western modernity. First, despite devoting an entire chapter to what he regards as the emergence of the concept of culture in the eighteenth century (Bauman 1987: 81–95), he fails to notice that this was also the era in which the concept of culture enabled women to be positioned as part of nature, with important consequences. Being part of nature rather than culture meant that women were regarded as unable to properly self-cultivate, self-actualise, and exercise freedom and rationality. Women were thus legitimately to be confined to the private sphere of domesticity and child rearing, for they were largely seen as emotional, credulous and incapable of objective reasoning (Outram 2005: 83; Ortner 1982). This, though, was not just an Enlightenment or eighteenth-century phenomenon. Women’s place in Western modernity more generally was circumscribed by these notions, for they long continued to be seen as overemotional and child-like, thus needing the patriarchal tutelage of men; in the nineteenth century attempts were made to bolster this view with spurious measurements purporting to show that women had smaller brains and less intelligence. Note, moreover, that similar arguments were made regarding Western modernity’s other Others, the racialised inferior peoples ‘discovered’ by the West as overseas exploration and imperial domination took off in the wake of Columbus’s fateful journey. Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century an analogy was being made between the natural inferiority of both women and blacks and ‘Orientals’ (Stepan 1990; Rattansi 2007: 33–8). There is only passing reference to this in Legislators and

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Interpreters (Bauman 1987: 17, 18); historically, class was also incorporated into such conceptualisations, thus women, blacks and the ‘lower orders’ were all classified together as child-like, overly subject to the ‘passions’, incapable of rationality and thus requiring strict government by the white upper classes (Rattansi 2007: 38). It is important to acknowledge that the concept of ‘culture’ itself has origins that are not internal to Western Europe as Bauman’s discussion assumes; it owed much to the West’s encounters with non-Western others in the form of blacks, Orientals and ‘primitives’, and thus to the emergent discipline of anthropology, on which more in the conclusion of this chapter. One of the oddities of Bauman’s discussion is that despite his reliance on Foucault, and the latter’s influence on Edward Said’s widely read and hugely influential Orientalism (Said 1979), Bauman makes no mention of Said in Legislators and Interpreters, and has never mentioned Said’s work as far as I know, which suggests that Bauman might not have read Said. While Said’s work has been subjected to important criticisms, this is not the point, for a neglect of his work highlights Bauman’s provincialism, or more appropriately put, his Eurocentrism. It may be that an over-reliance on Foucault is, paradoxically, to blame, for Foucault himself failed to understand the significance of the concept of race and of racism and imperialism to the formation of Western modernity until late in his career (Stoler 1995). One serious consequence of Bauman’s neglect of issues of gender and race in the Enlightenment is that in subsequent works, especially Modernity and Ambivalence (1991), he fails to grasp the extent to which in Western modernity in general, woman, the black and the Oriental have been figures of profound ambivalence. Bauman recognised that the Jew was an ambivalent figure, but neglects the similar positioning of woman, the black and the Oriental as being of at least equal importance, and perhaps of even greater significance as sources of deep ambivalence. Not surprisingly, then, Legislators and Interpreters also makes no mention of the ambivalence of the figure of the ‘Noble Savage’, reflecting an attempt by many Enlightenment intellectuals to appreciate the attractive simplicity – however misconceived some of these notions were – of the lives of non-Westerners such as Tahitians. Indeed, the perceived simplicity of primitive cultures was often used to criticise contemporary manners as excessively artificial and materialistic (Meek 1976; Vogel 2000; Whelan 2009: 48–77). Nor should we forget the great veneration during the Enlightenment of Chinese civilisation, the elevation of Confucius to a sort of cult figure and the impact of Chinese art and porcelain manufacture, leading to the emergence in France of what has been called Chinoiserie, with Voltaire being a leading light in this wave of Sinophilia (Clarke 1997: 37–53). Changing attitudes to China exemplify the Enlightenment’s (and arguably, the West’s more general) ambivalence to non-Western cultures, with the same thinkers sometimes praising the Chinese system of rule and at other times denouncing what they took to be an unacceptable form of ‘Oriental Despotism’, one of the regimes of governance included in Montesquieu’s influential typology of forms of rule.

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Enlightenment ambivalence is equally noticeable in the opposition of key Enlightenment thinkers to slavery, whatever their views on the rationality of blacks and other non-Western populations (Muthu 2003). Kant is an interesting case of this, for he moved from a virulently racist position on blacks (Eze 1997: 38) to one in which his growing interest in anthropology and his move towards cosmopolitanism led to a significant alteration in his view of blacks, and he also adopted a strong anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist stance (Muthu 2003: 172–209), which he shared with most of the French philosophes (Muthu 2003). The neglect of the woman question and the positioning of blacks and Orientals is part of a wider problem with the way in which Bauman conceptualises modernity. This is perhaps best illustrated by considering a revealing omission in Bauman’s narrative of the Enlightenment: Mary Wollstonecraft’s pioneering A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, first published in 1792, and the fact that in his writings on Western modernity Bauman more or less ignores the influence of liberal and democratic thought and movements; thus John Stuart Mill, a liberal and an early supporter of women’s rights, is never mentioned either, or at least not in that context. Mary Wollstonecraft’s seminal achievement lay in a remarkable deconstruction of the binary oppositions between nature-culture and rationality-irrationality, thus exposing the contradictions at the heart of Enlightenment (and much modern) thought about the status of women. Like Voltaire – whose pronouncements on these issues find no place in Bauman’s account – Wollstonecraft pointed out that to confine women to an inferior, domestic realm was to replicate the arbitrary system that privileged monarchs, aristocrats and slave owners. She highlighted too that the male–female division was overlain by class differences, and that the heavy manual labour engaged in by peasant and working-class women made it that much easier to deny their femininity while legitimating the subordination of the more feminine middle- and upper-class women (Knott and Taylor 2005). Ignoring Wollstonecraft, Mill and liberal and democratising tendencies within modernity goes hand in hand with Bauman’s more general neglect of liberal democracy in his conception of Western modernity, for Bauman consistently puts his emphasis on Foucauldian disciplinary technologies in his account of Western modernity, a characteristic also remarked upon by Mikael Carleheden (2008: 175, 182). In other words, a focus on issues of gender, race and imperialism also allow us to prise open wider problems in Zygmunt Bauman’s conception of modernity as well as its ambivalences.

Imperialism, racism, gender and the Holocaust If there was one book that launched Bauman’s international career and made his reputation, it was the magisterial Modernity and the Holocaust (1989), published soon after Legislators and Interpreters which itself was already making Bauman an influential figure in sociology. Bauman’s key argument in Holocaust, that the horrific murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others

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was a product of modernity and part and parcel of its key characteristics and normal modus operandi rather than its antithesis, is now too well known to require detailed elaboration here. Bauman succeeded in finally putting the Holocaust on the agenda of sociology, a discipline that unlike history had more or less completely ignored it, although, as Shaun Best (2013: 79–85) has pointed out, Talcott Parsons did make an attempt at addressing some of the issues raised by the rise of the Nazis. In the years that have now passed since its publication many of the key arguments of Modernity and the Holocaust have not fared well (see, for example, Mann 2005). However, the critics of Bauman’s analysis have not addressed some central weaknesses relating to the role of imperialism, the variety of racisms that were involved and the significance of gender in the Holocaust. I do so in some detail in my book (Rattansi in press) and will now briefly set out the argument to be presented in that text, but only with regard to imperialism, racism and gender. I have already pointed out that in Legislators and Interpreters Bauman marginalises, to the detriment of his analysis, the role of European imperial expansion and the ambivalence surrounding women, blacks and Orientals in European modernity. In Modernity and the Holocaust, because of Bauman’s narrow focus on internal German history, he neglects the significant role played in the Holocaust by practices and ideologies that had emerged from Germany’s imperial and colonial entanglements. In this context it is crucial to remember that there were important continuities between what David Olusoga and Casper Erichsen (2010) have called ‘Germany’s forgotten genocide’ in what is now Namibia, and Nazi genocide in Europe. The Germans, in pursuit of their imperial ambitions during the ‘scramble for Africa’, had committed genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples of southwest Africa who had tried to resist German occupation of their lands, and between 1904 and 1907 there was what Helmut Smith (1998: 108) has called a ‘brutal annihilation’ of these peoples. Concentration camps had been set up where African prisoners were worked and starved to death. Moreover, some of them were experimented upon in the interests of ‘racial science’, just as the Jews and others were during the Holocaust. Significantly, many of the same German soldiers and bureaucrats involved had subsequently used their ideologies of racial superiority and the technologies of the concentration camp during the Nazi period (see also Stone 2010: 213–22; Shaw 2007, especially 37–47; see Jones 2006 for a comprehensive discussion of the Holocaust as part of genocide studies). There was a close connection between German nationalism and German imperialist adventures in Africa. The idea of the relationship between German people or Volk and German soil was crucial, but as German agricultural land came to be monopolised by rich landowners, expansion in Africa and the seizing of land there was seen as an alternative route to the creation of the German nation (Olusoga and Erichsen 2010: 88–9). German colonialism cannot therefore be seen as a contingent external factor in the formation of a nationalism that eventually fed into the Holocaust, for it was a

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constitutive element of that nationalist fervour. German nationalism and colonialism were closely intertwined. Moreover, the imperial entanglement fed upon and further nourished racial ideologies. The Herero and Nama were regarded as ‘bestial’ and ‘wild’ and of course congenitally inferior to white Germans (Smith 1998: 112). There were direct links between the racial science, and racial scientists, involved in southwest Africa and Nazi racial scientists (Olusoga and Erichsen 2010: 304–10). The same prohibition of racial mixing that characterised Nazi racist ideology and practice in relation to the Jews had been first promulgated in relation to Africans, and the category of the Mischling used during the Nazi period for those of Jewish and ethnic German mixed ancestry was initially used for those of mixed African and German ancestry, with similar debates about how they should be treated in relation to ethnic Germans (Smith 1998: 116–17). There was, too, an almost seamless move from seeing African colonies as seedbeds for a renewal of the German nation to a desire to settle ethnic Germans further into Eastern Europe, which became central to Nazi ambitions to create greater Lebensraum (living space) for the German nation. German behaviour towards Poles and others on their eastern borders replicated the brutality and racial inferiorisation that had underpinned colonisation in southwest Africa (Baranowski 2010). As the historian Richard Evans remarks (2015: 360), German race laws in colonies like Namibia provided a basis for similar regulations in German-dominated Europe after 1939, according to which Poles and other Slavs were subjected to harsh discrimination and – especially if they were drafted in to work for the Reich, as they were in their millions – banned from having sexual relationships with members of the German master race. As a young man Adolf Hitler had been greatly influenced by the pulp fiction of Karl May, which featured tales of the Wild West in which the white heroes were of German origin. His fondness for these narratives of German conquest over Native Americans led him to recommend them as reading for German generals and he printed 200,000 copies for the troops (Evans 2015: 356). It is perhaps better known that Hitler was a great admirer of the British Empire, but he saw in this a model for an empire in Russia: ‘What India is for England, the territories of Russia will be for us’ (Hitler cited in Evans 2015: 361). The treatment of Slav and Roma populations should be enough to suggest that Nazi racial ideology was not confined to anti-Semitism. And the treatment of Germany’s black population showed that another variant of racism was also involved in Nazi racial ideology. As Clarence Lusane points out in Hitler’s Black Victims (2003), the discourse of Hitler and Nazi theoreticians created a specific racial ideology aimed at the classification of blacks, Indians and ‘coloured’ populations, one which ‘overlapped with anti-Semitism but had its own character, argument, and socio-historical significance’ (Lusane 2003: 5).

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Add to all of these considerations the manner in which Jews were ‘Orientalised’ (Kalmar and Penslar 2005), and Orientalism was involved in the creation of the Aryan myth – and influenced German Nazism (Ballantyne 2007: 33; Pollock 1993) – and it becomes clear that understanding racism and anti-Semitism in the Holocaust, both as ideology and as practiced in Nazi institutions, is considerably impoverished if account is not taken of Germany’s relation to its colonies in Africa, the connection between German imperial racism and its other racisms, the intimate intertwining of German imperial ambitions in Africa and its desire to create an empire in Eastern Europe, Hitler’s desire to emulate aspects of the British Empire, and the complex manner in which anti-Semitism became intertwined with other racisms, including a form of Orientalism. By the same token, Bauman’s analysis of racism and the Holocaust is that much weaker for its lack of acknowledgement of the interconnections between German imperialism in Africa, German expansionism in Eastern Europe and the perpetration of racial genocide against Jews, Slavs and Roma populations. Interestingly, although Bauman was much influenced by Hannah Arendt, his work totally neglects the imperial connection highlighted by her research for The Origins of Totalitarianism (1950/2009: 123–302). In Modernity and the Holocaust, the only references to The Origins of Totalitarianism occur in different contexts (Bauman 1989: 50, 227n, 228n). In this connection it is salutary to mention that Hermann Göring, in his defence at the Nuremberg trials, pointed to the irony that the persecuting powers, in the process of building their colonial empires, had used tactics of mass killing and forms of racist ideology not far removed from the crimes for which they were trying German Nazis (Olusoga and Erichsen 2010: 5). The recent revelation of concentration camps used by the British in Kenya (Elkins 2005) only adds to the voluminous evidence that exists to support Göring’s ironic remarks. Although the issue of imperialism had already been highlighted by Arendt, questions of gender in the Holocaust are of more recent provenance. They began to be discussed in the 1970s and 1980s in the wake of the rise of women’s studies that followed the emergence of ‘second wave feminism’. Of course, to castigate Bauman for ignoring them is somewhat anachronistic. Nevertheless, in moving ‘beyond Bauman’, and further enhancing our understanding of the Holocaust, it is now imperative that we take account of the myriad ways in which the Holocaust was a deeply gendered phenomenon. It is now clear that Jewish men and women were treated differently by the Nazis. Men were likely to be imprisoned earlier than women (Pine 2004: 367) and in the earlier phase of murder by shooting, men were usually the first to be shot. Moreover, as Browning has shown, there were many Germans who initially balked at shooting women and children (Browning 2001: 65; see also Waxman 2010b: 313). But in the camps women’s survival rates were lower, for a variety of reasons: pregnant women and women with children were the first to be gassed; often, women went willingly into the chambers with their children rather than survive without them, as well as to support the children; and

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women were less useful as labourers where hard physical labour was required of prisoners while they all awaited their almost inevitable death (Waxman 2010b: 313). Women’s trauma in the camps was gendered and sexualised in two specific respects. Firstly, the usual stripping of clothes required of all arrivals was that much more humiliating but also frightening for women, their feelings of sexual vulnerability heightened by their nakedness (Waxman 2010a; Ringleheim 1993: 376). Some women were enslaved in brothels (Sommer 2010: 45–60; Bergen 2013: 26–7); rape and other forms of sexual violence against Jewish women in the period of the Holocaust were commonplace (Hedgepeth and Saidel 2010; Goldenberg 2013: 99–127; Ringleheim 1993: 376–7). The role of German women in the Holocaust has also come under increasing scrutiny. First, they were important in maintaining family life and normality for the innumerable men involved in the mass murder of Jews; second, they performed a vital function in upholding the Nazi vision of the ideal ‘Aryan’ family (Stephenson 2001: 23–32; Lawson 2010: 295); third, as many as 4,000 women worked as guards at concentration camps and killing centres (Browning 2001: 138; Mann 2005: 220). Although they usually worked under male supervision, they often exercised a considerable degree of power (Bergen 2013: 19–20); many others worked in white-collar and professional jobs, and women nurses and doctors were involved in the ‘T4’ euthanasia project when the mentally ill and physically disabled were killed off to protect the ‘stock’ of the German ‘Aryan’ race (Mann 2005: 204–5; Charlesworth 2004: 245). Women’s active participation as accomplices and actual killers has been graphically documented by Wendy Lower in her remarkable study, Hitler’s Furies (2013), sub-titled ‘German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields’. Given the opportunity, and in particular circumstances, women showed themselves to be as capable as men in perpetrating unimaginable cruelties. And most women who took an active part in the Holocaust resumed their normal lives after the war and stayed with their unprosecuted killer husbands, most famously Vera Eichmann, who faked a death certificate to protect her husband (Lower 2013: 170). Research on masculinity and the Holocaust is slowly getting off the ground. Browning’s research on Reserve Battalion 101, though, is revealing, although unwittingly so, for gender was not a special preoccupation in his Ordinary Men (2001). Christopher Browning documents that the pressure to conform to conventional standards of masculinity was mixed in with the desire to obey orders and not let the battalion down (Browning 2001: 71), and he also refers to the pressure to affirm ‘macho’ values where toughness was exhibited by the willingness to kill (Browning 2001: 184–5; see also Mann 2005: 254). Male bonding was part of the process by which men became killers (Mann 2005: 284). In a pioneering study Stephen Haynes (2002) has reread Browning, Daniel Goldhagen and other historians with an eye to what is revealed, often unwittingly, about the role of particular forms of masculinity and gender relations in the Holocaust. Amongst the insights revealed are the role of

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families of the killers in supporting them, the indoctrination of notions of masculine toughness as essential to proper execution of the murders, and the conception of killing Jews as a ‘Jew-hunt’ and thus as a typical male sport. Michael Mann (2005: 198, 251) also refers to the role of young working-class male forms of masculinity involved in the ‘licensed thuggery’ of the infamous Kristallnacht, when Jewish shops and individual Jews were attacked, as well as the sexual violence of German camp guards towards Jewish women inmates. Much, though, remains to be done in the task of understanding the various layers of entwinement between masculinity, Nazi ideology and the Holocaust. And any such research must explore the more general relationship between masculinity, gender relations and violence (Ray 2011: 83–103; Jones 2006: 325–42; Jones 2009). However, I believe I have shown decisively that a fuller understanding of the Holocaust is impossible without taking gender into account, something that for understandable reasons is not accomplished in Bauman’s work.

Gender, imperialism and consumerism Bauman is perhaps as well known for his relentless critique of consumerism as he is for his interpretation of the Holocaust. In Bauman’s critiques of contemporary Western culture, issues surrounding the hold of consumerism and its baleful consequences have a central role. Indeed, there is, arguably, a great deal of repetitiveness in Bauman’s analyses of consumerism. And there is an equally consistent neglect of the question of gender and its relation to consumerism, which in my view has baleful consequences for his own analyses. It would not be too far-fetched to argue that to write so much about consumerism without attention to gender is almost tantamount to continually staging Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. Issues of gender are in actuality central to a proper understanding of the development of the contours of Western modernity and the associated rise and rise of consumerism, and they have considerable significance for the debates on postmodernity (now renamed ‘Liquid Modernity’ by Bauman) to which Bauman has made such fruitful and influential contributions. I use ‘gender’ rather than ‘women’ advisedly, for it is as necessary to incorporate understandings of changing male identities, and themes of masculinity, as of women and femininity. However, before discussing issues of gender, it is worth setting out, albeit briefly, some of the key elements of Bauman’s critique of the role of consumerism in contemporary Western culture which I have collated from a wide range of his works: individuals are so overwhelmed by consumerism, Bauman claims, that their most important identity is that of consumer, rather than, say, citizen, and this process of interpellation by which individuals become, overwhelmingly, consumers begins in childhood; people come to believe that solutions to life’s problems are to be found in the purchase of more and more commodities in the market, with shopping being seen as a form of therapy for life’s ills, from ageing to not finding the right partner or friends, to be rectified

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if only the right commodities can be identified and purchased. Consumerism can lead to pathologies such as addiction to shopping. Addictions are only an extreme form of a more chronic condition in which it is the acts of shopping and purchasing that satisfy, while the actual commodity that is purchased soon loses its lustre as newer models become more enticing. Moreover, the extraordinary proliferation of models and versions of the same commodity create high levels of anxiety, for it becomes ever more difficult to decide which is the correct version to buy; anything deemed to be a wrong choice leads to shame and embarrassment, especially within the individual’s own reference and peer groups, and there is therefore a great proliferation of ‘experts’ who supposedly can guide the individual in making the ‘right’ choice, from ‘lifestyle’ advisers to scientists and advertisers. The rapid turnover of gadgets and other commodities, and the desire and compulsion to buy them leads to a ‘nowist’ and ‘hurried’ form of living characterised by ‘pointillist’ time which, especially, erases the past and creates an eternal present as well as an unfulfilling longing for a future with newer commodities, while at the same time undermining the idea of progress. Individuals see themselves as commodities to be properly clad and with the right qualities and possessions to be attractive in the market; the latter is particularly evident in activities like internet dating where the presentation of an attractive self with the right attributes and possessions becomes paramount. This form of commodification is accompanied by a deskilling in social skills when actual individuals have to be encountered, for individuals become more skilled at presentation via the internet than actual socialising. Commodification invades intimate life such that partners, wives and husbands are only tolerated for so long as they provide satisfaction, to be discarded like mobile phones or other gadgets for another partner who seems to promise greater fulfilment of desires. Also, exclusion from the resources required for whatever is regarded as an adequate level and type of consumption, in other words becoming ‘flawed consumers’, causes great shame, agony and embarrassment. This is by no means a comprehensive discussion of Bauman’s critique of consumerism, but there is enough here to give more than a flavour of what Bauman finds objectionable about what he often calls the ‘consumerist syndrome’. Many of Bauman’s misgivings about consumerism have been expressed by others (see, amongst innumerable others, James 2007; Barber 2007; Lawson 2009); and they have not met with universal assent either (Warde 1994a, 1994b). For present purposes I am setting aside any further discussion of these issues, although I will come back to aspects of the issue of ‘flawed consumers’. Gender appears in Bauman’s critique only incidentally, for example in Consuming Life (2007: 60) where he draws upon a discussion by one of his favourite journalists, Decca Aitkenhead of the Guardian newspaper, to make the point that young girls feel pressured to appear sexually attractive; but note that Bauman here is concerned not so much with gender and sexualisation per se, but the early age at which individuals come under peer pressure, for he

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goes out of his way to insist that ‘there are no separate drilling strategies for boys and girls’ because ‘the role of consumer is not gender-specific’ (Bauman 2007: 55, my emphasis). As this quote makes very clear, for Bauman there is no need to pay any particular attention to gender when it comes to the question of consumerism. In what follows I argue that Bauman commits a serious error of judgement and scholarship in disregarding the role of gender. In my discussion of modernity and the Enlightenment earlier in this chapter I have already pointed to the manner in which Western modernity began to structure and solidify around divisions of ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ in which women, by and large, came to be located as part of ‘nature’ and thus as an inferior category in this duality, an issue barely registered in Bauman’s thinking. But there were other binaries of power, discipline and function within which women found themselves increasingly imprisoned. Two are of particular significance. With growing industrialisation and urbanisation came growing disruptions to earlier family patterns and the emergence of a distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’. But this overlapped with the binary between ‘production’ and ‘consumption’, and women, fatefully, found themselves increasingly confined to the ‘private’ and to ‘consumption’ (see, especially, Slater 1997; Thornham 2000; Sassatelli 2007; Smart 2010; Lury 2011, amongst a host of others). Of course, women, especially from the growing working classes, continued to work outside the home, but it is undeniable that the home, child rearing and consumption, especially with regard to the provision of meals, clothing and items pertaining to domesticity were increasingly seen as a woman’s domain. This was a contradictory phenomenon, especially with regard to ‘nature’, for women were also seen as a vital ‘civilising’ and nurturing force. And in Britain, for example, this became part of a complex intertwining between class, nation, education and empire (see, inter alia, Skeggs 1997: 42–9). Women soon found themselves charged with maintaining order amongst the working class as well as nurturing healthy males for a strong nation and the British Empire. The fostering of a strong moral ethos also became seen increasingly as part of women’s civilising and nurturing role. From the 1850s onwards the rise of the department store, aimed especially at women, became a particularly important part of the retail sector of the Western economy. The architecture and internal design of the stores drew upon the open staircases, large windows, mirrors and ornate iron work that had been fashioned for the great exhibitions and other spectacles that were also becoming a significant part of the cultural landscape, and also signified modernity (Nava 1995, 2007). The department store became one of the few places other than church where middle-class women could wander on their own, unaccompanied by men (except for the mainly male shop assistants). Women were thus central to the rise of consumerism which began to take off in the second half of the 19th and in the early 20th century. But the increasingly exotic goods and artefacts on display at exhibitions and in the department store demonstrates how the rise of consumer culture

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was connected to the imperialism of the metropolitan powers. Transnational trade and colonialism were intertwined in a central manner with the rise of consumer culture in Europe and America, as the surpluses generated by slavery and imperialist exploitation of natural resources contributed substantially to increased consumption amongst the upper and middle classes, mediated by the shopping expeditions of women, who now also increasingly came under the influence of magazines which guided women as to the appropriate manner in which to consume the newly available goods (Thornham 2000: 139). Advertising grew rapidly. But again, this was not only gendered, but racialised. Thus women, as guardians of hygiene, were bombarded with advertisements for goods such as soap, though here was what Anne McClintock has called the emergence of ‘commodity racism’, with advertisements for Pears soap being particularly notorious for suggesting that the ‘dirty’ black skins of Africans could be lightened by soap while at the same time lightening ‘the white man’s burden’ by bringing a civilisation of cleanliness to the colonies (McClintock 1994a: 132; see also Mackenzie 1989). ‘Natives’ were depicted as happy in their servitude in advertisements for goods from the colonies, such as cocoa, coffee, tea and sugar. McClintock (1994a, 1994b) argues that as international competition intensified between the colonial powers, so advertising and marketing strategies became more aggressive and sophisticated, contributing in no small measure to the establishment of consumer culture in the metropolitan powers. Branding too was an outgrowth of this form of advertising, McClintock argues, and the soap industry in particular was marked by the rise of large corporations, thus being in the forefront of a growing trend in Western capitalism. It would be a mistake to assume that these sorts of entanglements between race, gender and consumerism are of only historical significance. Contemporary advertisements for a prominent British brand of tea, PG Tips, carried an image of a docile Indian woman picking tea, while there is a form of what Vron Ware has called ‘missionary discourse’ in advertising material for the supposedly ethical brand the Body Shop in which the founder, Anita Roddick, is depicted in a poorer region of the globe bringing the civilising influence of ‘green capitalism’ (Ware 1992: 243–8). Gordon Selfridge, the founder of the famous London department store Selfridge’s and a supporter of women’s suffrage (Nava 2007: 20), meanwhile, went so far as to suggest that he was aiding women’s emancipation, although such stores always placed women’s role in the home (Lury 2011: 123). None of these fascinating and necessary insights regarding the entanglements between modernity, gender and race in the formation and modus operandi of Euro-American consumer culture can be found in any of Bauman’s innumerable narratives and critiques of consumer culture. But there is more. As I have pointed out, Bauman is well aware that in contemporary consumer societies individuals see themselves as commodities and indeed are forced to see themselves and market themselves as such. However, it is crucial to grasp that men and women are positioned differently in this process, for not only do women have to sell themselves as commodities,

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but they have to go to far greater lengths in performing a by and large devalued labour of femininity in making themselves into desirable commodities by way of applying make-up and buying clothes. Moreover, they are also constantly used to sell commodities, for example in advertisements selling anything from cars to holidays, sports events to gardening tools and men’s deodorants; they are thus doubly commodified. And a great many women work in occupations, as receptionists or in boutiques, where the display of women’s sexuality is an intrinsic part of the job, making for further commodification (Thornham 2000: 134). Historically, it has been women who have found themselves disciplined and oppressed by images of perfection, especially in magazines and advertisements, although an emphasis on the fit, young, toned and tanned body is now also being held up to men as an ideal. Bauman has been insightful in noting the way in which control over the body is one of the few areas of faux autonomy left to individuals who then become obsessed by fitness and looks (Bauman 1995: 116–22). But not surprisingly he pays scant attention to how this is gendered, such that women, assailed by images of slim, indeed thin, body perfection have become prone to eating disorders of various kinds (James 2007: 30), a male phenomenon only evident in men’s rates of obesity, and for different reasons, although cases of anorexia and bulimia are not unknown in men. As I have remarked, men are now also targeted by advertising in ways which were formerly reserved for women. In the UK this is a phenomenon that emerged in the 1980s, as magazines like GQ and Arena were marketed as lifestyle guides for a ‘new man’ now urged to be more interested in fragrances, accessories such as expensive watches and new styles to reflect a changing workplace, especially in the advertising industry itself, characterised by less hierarchical management structures and an emphasis on personal creativity rather than the earlier model of ‘the organization man’ (Nixon 1996, 1997). A more lower-class version was the ‘lad’s magazine’, exemplified by Zoo and the now defunct Nuts, more explicitly sexist and aimed at men more interested in sport and other traditional working-class male interests. Telling instances of Bauman’s gender blindness occur in his In Search of Politics (1999) when, again citing from a story by Decca Aitkenhead in the Guardian on a protest organised against the arrival of a paedophile in a small town in the west of England, Bauman completely neglects the fact that the group was organised and led by women. The gendered quality of the protest highlights the gendered quality of the threat posed by the paedophile. Bauman, instead, cites this protest as an example of abstract, ungendered, ‘scared loners’ driven by ‘free floating fears’ emerging from the general insecurity, uncertainty and unsafety (Unsicherheit) of contemporary Western societies (Bauman 1999: 5, 11–14). Women’s special responsibilities for child care are obviously relevant in this set of events, but Bauman’s narrative follows Aitkenhead’s in ignoring this all-important feature. Another story from Aitkenhead is referred to by Bauman in In Search of Politics, this time to

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illustrate contemporary preoccupations with the body in consumer culture, in which Bauman completely fails to note that the narrative, based around a particular branch of Weight Watchers and a tabloid newspaper story about the supposed weight gain of the actor Kate Winslett, star of the film Titanic, is profoundly gendered. The only defence that might be offered for Bauman’s omission is that Aitkenhead also seems to miss the gendered dimension of her story about Weight Watchers. Finally, I offer a brief comment on Bauman’s category of ‘flawed consumers’. Again, I wish to draw attention to the manner in which issues of race and gender are sidelined by Bauman, although in this case the question of class in its relation to gender is also important as a missing dimension. Bauman defines ‘flawed consumers’ as ‘those weeds of the consumerist garden, people short of cash, credit cards and/or shopping enthusiasm, and otherwise immune to the blandishments of marketing’ (Bauman 2007: 4). In other words, people who either cannot or do not wish to join the consumerist merry-go-round. Those who cannot consume are what he has also called the ‘new poor’ (Bauman 1998), those forcibly excluded by lack of resources from the new consumerist paradise-cum-nightmare of endless consumption and having to bear the shame and humiliation of not having the accoutrements of the lifestyle held up to all as the good life. But what Bauman fails to notice is that the category of the ‘flawed consumer’ in public discourses is profoundly gendered. As Beverley Skeggs (1997) and others have pointed out, it was primarily through the appearance, domestic habits and child-rearing practices of lower-class women that the categories of ‘rough’ and ‘respectable’ working classes, and the middle class, were constructed. Women’s way of consuming was, and to a great degree continues to be a mode of defining class location: to be feminine, women had to be middle class, engaging in forms of appropriate personal consumption, clothes especially, and also in the particular manner of decorating the home with approved furnishings. In the contemporary period, as Skeggs’s (1997) insightful ethnography of young working-class women demonstrates, there is an acute consciousness amongst them about how consumption choices, especially around modes of dress and make-up, can habitually exclude them from what are seen as middle-class patterns of adornment and behaviour; this results in feelings of class shame, humiliation as well as resentment. Working-class men can gain respect and self-esteem from a form of hard masculinity, in other words by being ultra-masculine, but it is difficult for working-class women to be ultrafeminine, and glamorous, because the very definitions of these characteristics are class coded. It is worth mentioning that Owen Jones’s rightly praised recent critique of the demonisation of the working class, Chavs (2009), also fails to notice the particular gendering of the category of ‘Chav’, a label for a despised section of the working class. It will come as no surprise that Bauman also fails to recognise the racialisation of what he regards as the race-neutral character of his category of the ‘flawed consumer’. Nowhere is this more evident than in his too-hasty

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remarks on the 2011 urban disorders in the UK (Bauman 2012). For Bauman, those who took part in the disorders were no more than ‘flawed consumers’ who took this opportunity to obtain desirable, expensive goods by looting, the only way in which they could join the consumerist culture to which they were completely in thrall. There is an important truth here, as becomes evident in what is perhaps the most thorough research analysis so far available, conducted jointly by the London School of Economics and the Guardian newspaper, entitled Reading the Riots (2011). But to focus only on this aspect is to miss another equally salient aspect of the disorders: the resentment of young men, especially black and Asian young men, at being repeatedly stopped and searched and generally subjected to what they saw as racist police harassment (London School of Economics and Guardian 2011: 19).

Conclusion There are other aspects of Zygmunt Bauman’s writings where a discussion of the partial but significant absence of considerations of race, imperialism and gender, for example in his analyses of new identities in postmodern and liquid-modern societies, would have been appropriate, but limitations of space have necessarily precluded this. Similarly, I cannot discuss in any depth broader questions of Eurocentrism, male bias and gender blindness in sociology which, as I argued at the beginning of this chapter, form the essential backdrop against which Bauman’s limitations need to be viewed. Some final brief remarks will have to suffice. As regards the Eurocentrism and masculinism of the sociological tradition of which Bauman is such an important pillar, what needs to be understood is that sociology’s own sense of itself is too closely tied to Western modernity. That classical sociology emerged in the wake of, and in an attempt to understand Western modernity is only too well known (see, for example, Ray 1999). But this truism can obscure an important issue: that sociology has also been a view from inside Western modernity, looking out at the rest of the world as ‘Others’, whose cultures are tradition bound, ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’, stagnant, despotic and whose modernity is only brought from the outside, from the West, and is of an inferior kind. Nowhere is this clearer than in the disciplinary division between sociology and anthropology, with research and theorisation of non-Western, ‘traditional’ societies relegated to the latter discipline which had close ties with the colonial and imperialist project (Asad 1973). In the process, what has been written out of sociology is that the development of the West was not an endogenous affair, but relied heavily on colonial and imperialist exploitation, including slavery, and that the identity of the West as developed, civilised, rational, white, male and Christian was only put in place by treating the non-West as black, primitive, pagan or heathen, irrational and female (Hall 1992; Rattansi 1997). It is well known that Karl Marx regarded British colonialism as essential to India’s development into modernity, just as much as Weber regarded non-Western

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cultures as essentially lacking in the cultural dynamism provided by rationalism and versions of Christianity required to become fully modern (Blaut 2000). The Eurocentric tradition set in motion by viewpoints of this sort has continued, through a variety of iterations including the ‘modernisation’ theory of 1950s and 1960s American sociology, and has left a strong imprint on Western sociology. Thus, now, some of the issues I have highlighted are considered as part of relatively marginalised subdisciplines such as the sociology of race and ethnicity, the sociology of development and, also, the sociology of gender, for ‘female’ and ‘woman’, supposedly tied to ‘nature’, have been seen as the West’s internal Others, an issue I highlighted earlier in my discussion of Bauman’s treatment of the Enlightenment and its role in the development of Western modernity. Amongst the most effective critiques of Eurocentrism in Western sociology and historiography are those of Gurminder Bhambra in her Rethinking Modernity (2007) and the more recent Connected Sociologies (Bhambra 2014; see also Connell 2007; de Sousa Santos 2007; Blaut 2000; Slater 1994; Goody 2006). In Bhambra’s Connected Sociologies there are particularly important discussions of the recent work of Michael Mann, Ulrich Beck and Immanuel Wallerstein, and Raewyn Connell’s Southern Theory (2007) contains significant discussions of Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu as well as the broader sociological tradition, which highlight the manner in which their lack of acknowledgement of the West’s imperial and colonial entanglements seriously impairs their understanding of how these involvements helped the West to become globally dominant. In other words, their treatment of developments in the West as primarily endogamous rather than as crucially conditioned by their imperial and colonial control over the resources of the South are shown to be part of a wider Eurocentrism in sociology. My critique of Bauman is further testimony to the long-overdue need for a critique of Eurocentrism in sociology. However, my work goes beyond Bhambra’s in demonstrating also the baleful effects of ignoring issues of gender and racism, in this case in Bauman’s sociology. In other respects, my critique of Zygmunt Bauman’s neglect of gender supplements the labours of feminist scholars who have assembled evidence that the neglect of issues of gender have considerably impoverished mainstream sociology (see, for example, from many others, Adkins 2002; Marshall and Witz 2004). I do hope that my own work will act as an additional spur to contemporary sociologists to redirect their work to take account of these growing, significant critiques of the sociological tradition and its habitual modus operandi.

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The inevitable clerisy A postsecular critique of Zygmunt Bauman John Milbank

Introduction: knowledge and justice In this chapter I shall examine Zygmunt Bauman’s treatment of the question of justice in terms of the basic constitution of all human cultures. I shall argue that he legitimately extends a Marxist understanding of the shaping of history by ‘technology’, broadly understood, by emphasising the crucial role in this process of elites who claim to possess knowledge and rest their claims to power upon this basis. However, I shall also contend that his suspicion of this role is ambivalent. On the one hand he embraces a dialectic of enlightenment that would subject a new secular priesthood to the same deconstructive scrutiny as the old. On the other he remains committed to a purged, truly emancipating enlightenment whose possibility necessarily assumes the role of a purified secular priesthood. This, I shall argue, is for various reasons impossible. A sheerly secular priesthood is necessarily oppressive. Therefore, if Bauman is right to see that the role of ‘knowers’ or of a clerisy is indispensable to any human culture, the only hope for the realisation of a just culture must lie, as Plato correctly saw, in the emergence of a purified religious priesthood. The post-Renaissance project of the technological deployment of unleashed natural forces should not be abandoned, but in keeping with the more mystical aspects of the Renaissance legacy, experiment must be brought back within the sway of ritual. Only ritual offers a technology to control itself. And only such ritual control can permit a fusion of experts with popular wisdom in a manner compatible with justice.

Priests and counter-priests In the wake of the Frankfurt School, Zygmunt Bauman regards the role of the intellectual elite as the defining issue for the understanding of human culture and the question of its legitimate role as the defining issue of justice.1 This seems to suspend him somewhere between Marx and Plato both theoretically and ethically. In the theoretical register class struggle, understood as the play of material interests and the lust for power, is reunderstood in terms of the most primordial division of labour as being that between ‘intellectuals’ of

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whatever kind on the one hand, and the ‘unlettered masses’ in whatever sense on the other. In the ethical register social justice involves for Bauman – uneasily and perhaps contradictorily – at once a ‘Marxist’ suspicion of the intellectual role and a ‘Platonic’ affirmation that it is primary for the project of human emancipation. This ambiguity is underscored by Bauman’s equally double view that the dominance of the intellectuals is specifically modern and yet also primordial. The thesis that the intellectual/non-intellectual separation is the initial social and economic division is taken from the American anthropologist Paul Rabin, who discussed the role of the inspired shaman as both undertaking to solve existing problems and to solve new ones that arise from his very claim to be in touch with a spirit-world. This seems to be regarded by both Rabin and Bauman as a ruse of power. Original social oppression therefore concerns at once a monopolisation of expertise and the erection of a pseudo-expertise linked to the invention of religious delusions that prey upon human beings’ fears and uncertainties. Given this primary socio-historical diagnosis, Bauman’s approach to the European Enlightenment is infected by more than one paradox. The philosophes, as he explains, were a caste of counter-priests, whose historically unique chance came with the circumstances of absolute kingly rule, when a rule by centralised surveillance and regulation was required in order to fill the void left by the gradual and in part royally engineered decay of the integral socio-economic-juridical role of the feudal nobility. They formed a kind of new ‘fourth estate’, by exploiting (in anticipation of our own times) the possibilities of ‘networking’ allowed by printing, faster travel and urbanisation. In general they scorned at first the role of the school and the university as being too linked to clerical contemplation and other-worldliness, and sought rather a new kind of educational formation that would be seamlessly fused with reforming political purpose. Probably Bauman here exaggerates the importance of a sheerly secular thrust before the French Revolution: as equally ‘modern’ as the very few so-called deists of this period were the larger number of Jesuits also supporting royal absolutism, or the equally large number of Jansenists anticipating Rousseau in calling for a more constitutional mode of reform in support of the claims of local parlements (Barnett 2003: 130–67). What characterised ‘enlightenment’ was not so much ‘secularity’, which remained contested, as rather an ‘experimentalist’ approach to reform, which in its drive towards the disciplining and often the confining of the masses remained much in continuity with reforming efforts ever since the later Middle Ages (see Taylor 2007). Yet religious or not, these reforming drives undoubtedly sought to eradicate the superstitions, ritual obsessions and festive aberrations of popular religiosity. And in this sense they all indeed, clerical or otherwise, composed a kind of ‘counter-priesthood’ which opposed a new rule through reason to an older priestly rule through the encouragement of ‘superstition’ itself.

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For or against the counter-priesthood? Herein lies the major paradox of Zygmunt Bauman’s approach. It would seem that, at bottom, he is suspicious of all priestcraft as the real origin of social division and social injustice. Yet at the same time he still upholds the enlightenment role of the counter-priesthood as necessary to dispense with this injustice. In that case the question would seem to arise: why, if religion is a secondary and oppressive cultural phenomenon, cannot there be a spontaneous ‘folk’ rebellion against it – a Rousseauian revolt against the claims of culture as such in the name of a simpler and more natural human flourishing, leaving the human individual untrammelled by the lures of civil aspiration, linked always to rivalry (Rousseau 1964)? Surely it was indeed Rousseau (and in his wake Marx) who most clearly tried to undo the latent contradiction of the idea of a ‘counter-priesthood’? But rightly Bauman, in the wake of Theodor W. Adorno, does not wish to endorse the eternal emancipatory role of the unlettered masses: instead he argues that the proletariat only appeared to have this role during a period when an initial ambiguity about industrialisation, combined with a certain nostalgia amongst the workers for their previous condition, propelled them to seek collectively for a new way of restoring and increasing their former relative freedom. By affirming instead, in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, the leading role of the intelligentsia, Bauman invokes the other aspect of Rousseau’s political outlook. Restored and enhanced freedom can only be won through the right sort of counter-education that resists the deleterious effects of the civilising process by encouraging the release of innate and various creative capacity. In this benign sense people must be encouraged to be free through an educative programme that will release them from the shackles of credulity and arbitrary hierarchy hitherto accumulated by a false programme of instruction. However, Bauman’s enlightenment advocacy in this vein is never convincing and always arrives at the end of his books like an unwarranted conclusion that seems more like an afterthought. This is for two reasons: first, all his best work (supremely that on the origins of the Holocaust) concerns a narration of the ‘dialectic of enlightenment’ – a detailed demonstration of the many ways in which the intention to emancipate leads to its very opposite: the enmeshment of free reason within its own works and outcomes. And so in turn to the abolition of local autonomy, to modern bureaucratic stifling of the individual and later to a more subtle postmodern stifling of the same via the erosion of public space in favour of merely market norms (Bauman 1991). Indeed, the way Bauman tells the story, it is not even a matter of dialectic any more, since a heavily Foucauldian overlay upon Adorno means that enlightenment purposes are ‘sociologically’ unmasked as, right from the outset, basically a will to power through the acquiring of social information and the proposal of social remedies. He is at his most convincing when he shows in detail how the rise of a mass democratic culture involved an extreme destruction of local modes of political participation and of folkways that had been completely impervious

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to control by either dispersed market or remote sovereign state. In the explicit wake of that thoroughly conservative radical Karl Polanyi, Bauman clearly regrets the ‘disembedding’ of the market economy from practices of social reciprocity (Polanyi 1944/2001). Thus, Bauman convincingly shows that the new counter-priesthood was, after all, as much as the older priesthood, offering an expertise claiming not just to solve old problems better, but above all, in shamanistic fashion, offering solutions to new problems which only their own advocacy had generated: supremely, control through civil society and welfare programmes necessitated by the anarchy brought about by the experimental imposition of political economy. In what sense this new clerisy was, after all, a virtuous and necessary one remains somewhat obscure. And this is doubly true because Bauman expresses great suspicion for Destutt de Tracy’s programme of ‘ideology’, which sought to ground all social action upon a crudely Lockean account of the origin of our ideas in sensation and then to regulate our ideas on this basis. Later, Auguste Comte both continued and reversed this programme by suggesting that, primarily, ideas do not shape society, but are rather shaped by the ‘positivity’ of social formation itself. Yet given this insight, society can still be reformed, in the arguably already postmodern idiom of positivism (with its suspicion of universal abstractions and claim to recover in a higher manner the humanly primitive) by affirming simply and exclusively its ‘social’ character. In this way, as Bauman mentions, ‘ideology’ mutated into ‘sociology’. But as he disdainfully records, the claim to have discovered the pure principles of social order led to the most draconian government experiments in re-education of all – like those advocated by John Stuart Mill, who was most crucially a Comtian, as Maurice Cowling (2005) rightly emphasised. It would seem, then, that the paradox of Bauman’s approach can be resolved by noting that he is still himself a ‘sociologist’: therefore he can exercise a ‘sociological’ suspicion of the seeming rationalism of the philosophes and yet continue their fundamental reform programme on the basis of ‘sociological’ insights.2 However, his evident disdain for Comte suggests that this resolution could be problematic for him: does not his more Marxisant, would-be nonpositivist sociology rather suggest a suspicion of all clerisies? A possible redundancy of any guiding intellectual elite? But the problem then, of course, is that if the ideal is still an ‘emancipatory’ one, a quest for ‘autonomy’, then this ideal has never emerged anywhere except inside the heads of the Enlightenment counter-priesthood. The choice for Bauman would in consequence become one between either outright populism or else a continued elitist support for ‘emancipation’. But all Bauman’s elegantly insightful metanarrative work casts extreme suspicion on the outworking of this latter ideal.

Liberalism is always already debased The second reason why his enlightenment advocacy is unconvincing is that he is in the end unable to explain why ‘real’ freedom and genuine autonomy is

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completely different from the false ‘liquid’ freedom of the market which leads to the hollowing out and instability of human identity (Bauman 2000, 2007). Here he is trying to hang onto both the Kantian legacy regarding the spiritual dignity of free will and the Hegelian legacy regarding the objective fulfilment of liberty. But in both cases it is arguable that later history has not so much betrayed these thinkers, as remorselessly revealed the unintended consequences of their own logic. Because he thought of freedom as something not ‘selfpossessed’, as strictly interior and outside of space and time, Immanuel Kant handed over all politics and economics to the mere pragmatism of contract, notoriously regarding even marriage as a bindingly legal agreement for the mutual usage of genitalia (Grant 1985: 29). Because he thought that morality concerned persons as ends alone, most of the actual instances of human life, in which we inevitably feature somewhat as means, or as ‘ways’ (albeit somewhat to our own ends) were in consequence de-ethicised. And because G. W. F. Hegel thought that real freedom had to be instantiated in objective processes whose alienating moment is tragically ineliminable, random choice is after all the remainder which is at one with absolute liberty, reclaiming it beyond the positioning of social role (see Žižek and Milbank 2009). In consequence, a discourse about rights has proved no protection against a more fundamental utilitarianism.3 For if there is no assigned telos for freedom, no ‘true’ choice that renders us genuinely free, then purported positive freedom in the modern mode is merely negative after all. The nobility of freedom for the sake of freedom can only be manifested in the trivial irrelevance of what is actually chosen. And claims for the intrinsically higher value of ‘artistic’ choices cannot survive the critique of the transcendent, since any ‘higher’ object must seek to disclose, ineffably, something more than itself. If it does not in this way ‘reveal’, then art (as has occurred) dissolves into ingenious self-referentiality, complexity of skill for its own sake or the mere assertion of subjectivity through public joke or harmless shock (Bourriaud 2002; Bull 2015). If the above reasoning is correct, then consumerist freedom simply is a mass transcription of enlightenment freedom. It is because of this transcription that, as Bauman well describes, the work of the ‘legislators’ is now over and done with, and public intellectuals are confined to the more modest role of interpretative commentary. For now that everyone accepts the norm of autonomy, market mechanisms are almost sufficient to distil indirectly a public order from this norm. I say ‘almost’, for while Bauman is right to say that the role of rule by surveillance from a visible centre of power has diminished, he somewhat ignores the way in which today almost every transaction, every journey, is doubled by a record, and therefore the manner in which the economy is automatically tracked by a bureaucracy which still keeps dispersed watch on the risks of a marketplace which constantly increase, the more it becomes deregulated. The upshot is nonetheless the same as Bauman describes: postmodern government regulators simply follow procedures; they no longer require ideals or theories. But in the face of this circumstance and the rise of ‘the

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interpreter’ in general, is not Bauman’s final call for the restoration of the legislative role somewhat wistful? All he can do is to appeal to the lure of ‘genuine’ freedom as an ideal that a few educated people will embrace and seek to extend to others for their fully human benefit. But I have tried to show that he has no adequate metaphysical basis for speaking of such freedom at all. The nearest he comes to this are the points where he cites Richard Sennett (1976), and speaks of the need for a debate concerning ‘the common good’. Here he is close to recognising, like Alasdair Macintyre and Michael Sandel, that we cannot have ‘thicker’ senses of fulfilment without the publicly mediated ascription of norms and roles that have been gradually shaped by a tradition. But accord with a tradition assumes that it discloses something of the nature of an objective good that exceeds mere human election. Without such a notion, Bauman is caught in an aporetic trap that is typical of the contemporary liberal left. Does he scorn the masses and their proneness to religiosity and nationalisms, thereby inviting the charge of elitism (besides the charge that he continues to endorse the pseudo-religiosity of intellectuals), or does he rather scorn intellectual elites, thereby compromising the advocacy of progress? Emancipation is supposed to be from unequal power inhibiting freedom, yet the power to liberate still derives from knowledge, and so we need learning in order to free ourselves both from our natural condition and from all the uncertainties and fears that are generated by that condition. But how can there be an ‘equal learning’, since learning by definition divides the learned from the less learned?

Culturalist delusions In other words, because fundamentally he cannot decide whether the clerisy is good or bad, Bauman also cannot decide whether it is culture or nature that is the liberator, and in consequence cannot assign a ‘just’ and ‘justified’ position to culture over against nature, just as he cannot assign a ‘just’ and ‘justified’ position to the intellectuals over against the folk-mass of people (see Boltanski and Thévenot 2006). Therefore, what he is not facing up to is the way in which the nature/culture tension is constitutive for culture as such and reproduces itself within culture, above all as social division and as a kind of experiment that society performs upon itself in order to constitute society at all. An experiment that always involves a division (not necessarily iniquitous) between the experimenters and the experimented upon. Bauman remains a typically 20th-century social thinker in that he imagines instead that human society is a sort of charmed circle that can operate according to autonomous cultural or ‘social’ norms, while bracketing any metaphysical views about nature beneath us, spirits around us or gods above us. Most typical of such a perspective is Jürgen Habermas (2009), who, in the liberal-totalitarian mode of John Stuart Mill, desires to outlaw from publicly valid discourse any metaphysical claims, whether these be naturalistic or religious (or at least to permit them only when ‘translated’ into pragmatic-normative

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terminology). This allows a remainder of mere formal consistency, observation of what is publicly accepted as neutral fact, and collective aims towards a democratic consensus which is supposed to establish a pragmatic ‘truth’ if one can show that no one has been prevented from contributing (in the prerestricted terms just described) to this discourse. Yet universal formal ability to take part in a conversation is no surety whatsoever against the universal triumph of sophistry unless we take it that truth is indeed merely whatever commands democratic assent. In retrospect it would seem that the 20th-century sense of cultural selfreferentiality was merely the consequence of a religious aftermath which left behind a certain humanistic consensus that is now dissolving. It is hopeless for Habermas (2009: 151–80) to say that somehow or other evolution has produced an irreducible sphere of intentional referentiality that assists human survival. For if one accepts this, then inevitably it would seem that the appropriate human uses of this sphere must be sheerly utilitarian ones, in accord with evolutionary purpose. And this is in effect to embrace a naturalistic metaphysics after all, since if ‘physical nature’ is taken to be ontologically comprehensive, there can be no real case for an ontological space for spirit or mind, and therefore we have to assume that imagining that there is such a thing as real intentionality and so forth is but a useful illusion. If, to the contrary, we hold that there can be objectively valid human ends beyond the utilitarian and beyond the mere augmentation of the possibilities for random desiring, then we have to subscribe to some sort of ontology of a spiritual realm. It is for this reason that politics is likely to be from now on increasingly a battleground between naturalistic and religious ideas. To suppose that this is avoidable is once again to fail to see the paradox whereby culture itself is tensionally split between culture and nature. Political modernity tried to resolve this division in a ‘biopolitical’ way by establishing a rigorously policed division between either the forbidden or the permitted natural (for example in the sphere of sexuality) and the regulating cultural norms. But as we have seen in the case of Bauman, this engenders an aporia as to whether the cultural or the natural is the liberating factor. Bauman remains confined within this problematic charmed circle, whereas, in the 21st century, it is significant that political discourse and action more and more concerns the extra-human: either the sphere of the non-human natural and cybernetic worlds, or the religious sphere of preternatural and supernatural entities. This development is largely absent from Bauman’s still ‘critical’, outdated 20th-century discourse.

Platonic resolution and alternative modernity Is a metacritical discourse available which would point to some sort of resolution of his problems? Decisive here is the issue of whether it is possible to find a ‘just’ and ‘justifiable’ placing for the clerisy which would prevent the aporetic oscillation between seeing them as either demonic witch doctors or as savant-saviours. And this would be in effect to return to Plato’s position for

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which the intellectual rulers may indeed be self-serving sophists, but need not be if they ascribe to the right metaphysics which subordinates their social height in turn to the transcendent Good. Plato’s position should also be endorsed in the sense that only if those who can judge are granted their proper and highest place, is it possible that all other people and things can in general (in space) and in particular (in time) be ‘given their due’ according to justice in terms of correct relative positioning. In other words, there can only be a just division of labour allowing reciprocal sharing of diverse talents and goods if, first of all, there is a division of labour between the wise (or the relatively wise) and all other social actors. Of course there is today a widespread rejection of the notion that there are any people who ‘know better’ than others concerning values as opposed to facts. But we have just seen how a modern sociologist like Bauman symptomatically oscillates between a suspicious total rejection of anyone ‘knowing better’ and an all too hyperbolic embrace of that very idea. Do we not need instead a more modest notion of ‘organic intellectuals’ (in a non-Leninist sense) whose educative knowledge would be somewhat distanced from immediate exercise of power and whose social experiments would be more subject to the test of populist feedback? The test of long-term and habitual ‘ritual embedding’, which supplements the perspectives of Plato’s Republic with those of his Laws. Further, do we not need such intellectuals to be less contemptuous of the folk-wisdom of ages which has stood the test of time? Is there not something highly ironic about the way elite experimenters tend to distrust the most long-conducted experiments of all? Here we should heed the insight of Bruno Latour (1999: 266–92) when he says that the worse naivety is the naivety of the learned and the iconoclastic who nearly always overestimate through caricature the naivety of the beliefs which they call into doubt. And one can even go further: Martin Heidegger (1975) was essentially right to suggest that metaphysical enquiries into the mystery of being are in harmony with the implicit questionings of folk-art and practice. By contrast, enlightenment thought was suspicious of the latter because it either denied or circumvented the mysterious in favour of a self-produced and so self-confirming predictability. For this reason, in modification of Bauman (who sees this as a later development), I would claim that from the outset much enlightenment thought (but by no means all) was relentlessly middlebrow in character. And that it possessed the more intractable naivety of the half-baked. However, Bauman himself speaks of circumstances of something like ‘just balance’ in the roles of elites. This is the medieval situation in which noble rulers were also landowners, in symbiotic interaction with popular participation. Likewise, as he does not mention, clerical teachers were locally rooted and in symbiotic interaction with popular piety. Obviously this balance was very far indeed from being perfectly just. But that is not really what matters. Of far more significance is the point seemingly overlooked by Bauman (but not, of course, long ago by Alexis de Tocqueville) that popular participation can only be enabled if one has an ‘organic’ intelligentsia. Unless, that is, one thinks

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that the role of the clerisy can be abolished altogether. But for reasons I shall explain presently, I do not think that that is possible – the nearest one gets to this is the thoroughly sinister domination of a hidden monied and technocratic elite as prevails today and as so well described by Bauman himself. The counter-historical question one has to ask here is, was a different development out of the Middle Ages possible – one partially adumbrated by ‘guild theorists’ like Jean Bodin and Johnannes Althusius in early modern times (see Black 1984)? Did one have to have the sovereign nation state and non-reciprocalist market in order to achieve agricultural and industrial progress, besides greater liberty and equality for the mass of people? After all, all these processes were progressively underway throughout the Middle Ages themselves and it can be argued that the early modern increased appropriation of possessed land and active participation from most people was actually detrimental to a progress that might have been both quantitatively as great (or greater) and qualitatively quite different. This is made far more plausible if one adds that to some degree this ‘different’ modernity has been exemplified in Western countries other than Anglo-Saxon ones (see Roepke 2009).

The indispensable priesthood In effect, Bauman knows that the folk-utopia of ‘no clerisy’ is not possible. But he obfuscates the reason for this. This is surely that the clerisy/folk division is the precise point where the culture/nature division is repeated inside culture in order to constitute it. This means that one cannot fantasise, after Rabin, a ‘pre-shamanic’ religiously innocent volk. To the contrary, it is something like the shamanic that constitutes our very humanity. For to be human is to ‘experience’ a half-emergence from nature that can never be complete. As Giorgio Agamben (2007: 13–72) puts it, this is the constitutive historicotranscendental ‘infancy’ of human beings. We possess no rational foundations, nor purely a priori conceptual repertoire, because our language is not the work of a preceding reason and instead reason only ‘works’ within language that is always already given. Yet inversely language is not language at all until it is rationally articulated. Thus language is at once bodily and unconscious (endosomatic) and deliberate and conscious (esosomatic). To speak is therefore a bit like constantly waking from a dream, and this may indeed be why the most profound thinking partakes of poetic trance. But what is more, as ‘infants’ we never wake on our own, but must always respond to the articulations of others. It is here of crucial significance that the literal human infant remains such for an unusually long period by animal standards: she can only become fully human if her spontaneity is severely interrupted by organised symbolic gestures and she becomes able, unlike (at least to any considerable degree) even the great apes, to empathise with others and to form a microculture (the uniqueness of the particular proto-language that gathers round every human baby) in terms of the awareness of a shared perception of

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objects which human participants crucially know could also be seen by an implied absent third party. It is this educatively transitive condition of human beings which tends to ensure a division between the relatively informed and articulate and those less so. However, if one were asked to choose between the relative justice of a religious and a secular clerisy, then surely it is obvious that the former is more organic and less removed from folk wisdom. For the prestige of the shaman is established not simply by his ability to articulate the myths and organise the rituals, but also by his unique ability to return to the dreaming ‘infancy’. It is not therefore simply that he speaks but also that he kenotically speaks the mystery. And it is the mystery that is more the common property. For this reason, after all, the shaman does not introduce pseudo-problems concerning our just relations to the ‘dreaming’, or to what Australian aborigines call the ‘Dreamtime’. Rather these are the most basic distributionary problems of human existence itself. It could be, then, that typically modern, critical secular thought poses the wrong sets of alternatives. In trying to get rid of the religious it also threatens to get rid of demotic culture and of the kind of learned elite who are less likely to repress this culture, even though they are needed to guide it – this function being itself a component of the popular itself, from the beginning and for all times, just as folk tales so generally concern kings and queens. We construe our modern politics as high versus low, right versus left – but suppose that the real political crux is the modern triumph of the bourgeois middle and the possibility that only the natural organic alliance of high and low can question this triumph? After all, an aristocratic right without a popular left has engaged in either nostalgia or a kitsch gloss upon the middle (sons of capitalists in silly posh gear, like the English Tory MP, William Rees-Mogg), while a popular left without an aristocratic right has usually and in whatever complex disguise (including most Marxisms) merely promoted a resentful aspiration of the masses towards the middling mode of economy and culture. Is it not by now obvious that, as John Ruskin suggested, any viable resistance to the capitalist-bureaucratic liberal centre would have to come from a continuously dynamic and paradoxical blue/red fusion of guiding excellence with populist spontaneity? This is not at all to deny that sometimes religions themselves suppress their own more popular idioms, but if Charles Taylor is right, then this has been, in the European Latin West, the main cause of a unique secularisation (Taylor 2007; see also Milbank 2010).

The experimental capture of ritual Should one therefore conclude that Bauman’s better insight is into the sinister face of enlightenment and that we should turn our backs upon its legacy? That would be far too simple. For once we have endured the long experiment of the human race upon itself, which is still underway, then we cannot

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unlearn the fact that it is possible to perform this experiment – radically – to remake ourselves. Premodernity was but shadowily aware of this possibility and we cannot now ignore its reality. Perhaps we can break with aspects of the Enlightenment, but not with the ‘Renaissance’ that stood behind it. Nevertheless, if we take this insight to mean that now we can remake ourselves, whereas before we could not do so, then, again, we go astray with the higher naivety. For once we have become aware that we can experimentally remake both ourselves and our surrounding nature, then we see that after all, to echo Latour (2001), ‘we have never been naïve’ and so, in a sense, directly citing him, ‘are not really modern’ at all. For we can also see that although experimentation is now more wide ranging and culturally central, that in a sense ‘experimentation’ is just what specifically human society is.4 Humans emerge dreamily from an obscure semiotic threshold of the nonreferential and unmeaning play of signs into semantic consciousness. In limiting this play, they initially construct rituals whereby they present themselves with patterns of archetypal repeatable action. This mode of action is by no means ‘secondary’ in relation to normal action – rather it enables that action to arrive in the first place as meaningful action, because such action must first of all be ‘patterned’ action, in terms of recognisable ‘lines’ of trajectory and ‘curves’ of circumscription, inducing a kind of familiar wonder. Such ritual action also permits interior reflection to arise, because ritual ‘stills’ movement and thereby allows us to ‘identify’ with it and so to identify ourselves. Ritual is an experiment – an attempt to see if certain patterns will ‘hold’. It is not a conscious testing of a hypothesis, because there is no hypothesis before the experiment – but then even scientific hypotheses (as the Baconian 17th century well knew, but a later rationalist ‘empiricism’ forgot) can only really be understood as experiments vaguely sketched out in advance. Nor is ritual only a ‘social experiment’, it is also an attempt to see if those portions of nature with which we are in relation will ‘go that way’, and if thereby certain natural forces can be enticed or so redirected that they are recreated. A ritual is at once a human work and a work of nature become different and thereby affecting us. That is why, as Latour says, one should speak of a faitiche rather than of either mere ‘facts’ or sacred ‘fetishes’.5 And as he also says, scientific facts remain faitiches because they are not natural realities which we represent, but rather things that we co-produce along with nature. Nor, any more than rituals, are they exactly planned: instead we are, as Latour says, ‘surprised’ by the arrival of the experiment and its result. They both ‘occur’ to us, because both ourselves and nature are jointly caught up in an arriving event. Once we have seen things this way, we can of course ask just why we tend to see the faitiche that is most reproducible and repeatable according to the rubrics of an abstractable method (technologised science) as the most revealing and important human ritual. In point of fact, this dominating ritual is one that tends to undo and conceal itself, because the abstraction and repeatability of technocratic science insinuates a rigid division between the ‘imposed form’

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and the material which it is ‘applied to’. Thus we tend to acquire the illusion that experimentation is subordinate to a non-existent process whereby we observe and represent objective facts to ourselves with a detached gaze. Because the ritual-experiment which shapes humanity is the work also of nature, it is never possible to exclude metaphysical considerations or to deny the role of invisible or half-visible actors like ‘forces’, ‘attractions’, genes and genies. Only Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism requires, as he said, that all such entities be seen as convenient fictions, because for Bentham (1959) the only thing that counts as socially real is the subject of physical or sensory stimuli that the mind can quantitatively represent to itself. But if our world is composed of faitiches, then it is composed of inscrutable and undoable relations and we do not know what is really at work, even though we are bound experimentally to speculate about this if we wish to have meanings and so a social order at all. As Latour (1999: 285–6) says, once one has rightly denied that there is a space of ‘mind’ purely ‘inside’ the brain, then one is left wondering just where imaginary entities do belong, and short of complete naturalistic reductionism (which is theoretically unwarranted) it becomes possible once more to think of them as being ‘out there’ as well as ‘in here’. And therefore of ‘mind’ as being anywhere and possibly everywhere. Or to put this another way: if culture itself includes and is constituted by the nature/culture tension, then there is, for a metacritique, no critical possibility of deciding that meanings or imaginings, spontaneities or purposes, are not just as natural as they are cultural. Inversely, once cannot necessarily conclude that cultural nomos is any gross exception to the habituations of physis. For the ritual which initially composes human culture is a kind of experimental risk that can itself only be established through habit (Ravaisson 2008). As risk, it is also the gift of instruction from an initiator which sacrificially breaks the deadlock of potential human isolation, and as habit it is something which has ‘worked’ with the populace, often through modification, and so has been received.6 Ritual is in this way indissociably aristocratic and democratic. The same applies to the experiment. But a society like ours that has become excessively ‘experimentalised’ is one in which a scientific aristocracy totally dominates the mass of people, such that the real secret of their attempted control of nature is the control of society itself. It is this culpable elitism which is reproduced by the illusion of representation where representations ‘capture’ facts, just as experts manipulate populations. Here ritual has ceased to be a gift of wisdom, but become instead either an imposed law or a contract enforced by a wealthier party. And its reception is either punctiliar or identically repeated without variation. It is no longer received as an authentic habit which imparts an artistic or craft skill.

From ritual to experiment What road led from ritual as experiment to modern excessive experimentation? It can be argued that the road was religious. Like the path of the shamans, the

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path of Western philosophers has not been simply towards abstraction. The theurgic neo-Platonists and the hermeticists bent this path back towards the ‘mysteries’ (in the Greek ritual sense) in their attempt to entice divine forces down to earth. It is perhaps Proclus who, in this theurgic context, was the first philosopher to speak of a human spiritual power to create radically new things in a way that exceeds any mere ‘copying’ of the Platonic forms (Boulnois 2008: 336–51). The interaction of Christian theology with pagan theurgy was intermittent, but sometimes it produced what was in effect a theurgic theory of its own, and by the time of the Renaissance the two currents ran together. Of crucial significance here, as Ernst Kantorowicz (1961) pointed out in a classic article, was St Ambrose’s conception in his De Mysteriis, of Christ on Maundy Thursday as bringing his own body to exist in the bread and wine by a new act of radical creative action ex nihilo. In this scenario the God-Man is in effect the ultimate experimenter, performing the most drastic alchemical transformation possible: of the world into God. After Christ, every priest becomes capable of repeating this transformation, and Kantorowicz shows how Ambrose’s understanding then became a specific paradigm for papal creation of legal fictions in the late Middle Ages, following an ascription to Pope Innocent by the glossator Tancred in 1198 of a divine power to bring things into being from nothingness, ultimately derived from his supreme archiepiscopal mediation of the power to transubstantiate. Fictional legal entities could be taken as fully real because they were in continuity with the ‘mystical’ body of Christ which was initially Eucharistic. This, in effect, rendered the Pope the first Renaissance artist and scientist exercising the extreme power of ingenium to produce radically new things in the world. Moreover, this newly bold extension of Eucharistic transformation had an apocalyptic dimension. In the 12th century Honorius of Autun declared that before the fall we experienced only good, but knew by science of evil, whereas after the fall this situation had been reversed: now we experienced only evil and only knew the good per scientiam (see Agamben 2007: 28–9). But clearly the Eucharist (O taste and see!) is salvific because it begins to restore the original situation in a new way by reaching down to, and so elevating our senses, where fallen man experiences reality most acutely. Thus the extension of Eucharistic transformation of the world, beginning with the inauguration of Corpus Christi processions in the 13th century, suggests a heightened advance towards the final eschatological moment which surely connects with the permeation of the later Scientific Revolution by chiliastic speculation. (Protestant chiliasts, one can argue, surreptitiously ‘cosmologised’ and ironically thereby heightened the rejected doctrine of transubstantiation for which they retained a secret longing.)7 The problem with local rituals is that they bind us to nature but separate some humans from the performers of other rituals. Scientific experiment offers itself as the universal ritual. But as we have seen, it is bound, if hegemonic, to become a self-disguising ritual and a ritual which abolishes ritual in favour of the power-seeking control of nature and the subordination of some humans

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by others in the name of utility – an experiment which ensures that even the experimenters are eventually controlled by what they seek to control, when a modified nature trumps culture after all. But is not this Faustian and Frankensteinian universal ritual but a perverse offshoot of its real Eucharistic paradigm? The latter offered the suggestion that changing the world into the body of God (echoed by the alchemical quest for the unfallen heart of nature, which must still persist, insofar as the Creation remains the Creation) is indeed our Western destiny. For a long time, even well into the 17th century, both art and experimental natural philosophy retained some aura of an act of concelebration, an alchemy in which nature transformed our soul from within as much as we altered nature from without. And still often, in the interests (even for Francis Bacon) of beauty and the glorification of God. So is not the Eucharist the real universal ritual? And why should that be controversial? For in principle, as Nicholas of Cusa saw, it respects all other religious and cultural rituals; it is just that it offers a higher ritual force, a higher experimental power: a summonsing of the one God in his guise as the Logos that is born from paternal dreaming to eternal speech, down into first humanity and then into nature modified into food which also modifies us.

Returning experiment to ritual If we could connect experiment back onto its ritual root (which was still there in the early experiments of the Royal Society, performed on a Sunday) and supremely to its Eucharistic root, then we could redeem without abandoning the destiny of the West (see Shapin and Schaffer 1985: 155–224). We could perhaps then more recognise that nature speaks spontaneously to us in experiment, but without simply telling us ‘how things were’ for her before we asked her the particular question assumed by that particular experiment. We could also perhaps devise faitiches that were halfway between experiment and art, halfway between apparently total repeatability and apparent absolute singularity. Such enterprises of making would also have the psychogeographical character of a resumed alchemical ‘quest’ – as Agamben indicates, a wayless search for something whose nature we do not yet really know within our local environment that has become unfamiliar. Of course these kinds of processes are already begun, and a hybridity of manufacture (of art) and manipulation (of the physical) or cultivation (of the biological) characterises much of the truly important and often largely provincial art of Britain and elsewhere today.8 Yet its ontological significance might be given more attention. And if we do attend to such processes, then we will be able to see that we are not doomed to accept Georg Simmel’s ‘tragedy of culture’ as discussed by Bauman (see Simmel 1968: 27–46; Bauman 1987: 156–7). For cultural products as new facts only become ‘alien to spirit’ if we fail to see that, from the outset, spirit depends upon the ungovernable life of the objectivities that flow through us, while inversely that circumstance itself

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suggests that these objects do not intrinsically lack meaning (Stiegler 1998). Even the hidden hand of the market depends upon the mystery of money (which Adam Smith relatively ignored in his overly dyadic analysis of contract), whereby money as token of postponed substantive equivalence really does embody a warrant of our final collective reciprocity, willed through a general implicit affirmation of its objective rectitude, however etiolated this has become.9 The problem is that, as with modern money, the not entirely eliminable faitiche aspect of facts gets so reduced that the life which cultural objects have on their own does indeed become sinisterly alien, but only because the facts hurl back at us the brute objectivity which we have unnecessarily foisted upon them. By tracing increasingly the mid-path between art and science, both nature and culture might more readily find their just places within culture, and as a necessary concomitant of that the clergy and the clerisy might also find their just place – a place that is paradoxically, like the role of the Christoform monarch (Marin, 1989: 189–217), at once supreme and yet universally subservient. Nor, in reality, is the clerisy likely to be anything like a closed caste, since its very function is to recruit. In the combination of knowledge, virtue and ability to transmit to others lies surely the only basis for justified inequality within the social order. Such a combination must be given its adequate scope in the interest of tempering the dangers of market-dominated communications. Also, in the triple interest of the Burkean witness of the past, the ability of present people to grow to spiritual fruition and the transmission of our human legacy into the future.10

Against the liberal grounds for inequality By contrast, the Rawlsian justification of amoral market-generated inequalities in the interests of the most poor is unacceptable, because it allows for success through exploitation and the prevalence of such success cannot be contained: it has and will prove contagious (Rawls 1999: 65–73, 86–93). But equally unacceptable is Rawls’s and in a more extreme extension G. A. Cohen’s desire to remove all inequalities owing to birth and inherited cultural position. For this is in effect to abstract people from their real inherited characters. Such a mode of social democracy or of socialism (predicated on equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome) is, ironically, completely individualistic, as is further shown by Cohen’s (2009, 2008) tolerance only of emergent inequalities according to relative skill or the vagaries of fortune (albeit he allows that these may be compensated for by redistribution). Cohen’s suggestion that otherwise all should be equal in terms of resources of capability, but free to spend them how they like (again an individualism of random desire) must be rejected as actually not equitable, because it denies the greater social scope that should be given to virtuously exercised skill of all kinds to the benefit of all, given that virtue is inherently transferable. The suggestion is equally impracticable, because, in the face of the admitted sclerosis of the command economy he is unable to put forward a plan for

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implementing his non-associative and non-cooperative socialism. Associationism is rejected, because Cohen’s individualism means that, just like the neoliberals, he is unable to conceive of the economic market as other than entirely agonistic in character and so as likely to produce renewed unjustifiable inequalities between competing associative firms. Essentially, given the sheer randomness of desire, we can only for Cohen agree to collaborate for utilitarian reasons by surrendering to some as yet undiscovered distributory function which evades any need to compare and hierarchically assess individual needs and aspirations. The need for any ritual-experimental collective performance of a metaphysics is here therefore denied. Yet without this performance, Cohen’s inchoate proposal relies upon a natural infinity of supply which can never be there for any society, at least not all at once. Given the temporal finitude of resources in any given period, it becomes impossible to arrive at any equality unless we are all agreed in some measure upon what is relatively important and therefore should be equitably distributed. Otherwise we can only be equal in being given the same amount of abstract money to spend as we choose or to invest in production as we choose. But this choice would be an illusion, because we can only spend it on either football or opera, real ale or fine wine, etcetera if enough other people make the same choices for either investment or consumption. And these choices will not in reality be unconstrained, because they will be coerced by the slickest persuaders, and the capacities and enthusiasm of providers, such that once large resources have gone to say football and beer, the possibilities of producing or enjoying either operas or wine might in reality have become severely restricted through covert coercion. Quickly, an amoral market would again be in command. Genuine equitable sharing, by contrast, requires a certain agreement in substantive values and so some reciprocally agreed-upon sharing of real concrete goods of whatever kind, not simply of cash equivalence.11 This does indeed involve the role of money, but of money as a measure of proportionately relative socio-ethical value, as Aristotle suggested. The individualistic will of Cohen to evade all comparison is actually, as explicitly declared by other communistic socialists like Boris Groys and (curiously) Alain Badiou, a will finally to evade all number in favour of a purely linguistic or else subjective articulation of social reality (see Groys 2009; Badiou 2008: 211–14). Yet this evasion cannot occur, because all words and all subjective judgements are entangled in numeration, and the refusal of all comparison is a nominalist election only of endless ‘number ones’, taken always in isolation and therefore reduced to abstract identity of essential content, whether by market or state. This refusal is in reality a refusal of justice, which follows from the rejection of a cooperative division of labour grounded in the crucially supreme (but kenotic) role of the always fluctuating class of judges themselves (without which there can be no true judgement based on the vision of the true and the good) and so of the only real means possible of resisting our current brutal hierarchy based upon the dominance of money (and therefore of numbers) alone.

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But the suggestion of a literal equality of capacity and resource is also finally impossible, for the reason that we have seen. Human culture simply is the hierarchical yet dynamically educative interplay between the initiators and those being constantly initiated. There is no society outside the performance of this experiment, at once upon humans by humans, upon humans by nature and by nature upon human beings, since we ourselves fully belong to nature. Perhaps the latter is all that is really going on, in which case human exceptionality is an illusion. But if it is not, then we can respect what is revealed by ritual-experimental results without collapsing all the revelata into one univocal manipulative process in which it must be proud humanity that is finally the real sacrificial victim of levelled immanence. Instead, the many revelations can only fall consistently into one process if, all together, they entice one transcendent reality.

Conclusion: the ritual control of experiment My contention in this chapter has been that Zygmunt Bauman does not take his critique of a secular priesthood far enough. He half realises that its tendency to oppression arises from its very claim to a rationalist objectivity that is unreachable for human beings and must necessarily tend to repress the more partial and thereby possibly more authentic intimations of truth by local and particular cultures. But to some degree he locates this tendency also in the factor of lingering priesthood, rather than in the new presumption of enlightenment. Yet it is rather the latter that is wholly to blame, because it neglects the limitations of our cultural condition which more postmodern analyses have disinterred. These are: first, the necessary linkage of language with religion, given the indeterminate and unfounded character of any system of signification and yet its need for relative closure and obscure intimation of a final signified in order to justify itself. Thereby all cultural symbolisation must pass over into a sacralisation (Debray 2004: 264–86). Second, the primacy of ritual, given the aporia whereby human beings shape both signs and tools (the joint components of techne) and yet these things inversely shape our very possibility of humanity (Stiegler 1998). For this reason all pre-modern human cultures have implicitly and logically construed the most fundamental cultural and human intentionality itself as a descending gift from a sacral ‘elsewhere’. Third, given these first two circumstances and the always partial and gradual transition of human beings from ‘sleeping’ nature to ‘awake’ culture (Agamben 2007), human existence is necessarily inseparable from a process of initiation at the hands of those most adept in understanding and reshaping ritual processes. Priesthood, like adulthood, and for the same reasons, is primary and ineliminable. Against this horizon, as Zygmunt Bauman fails to see, the project of the counter-priests must inevitably be more oppressive than the older priestly project which was of course also very often oppressive in various degrees. This is because (to reconsider my three categories) first it lays claim to an

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impossible mastery of discourse, which in trying to refuse mystification, mystifies far more comprehensively by denying the chance that fragmentary and imaginative intimation of reality may contain at least grains of truth. Second, by attempting to dissolve the aporia of humanity and techne, it either lays claim to an impossible total human control of nature, or else encourages an anti-human naturalism and technological determinism. Most often in reality, the former attempt inverts into a Frankenstein-like real enactment of the latter, which imprisons humanity within its own toils. In the third place, as perpetuated by Bauman, it simultaneously seeks to free human beings from all control by wise, initiating superiors, and yet suggests that only a new caste of the scientifically superior (including social scientists) acting in the supposed name of pure reason can bring this emancipation about. Just because those supposedly in thrall to ancient priests cannot as yet think for themselves, the conditions must be forcibly brought about by which they will be able to do so. And since the technical basis of science, medicine, mathematics and statistics will always remain far beyond most people’s grasp, in reality this new rule of reason can be no merely provisional affair. Thereby the pure control of nature becomes also the pure control of the many by the few. Any sheerly anarchic alternative to this would be an illusion: it would amount to a naturalism incompatible with the very conditions of human existence as such. Therefore only the renewal, in some sense, of primordial and ancient human priesthood can possibly constitute a renewed road to justice. This is again for fundamentally three reasons. First, a recognition of the primacy of ritual stays both with the necessary sacrality of human language and with the aporia of humanity and techne. This provides a basis for the possible ‘right’ distribution of roles, such that we can say that outside this recognition of the primacy of a ritual horizon there can be no justice. Second, given the aporia, it would seem that any notion of an intentional control of human entrapment within technological automatism must be an illusion, since a human intention is never pre-technical and therefore always itself subject to the ‘Frankenstein’ possibility of loss of control through the very attempt at controlling. However, if basic rituals are understood to be the ultimate technical foundation, since their ‘feedback’ of divine power and grace is taken continuously to renew human intentional capacity and self-control – such that this renewal itself keeps pace with liturgical non-identical repetition through time – then it is more likely (as for example with ancient Chinese culture) that manipulative and instrumental technologies will be kept subordinate to the more fundamental ‘technologies of meaning’. In the third place, although the masters and mistresses of the ritual enigmas at first command an esoteric wisdom, this wisdom is nothing like as alien and distant as that of the positivist priests of modern science. For it never lies in any foundation accessible ‘before’ the ritual process in which all the people are always from any outset involved. Moreover, unlike modern science, it is always eventually communicable to all through a further process of initiation. Thus the ‘commanding’ role of ancient religious priests and kings is justly possessed, precisely because its hierarchical

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supremacy is reversible, and must be reversed if it is to justify itself. So here rule is in principle kenotic, gift-giving and educative. It follows that, as Coleridge saw against the new priesthood of political economists, the power of the people and the power of the clerisy are each other’s conditions of possibility. By comparison, the power of the modern secular, scientific priesthood and the power of the people are necessarily in contention, as our politics today more and more witnesses – with each contending force taking unpleasant forms respectively of impersonal globalised control and prejudiced local atavism. Zygmunt Bauman fails to see that there can be no resolution of this dangerous oscillation, without rendering politically central a quest for ways in which traditional religious forces can play more crucial, but more moderate and inter-religious socio-political roles. Otherwise there can be no just allocation of the role of elites and therefore, given Bauman’s acutely correct insight that this is the defining issue for justice, no human justice as such.

Notes 1 See Bauman (1987). For the following discussion see also Bauman’s Liquid Modernity (2000) and Liquid Times (2007). 2 See Bauman (1992: 68–113). These pages suggest a fairly loose, ‘hermeneutic’ understanding of what sociology is. 3 For example, John Rawls’s supposedly rights-based perspective is dominated by utilitarianism after all, as Michael J. Sandel has so conclusively demonstrated in his Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1983). For Rawls’s conception of the desires both of actors in the fictional ‘original position’ of choosing a ‘fair’ society and of real actors in actual societies is seen throughout in terms of the fulfilment of longings which we just ‘happen to have’ after the mode of utilitarianised classical economics. 4 This can be seen as equivalent to Giambattista Vico’s claim that verum is factum, in continuity with the 17th-century experimental paradigm of ‘maker’s knowledge’. Vico then logically rendered this paradigm as also the basis for a thoroughgoing historicism. 5 See ‘The Slight Surprise of Action’ in Latour (1999: 266–92). Note that in the French edition, which came later, this is significantly rendered as ‘divine surprise’. 6 On gift as the foundation of human society because it breaks aporetic binds of the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ type, see Caillé (2007). 7 This argument is made by Regina Schwartz (2008) for Milton and other Protestant English poets. 8 For example the work of John Newling of Nottingham. 9 This case that Adam Smith et al. actually overestimated the absolute egoism of even the capitalist market in practice is brilliantly made by Mark Rogin Anspach (2002: 121–6). Instead of reading gift-exchange as an eccentric instance of the market, Anspach reads the market as an eccentric instance of gift-exchange. 10 On Coleridge’s conception of the clerisy see Milbank (2009: 3–24). 11 On this and in relation to issues of economics, culture and justice in general, see Blond (2010).

References Agamben, Giorgio (2007): Infancy and History: On the Destruction of Experience. London: Verso.

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Anspach, Mark Rogin (2002): À Charge de Revanche: Figures élémentaires de la réciprocité. Paris: Seuil. Badiou, Alain (2008): Number and Numbers. Cambridge: Polity Press. Barnett, S. J. (2003): The Enlightenment and Religion: The Myths of Modernity. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1987): Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991): Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992): Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (2000): Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2007): Liquid Times: Living in the Age of Certainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bentham, Jeremy (1959): ‘The Theory of Fictions’, in C. K. Ogden: Bentham’s Theory of Fictions. Paterson, NJ: Littlefield, Adams and Co, pp. 7–156. Black, Antony (1984): Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present. London: Methuen. Blond, Phillip (2010): Red Tory: How Left and Right Have Broken Britain and How We Can Fix It. London: Faber. Boltanski, Luc and Lawrence Thévenot (2006): On Justification: Economies of Worth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Boulnois, Olivier (2008): Au-delà de l’image: Une archéologie du visual au Moyen Âge Ve – XVIe siècle. Paris: Seuil. Bourriaud, Nicolas (2002): The Radicant. New York: Lucan and Sternberg. Bull, Malcolm (2015): ‘The Decline of Decadence’. New Left Review, 94(July/August): 83–102. Caillé, Alain (2007): Anthropologie du don: le tiers paradigme. Paris: La Découverte Cohen, G. A. (2008): Rescuing Justice and Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cohen, G. A. (2009): Why Not Socialism? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cowling, Maurice (2005): Mill and Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Debray, Régis (2004): God: An Itinerary. London: Verso. Grant, George Parkin (1985): English-Speaking Justice. Notre Dame, IL: Notre Dame University Press. Groys, Boris (2009): The Communist Postscript. London: Verso. Habermas, Jürgen (2009): Between Naturalism and Religion. Cambridge: Polity Press. Heidegger, Martin (1975): Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: Harper and Row. Kantorowicz, Ernst (1961): ‘The Sovereignty of the Artist: A Note on Legal Maxims and Renaissance Theories of Art’, in Millard Meiss (ed.): Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky I. New York: New York University Press, pp. 267–279. Latour, Bruno (1999): Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, Bruno (2001): We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Marin, Louis (1989): Food for Thought. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Milbank, John (2009): ‘Divine Logos and Human Communication: A Recuperation of Coleridge’, in The Future of Love: Essays in Political Theology. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, pp. 3–24.

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Milbank, John (2010): ‘A Closer Walk on the Wild Side’, in Michael Warner, Jonathan van Antwerpen and Craig Calhoun (eds): Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 54–82. Polanyi, Karl (1944/2001): The Great Transformation: the Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon. Ravaisson, Félix (2008): Of Habit. London: Continuum. Rawls, John (1999): A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Roepke, Wilhelm (2009): The Social Crisis of Our Times. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1964): The First and Second Discourses. Boston, MA: St. Martin’s. Sandel, Michael J. (1983): Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schwartz, Regina (2008): Sacramental Poetics: When God Left the World. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Sennett, Richard (1976): The Fall of Public Man. London: Penguin Books. Shapin, Steven and Simon Schaffer (1985): Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Simmel, Georg (1968): ‘On the Concept and Tragedy of Culture’, in The Conflict in Modern Culture and Other Essays. New York: Teachers College Press, pp. 27–46. Stiegler, Bernard (1998): Technics and Time, I: The Fault of Epimetheus. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Taylor, Charles (2007): A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Žižek, Slavoj and John Milbank (2009): The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

5

Critical theory old and new Theodor W. Adorno meets Zygmunt Bauman in the shopping mall Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Claus D. Hansen

Introduction The time-honoured tradition of critical theory has been and continues to be one of the most powerful and potent influences in sociological theory throughout the latter part of the 20th and here at the threshold of the 21st century. Through by now three to four generations of so-called ‘critical theorists’ – philosophers, sociologists, cultural analysts, political theorists and other social scientists – we have come to learn the importance of continuously keeping a critical and watchful eye on a variety of social developments and pathological tendencies so characteristic of modern as well as late modern, postmodern or liquid-modern society. Therefore, critical theory has spawned some of the most incisive and acclaimed theories aimed not only at critiquing society but also at criticising other (so-called ‘traditional’) theories for neglecting or misunderstanding what is in fact at stake (Horkheimer 1937/1975). Although it is impossible specifically to date the rise of such a critical-investigative mentality in intellectual history, within the discipline of sociology – besides the obvious path-clearing work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – the ideas of the so-called first generation ‘Frankfurt School’ social thinkers in the 1930s and onwards were instrumental in establishing a tradition dedicated to developing and advancing critical theory (for a history of the ‘school’, see Wiggerhaus 1986/1994). Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was one of the main founders of and contributors to this early kind of critical theory. Today, critical theory still thrives and besides those who still locate themselves and their work in the direct lineage of the specific Frankfurt-style critical theory, there is also a vast group of scholars doing critical theory without adhering to this particular Frankfurt-based branch. One of the most prominent of contemporary critical theorists is undoubtedly Zygmunt Bauman, whose work for the last few decades has attracted international recognition for its profoundly critical dissection of many of the malaises and problems confronting contemporary society. There are many similarities – in fact surprisingly many – between the bodies of work of Adorno and Bauman. Some of these similarities are unquestionably biographically determined, whereas others relate to shared academic perspectives and possibly quite a few have crystallised as the direct

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consequence of the combination between specific life circumstances and developing academic perspectives. Both Adorno and Bauman come from Jewish backgrounds, both lived through dark and totalitarian times on the central European continent, both had to escape – at different times as well as from and to different destinations (see Smith 1999: 172) – anti-Semitic purges and both experienced extended periods of living, thinking and writing in exile. However, it seems as if every cloud – even exile – has a silver lining. As Adorno once stated, based on his own experiences as an emigrant to the United States, ‘inviolable isolation is now the only way of showing some measure of solidarity’ (Adorno 1951/1974: 25), and as Bauman has testified, ‘eviction means group loyalties need not constrain vision anymore … Exile is a blessing’ (Bauman 1988–9: 25). So the blessing found in the exile’s inviolable isolation, in his ability to be unconstrained in vision, in the freedom to think out of the box, to criticise and to challenge that which currently is and to show a sense of solidarity borne out of solitariness, has been a trademark of Adorno’s and Bauman’s work alike. They also share what by many interpreters has been regarded as a rather deep-seated pessimistic and dismal view of the possibilities for mankind to create a better future. True, the optimistic tone in Adorno’s work is indeed difficult to detect, which is one of the main reasons why he has earned the epithet of the ‘German gloom-meister’. There is, however, a somewhat hidden utopian strand to be detected in his work which has come into focus in recent years through new interpretations of his work (see, for instance, Sherratt 2002). In Bauman’s case, things seem a little different. On the one hand, his analyses and diagnoses, as we shall see later, seldom open up to any concrete vision of a better world and provide only infinitesimal pieces of advice on how to improve society. On the other hand, however, he is unrelenting in insisting that the road ahead is still open for diverging paths and detours of our choice and this is noted in a more direct fashion than is often the case with Adorno. As once reported by Richard Sennett in a swift comparison respectively between the pessimism/optimism of Bauman and Adorno: When you speak to Zygmunt, he’s very optimistic. It’s remarkable that at this stage of his life he is so engaged. He wants to know what is going to happen next year. He suggests that there is a real realm to navigate of personal responsibility, and that makes contact with young people. A lot of thinkers of his age think that the world has gone to hell in a basket – for example Adorno who, by the end of his life, didn’t seem to like anything. But Bauman’s work doesn’t read like that, it reads like – make it better! (Sennett quoted in Bunting 2003: 20) So there is a variety of similarities between the two main characters in this chapter, but there are naturally also many important ways in which their lives, ideas and work differ. We will here attempt to present a compact comparison between their sociological ideas in order primarily to shed light on the

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common core of analytical ideas and critical perspectives and potentials in their writings while leaving aside their many differences. Before we commence, it is important to stress that Adorno, for obvious reasons, never had any chance neither to read nor to mention or comment on the work of Bauman as he passed away in 1969 when Bauman was still an internationally unknown sociologist who had just (in 1968) fled system-critical purges inside Polish academia. At that time, Bauman’s work was predominantly – with a few exceptions – published in Polish (see Tester and Jacobsen 2005) and was hence inaccessible to Adorno. Bauman, on the other hand, does surprisingly not refer very often to the work of Adorno despite some striking similarities and obvious overlaps in themes and ideas. Throughout his work, Bauman has, with some substitutions and additions throughout the years, retained many of his own ‘standard references’, as it were, including names such as Emmanuel Lévinas, Cornelius Castoriadis and Ulrich Beck, but Adorno is relatively seldom mentioned and if so then only in passing despite the fact that Bauman upon being awarded the renowned Theodor W. Adorno Prize in 1998 stated that he was indeed a ‘disciple’ of Adorno (Smith 1999: 171; see also Bauman 1998b). However, Dennis Smith has claimed that Adorno alongside the likes of Michel Foucault and Emmanuel Lévinas during the 1990s took the place of previous ‘favourites’ such as Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci and Jürgen Habermas (Smith 1999: 29). We do not detect this apparently sudden upsurge in Bauman’s use of or dialogue with Adorno’s ideas – neither in a drastic increase in number of references nor in an interest in toying specifically with Adorno’s main ideas. So Adorno is oddly absent in or is referred to in the margins of most of Bauman’s writings even though their ideas in many ways, as we will show in this chapter, rub against each other when it comes to a variety of common themes as well as mutual understandings and sensibilities. The aforementioned many connecting lines between Adorno and Bauman to be explored in more detail later are, with a few exceptions (see, e.g., Benzer 2011: 155–7; Hammer 2005: 16–17; Rattansi 2014; Smith 1999: 30–1, 171–5; Tester 2016), also largely and surprisingly overlooked in much of contemporary critical research on the work of Bauman. In this way, Adorno may be seen as a relatively unacknowledged source of inspiration for parts of Bauman’s work – by Bauman himself as well as by his many interpreters. This chapter provides a theoretical case study comparing the writings of Adorno and Bauman. Within case study research one often differentiates between case comparisons that are selected either because of substantial differences or equally due to substantial similarities (see, e.g., Seawright and Gerring 2008). So how about the proposed comparison between Adorno and Bauman? There are indeed writers with whom Bauman substantially, stylistically and normatively – besides sharing the epithet of ‘sociology’ – otherwise covers very little common ground (the work of Talcott Parsons or Niklas Luhmann would be prominent examples of this). There are also writers with whom Bauman’s ideas converge and overlap. We believe and hope to

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demonstrate here that Adorno comes much closer to the latter category (similarities) than the former (differences) when compared to Bauman. Although the title of this chapter seems to indicate that we are dealing with two historically or chronologically different types of critical theory, ‘old’ (Adorno) and ‘new’ (Bauman), the purpose of the chapter is in fact to point to a number of important continuities in the concerns of these two representatives of critical theory. Admittedly, Bauman is normally not included among the ranks of the so-called ‘Frankfurt School of Critical Theory’, as he was never associated with this Frankfurt-based institution. In fact, Bauman roundly rejects any kind of intellectual pigeonholing, including the one of ‘critical theory’ or likewise (see Kilminster and Varcoe 1992: 205–6). But although Bauman never wore the official badge of ‘critical theory’, he nevertheless regards his own work as a contribution to and continuation of critical social theory (see, e.g., Bauman 1991b). However, despite this, it does make good sense to compare and discuss the critical voices of Adorno and Bauman against each other. In the chapter, we do not provide a systematic and in-depth comparison between their respective bodies of work. We will, however, point to some ‘elective affinities’, as it were, in their outlook, ideas and propositions. The purpose of this chapter is thus to provide a compact comparison between the classical critical theory of Theodor W. Adorno and the contemporary variant of critical theory of Zygmunt Bauman. The chapter thus proposes a hypothetical illustration of how a fictitious chance encounter between Adorno and Bauman in the shopping mall – the main cathedral of contemporary liquid-modern consumer society (Ritzer 1999) – might have proceeded.1 In each of the following sections we will first outline some key ideas of Adorno and then perform a swift change of scenery to the work of Bauman before briefly relating them to each other. This will lead to a consideration of how Bauman to a large degree borrows from but simultaneously often also underplays the important indebtedness to Adorno’s work and ideas.

Enlightenment, modernity and the Holocaust The most famous of Theodor W. Adorno’s writings is without doubt his jointly written book (with Max Horkheimer), Dialectic of Enlightenment. Although written at a time (from 1942–4) when the full implications of the Holocaust were still unknown to most, it may still be read as an incisively critical analysis of the preconditions of this ‘catastrophe’, to use one of Adorno’s words. In the preface to the book, Horkheimer and Adorno ask the pertinent question about their own time: ‘Why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism’ (Horkheimer and Adorno 1944/2002: xiv). The answer given to this question is that the Enlightenment reverts into mythology not as a result of ‘nationalism’ or ‘paganism’, but instead because of characteristics immanent to the Enlightenment process itself. Modern life is barbaric despite the process of Enlightenment that according to common knowledge should have brought about a thorough

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rationalisation of society. In short, the Enlightenment reverts to mythology in the same way as the Enlightenment was itself originally intended to eliminate mythology. Being heavily inspired by Max Weber’s theory of rationalisation as well as Georg Lukács’s theory of reification, Horkheimer and Adorno outline a gloomy interpretation of world history in which the rationalisation process not only brings about a greater control over (outer) nature that serves to emancipate humans from their blind submission to it. At the same time, this process of rationalisation forces humans to subject their own inner nature and other human beings to an equally strong exertion of control. This dialectic of freedom and submission is at the heart of Horkheimer and Adorno’s theoretical thinking in Dialectic of Enlightenment. Central to the negative aspects of the Enlightenment (and for this reason central to what rationality is in modern society), is what Horkheimer and Adorno (1944/2002: 8) call ‘the principle of immanence’: we can understand this principle as the effort to explain an item or event by showing how it shares characteristics and features with other items or events and can be subsumed under their categories. In fact, we cannot understand the item or event if we are not able to categorise it. Underlying this urge is the fear of the unknown: by being able to subsume the unknown under existing categories humans are able to contain this fear. This leads to a frantic effort to eradicate everything that is not easily categorised according to existing ideas, or what Adorno later terms ‘identity thinking’. The problem with ‘identity thinking’, however, is that, according to Horkheimer and Adorno, it is not confined to the sphere of science but extends all the way through to the way in which humans relate to each other. One could argue that ‘identity thinking’ culminates in the Nazi genocide denoted ‘Auschwitz’ by Horkheimer and Adorno (but is often referred to as ‘Holocaust’ in the literature succeeding their book). In the Nazi death camps the Jews were eradicated because it was not possible to subsume them under the categories appropriate to the ideology of the Nazi regime. The Jews could not be integrated into society and were instead removed because they according to the Nazis posed a threat to the stability of their regime; because of this they were feared, interned and annihilated. Auschwitz was the ‘administrative murder of millions’, yet ‘in the concentration camps it was no longer an individual who died, but a specimen’ (Adorno 1966/1973: 362). What Adorno means by this is that a precondition of this mass murder was a process by which the Nazis dehumanised the Jews in such a way that they did not appear human to them at all in the end. They were no longer individual humans being executed – they were only examples of a certain category for which the system had decided that it had to take care of by removing them entirely. Moreover, everything qualitative or unique was turned into quantitative and comparable measures through the process of ‘levelling’. To Horkheimer and Adorno, then, Auschwitz embodied the failure of the grand project of Enlightenment – and with it also of so-called ‘pure positivism’ – and particularly its ambitions of letting scientific rationality rule the world.

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Even though Adorno once famously proclaimed that it became impossible to write poetry after Auschwitz (Adorno 1949/1967: 34), it continued to be possible – and perhaps also ever more pertinent and inevitable – to write sociology after and about Auschwitz. Whereas Dialectic of Enlightenment was written during the dark times of World War II, Bauman’s magisterial and award-winning book Modernity and the Holocaust (1989) was written more than half a century later in a society markedly different from the one analysed and criticised in the book. In this way, Bauman’s book is more of a retrospective account than the critical Zeitdiagnose of Horkheimer and Adorno, thus allowing him to be able to take in and process all the historical evidence of the atrocities as well as incorporate the many subsequent analyses and testimonies unavailable to them. Bauman’s book was in fact translated into the German title of Dialektik der Ordnung, thereby showing its apparent legacy from Adorno and Horkheimer’s work (Beilharz 2000: 108). However, despite this, Bauman’s mentioning in Modernity and the Holocaust of Horkheimer and Adorno’s thesis is entirely absent and his analysis presumably owes much more to the work of Hannah Arendt and particularly her ‘banality of evil’ thesis, even though one of the most obvious connecting points between the work of Horkheimer and Adorno and that of Bauman exactly lies in the shared understanding of the, in Arendt’s (1962) apt words, ‘totalitarian tendency’ inherent in modern enlightened society. Bauman dedicated Modernity and the Holocaust to his wife Janina and to ‘all the others who survived to tell the truth’. However, in the book it was important to Bauman, who as a Polish Jew himself escaped the almost certain destiny of the Nazi death camps because he during the war served in the Polish exile army in the Soviet Union, to stress that the Holocaust was not only a Jewish problem and that the blame should not only be placed on the shoulders of the German population. As Horkheimer and Adorno concluded before him, the Holocaust was a problem of modernity (Bauman 1989: x). Bauman thus advanced the, to many, surprising and counterintuitive argument that modernity not only paved the way for human progress and civilisation but also for inhumanity and mass murder. However, it is important to stress that nowhere does Bauman equate modernity with the Holocaust, but he insisted that modernity was pregnant with the possibility of totalitarian atrocities and inhumanities of a heretofore unseen scale – primarily because of the many socalled ‘adiaphorising’ processes of modern society emptying actions of any moral content or turning them into mere technical problem-solving, routinely dehumanising individuals and removing responsibility for any direct and indirect harm, because sequences of action were cut into isolated units apparently unconnected to each other or because they could be excused by proclaiming to ‘follow orders’. He stated that ‘the Holocaust was an outcome of a unique encounter between factors by themselves quite ordinary and common’ (Bauman 1989: xiii), and elsewhere he elaborated that ‘modernity did not make people more cruel; it only invented a way in which cruel things could be done by non-cruel people’ (Bauman 1995: 198). Therefore, Bauman

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insisted that if the conditions were ripe, if these factors were mixed and matched in exactly the right (or rather the wrong) way, if the efficiency of technology and the instrumental rationality of bureaucracy was aided and abetted by ideological madness, then modernity would turn into what Norbert Elias (1996) once called ‘civilized barbarism’ like the Holocaust. Elsewhere he stressed that ‘modernity was a long march to prison. It never arrived there (though in some places, like Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany or Mao’s China, it came quite close), albeit not for the lack of trying’ (Bauman 1992a: xvii). Bauman’s argument in Modernity and the Holocaust is much too comprehensive and complex to cover here in full detail. However, it should be obvious that his analysis has quite a few significant overlaps with and common conclusions to the critical dissection of modern Enlightenment advanced by Adorno and Horkheimer. In fact, in one of Bauman’s sequels to Modernity and the Holocaust, the book titled Modernity and Ambivalence (1991a), this indebtedness becomes much more pronounced and also openly recognised. Here Bauman several times quotes Adorno and Horkheimer’s work and uses some of their ideas to substantiate his own claims. He even teasingly testifies that his book ‘attempts to wrap historical and sociological flesh around the “dialectic of Enlightenment” skeleton’ (Bauman 1991a: 17). In this book, Bauman shows – in a vein very similar to Horkheimer and Adorno – that modernity desperately seeks to annihilate everything different or ‘non-identical’, all that which escapes classification attempts, or what Adorno and Horkheimer termed ‘the fear of the outside’. The purpose of the ascending modern state apparatus and its ‘legislative reason’ was according to Bauman to eradicate everything – and especially groups of people – not fitting into the once and for all fixed categories. The ambition was to create order by annihilating the ‘ambivalent’ and to turn the ‘weeds’ into beautifully organised flower beds in the great ‘gardening state’ of modernity. Later Bauman started using the term ‘waste’ to connote those human beings who cannot be fitted into any useful category and who are therefore destined to live as social outcasts. They have become the new Lebensunwertes Leben (life unworthy of life) of liquid-modern society (Bauman 2003). Bauman’s vision of this order-obsessed ‘gardening state’ of modern society thus resembles Horkheimer and Adorno’s (1944/ 2002:73) nightmarish notion of an ‘all-pervasive administered society’. But although there are indeed certain obvious overlapping considerations and conclusions in Dialectic of Enlightenment and Modernity and the Holocaust, Bauman in his book also directly dismisses some of the ideas developed by Adorno and his colleagues on the so-called ‘authoritarian personality’ (Adorno et al. 1950) in favour of Stanley Milgram’s ‘obedience to authority studies’. He comments harshly on these studies of Adorno and colleagues, criticising them for individualising/psychologising the causes of the Nazi atrocities and for not paying due attention to social factors in their explanations of why particularly some people, apparently quite ordinary and ‘normal people’, blindly followed orders and engaged in ‘morally abnormal actions’ (Bauman 1989: 152–3). While there is no doubt that The Authoritarian

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Personality has a strong focus on the psychological dimensions underlying fascism, this does not mean that Adorno and his colleagues did not acknowledge the social dimensions of the problem. In fact, Adorno claimed in a discussion of the relationship between sociology and psychology following the German Positivism Dispute that fascism cannot be explained in social-psychological terms, but the Authoritarian Personality has occasionally been misunderstood as just such an attempt. But if the authoritarian character type had not been so widespread for reasons which, in their turn, are sociologically intelligible, then fascism, at any rate, would not have found its mass basis, without which it would not have achieved power in a society like that of the Weimar democracy. (Adorno 1969/1976: 119) Because society – and hence sociology – prevails over the individual – and for this reason psychology – the psychological make-up of individuals – are not only influenced by societal processes, ‘but are in their innermost core formed by it’ (Adorno 1969/1976: 119). There is, however, another substantial difference – according to Matthias Benzer, the author of The Sociology of Theodor Adorno – between Adorno and Bauman which is that the latter seems to place more importance on bureaucratic and technological factors in his explanation of the efficiency of the Holocaust than did Adorno and Horkheimer and therefore his analysis is in some respects sociologically more penetrating and focused (Benzer 2011: 155–6). Also Hans Joas insisted that there are indeed quite blatant differences between Horkheimer and Adorno’s thesis on the one hand and Bauman’s on the other when claiming that whereas Adorno and Horkheimer in their particular book assume a linear increase in the domination of instrumental reason, which, at the point of its completion and triumph, reveals its character, Bauman has a view which is more open to the internal contradictions of this process, less linear, and more willing to allow for an alternative to the further increase of the domination of instrumental rationality today. (Joas 1998: 50) Whether this interpretation is correct or not is obviously, in the last instance, a matter of how one reads and deciphers not just the texts in themselves but also how one excavates the potentials hidden within them. However, as we have shown here, Bauman’s indebtedness to the ‘dialectic of Enlightenment’ thesis in his work on the Holocaust – as well as the analytical and normative consequences he draws from this study – is perhaps not as openly admitted as might have been expected. Perhaps one of the main reasons why Horkheimer and Adorno’s ideas do not feature in Bauman’s Holocaust book is because he generally comes pretty close to reaching the

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same conclusion as them – at least one is allowed to ponder if this might be a likely explanation.

The culture industry and liquid-modern consumerism Another point of common ground between the work of Adorno and Bauman’s ditto, we argue, can be found in their analysis of the cultural sphere. In Dialectic of Enlightenment, a central chapter is devoted to discussing the socalled ‘culture industry’ thesis. Instead of religion serving the main role as what integrates modern capitalist society and binds it together, Adorno and Horkheimer instead argue that this function has now been taken over by mass culture or ‘the culture industry’, as they term it. This phrase is deliberately chosen, because it emphasises how the production of cultural goods takes place in the same way as any other type of commodity is produced and sold in industrial societies. At the same time this phrase is more appropriate than ‘mass culture’, because the latter could be interpreted in such a way as to argue that the origin of the products of the culture industry is in fact the masses or the people and could be considered the contemporary version of ‘folk culture’. According to Horkheimer and Adorno, this is a wrong interpretation because like any other type of commodity, movies, music or other culture industry artefacts are products designed by big companies primarily in order to serve their ultimate motive: striving for profit. Critics of this thesis would argue that the culture industry actually creates a plethora of consumption possibilities that gives the consumers more freedom of choice than they could ever pursue. The shops are bulging with many different consumer goods and the same is true of the products of the culture industry itself such as movies, music, magazines and television series. The problem with these cultural products, however, is that their apparent uniqueness is illusory – which is a rather conventional Marxist idea. Horkheimer and Adorno thus argue that if we take a closer look at the products, they are all modelled on the same basic formula that conforms to the type of form that can be easily consumed without too much effort on behalf of the listener or viewer. They are for entertainment purposes only and thus have to be easily consumed. Just as the Enlightenment ‘levelled’ out all qualitative differences and made everything identical, the culture industry, according to Horkheimer and Adorno, is infecting everything with sameness, thereby obliterating difference and diversity. Instead of offering the consumers a truly unique and individualised experience, the products of the culture industry instead only offer the consumers standardised experiences and a resulting pseudo-individualisation. What Horkheimer and Adorno mean by ‘pseudo-individualization’ is that the differences that can be discerned between different consumers’ lifestyles or in their consumption patterns are not emphatic differences that point to meaningful divisions in the products of the culture industry: differences in musical consumption are not related to differences in the sound or other features of the music. Instead these differences are the direct result of homogenising forces

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reinforcing the status quo that tries to maximise the way in which these standardised products can be sold to the consuming masses. An important aspect related to the diagnosis Horkheimer and Adorno gave of capitalist society in the mid-20th century is that the commodity form underlying the culture industry has a tendency to spread to other spheres of life and become pervasive in virtually all of life’s doings. This means that social relations between humans are influenced and modelled on the commodity relationship. One example of this spread of the commodity form is the act of giving presents, which Adorno claims is no longer possible in modern society: Human beings are forgetting how to give gifts. Violations of the exchange-principle have something mad and unbelievable about them; here and there even children size up the gift-giver mistrustfully, as if the gift were only a trick, to sell them a brush or soap … Even private gift-giving has degenerated into a social function, which one carries out with a reluctant will, with tight control over the pocketbook, a skeptical evaluation of the other and with the most minimal effort. (Adorno 1951/1974: 21) The truly alarming aspect of the influence of the culture industry is its profound impact on other domains of life such as ‘giving presents’ or our love lives, i.e. domains of life we normally believe to be thoroughly privatised and for that reason havens safe from the influence of society. So Horkheimer and Adorno’s critical diagnosis of the rise of ‘the culture industry’ shows that everything is now subsumed under the reign of mass-produced and massmarketised products that not only relies on a profit-seeking rationality but also empties the world of any authentic cultural content. As Horkheimer and Adorno suggested, the Enlightenment is a ‘deception of the masses’ and in this deception game the culture industry plays an important part. Bauman’s work on ‘liquid modernity’ and ‘liquid life’ owes a great deal to this diagnosis (Bauman 2000, 2005). If the aforementioned Modernity and the Holocaust (1989) paved the way for Bauman’s widespread international reputation as one of the key contemporary social thinkers, Liquid Modernity (2000) published at the threshold of the new millennium provided him with a new conceptual basis for describing the profound transformation from so-called ‘solid modernity’ to ‘liquid modernity’. Bauman believes that the kind of society described by Adorno and Horkheimer in Dialectic of Enlightenment has now been superseded by a society that is much more fluid, capillary and network-like and much less condensed, order-obsessed and systemic (Bauman 2000: 25). According to him, one of the main characteristics of liquid-modern society is exactly that it is a consumer society in which people consume everything – consumer items, experiences, other people, even life itself (Bauman 2007). There is now nothing outside consumption – it has become all-pervasive and all-embracing as was the ‘commodity form’ in Horkheimer and Adorno’s view. Nothing now escapes the supreme reign of consumerism:

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our economy, our politics, our intimate human relations and our dreams and fantasies, everything is saturated with insatiable consumer desire. Whereas Horkheimer and Adorno’s work was written during what Bauman since the publication of Liquid Modernity as mentioned above began to label ‘solid modernity’ – a modernity of bulky factory buildings, heavy capitalism and a bureaucratic and hierarchical organisation of social life – his own work is written at the very time when consumerism and its concomitant tentacles – of individualisation and privatisation, of deregulation and globalisation, of life politics and ‘camping-site critique’ – reaches into virtually all nooks and crannies of society (see, e.g., Bauman 1998a, 1999a, 2001). In such a liquid-modern consumer society, the only thing that counts is access to consumption. People no longer require identification or crave solidarity through their role in the production system. They rather seek it in the role as fully-fledged (rather than ‘flawed’) consumers. They demand instant gratification, maximal impact and immediate obsolescence. Hence Horkheimer and Adorno’s work on the ‘culture industry’ anticipated what Bauman now regards as the current state of affairs – a world without many escape routes from consumption. However, whereas Horkheimer and Adorno saw their ‘solid modernity’ as distinctly authoritarian and totalitarian and characterised by domination and degradation, to Bauman the arrival of liquid modernity rather inaugurates a new and much ‘softer’ type of unfreedom, replacing that of solid-modern concentration camps, Big Brothers and watchtowers. Today, it is rather seduction than repression, rather Synopticon than Panopticon, which keeps people in line (Bauman 1988). In fact, in liquid modernity there is little need for controlling or regulating the lives of consumers, who are mostly able to make their own decisions and choices, whereas for their ‘flawed’ cousins – those who do not have the resources or who resist the siren call of the ‘culture industry’ – Panoptic measures might still prove useful. There are, however, writers such as Frederic Jameson (1990), who argue against those who like Bauman criticise the culture industry thesis for being too focused on manipulation. According to Jameson, Adorno’s work actually constitutes a model for contemporary (postmodern) society and the relevance of his work has increased as globalisation has brought capitalism into a new (liquid?) phase instead of having decreased. Regardless of how we settle this discussion of the relevance of the culture industry thesis, we find – as was also the case with his ideas on the Holocaust – that Bauman is probably substantially inspired, yet often without due acknowledgement, by the ideas developed by the two early Frankfurt thinkers in his own seminal work on ‘liquid modernity’. However, in Bauman’s later book, Liquid Life (2005), Adorno’s ideas on culture, exile and thinking are not only frequently and lengthily quoted – however mixed with some snide remarks (see, e.g., Bauman 2005: 144) – but they also seem to form the very backbone of what Bauman sees as integral to liquid-modern consumerised living – the paradoxical fact that ‘the world wants to be deceived’ (Adorno quoted in Bauman 2005: 140). So perhaps Adorno, after all, is beginning to sneak his way in through the back door.

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The damaged life, postmodern moralities and a fragmented existence Minima Moralia is undoubtedly one of Adorno’s most read books. It was, in his own apt words, a contribution to a ‘sorrowful science’. The book consists of more than 100 small aphorisms in which he tries to show how life in modern societies is ‘damaged’ by the social structures dominating them. This is to some extent summed up in the famous dictum taken from aphorism number 18: ‘Refuge for the Homeless’, in which Adorno states that ‘there is no right life within the wrong life’ (Adorno 1951/1974: 39). This claim can be read in a number of different ways: one in which its origins in Christianity is emphasised (Hullot-Kentor 1985) and another in which it points to the thorough ‘negativism’ that also can be linked to the statement (Freyenhagen 2013). Let us elaborate a bit on the meaning of the latter interpretation, because that is the one which is most easily compared to the moral stance of Bauman. What does it mean when Adorno claims that ‘there is no right life within the wrong life’? Fabian Freyenhagen argues that a central element in Adorno’s thesis is that it points to ‘the antinomical nature of private life’ (Freyenhagen 2013: 58). There are some fundamental conflicts in modern societies that are not the result of humans being too uncreative to solve them. Instead these conflicts should be thought of as integral features of modern societies that impose these antinomies on individuals. Using another philosophical terminology, we might address these features as ‘human conditions’, i.e. (existential) conditions that all humans have to relate to. However, Adorno is not an existentialist and the designation of certain conditions as inevitable and as human per se constitutes an act of reification. We must continue to criticise these antinomies and expose how they are societally produced and tied to specific social arrangements instead of seeing them as natural conditions pertaining to human existence. Freyenhagen (2013: 56–9) uses humanitarian aid in the face of a humanitarian disaster such as a famine as an example of such an antinomy of private life. On one hand, it might seem like the only reasonable solution to actually distribute food and aid to the people in need. On the other hand, however, these interventions often have ‘negative effects on the local economy and food production’, which may in the long run increase the risk of new famines because the local farmers are put out of business because of the aid. This is a true dilemma and one which cannot easily be solved. For Adorno this points to the antinomical structure of society and how society in fact is responsible for our inability to ‘live right’. One central question related to this is in what ways Adorno believes society to be standing in the way of ‘living the right life’. This is a somewhat complex problem because, on the one hand, Adorno emphasises that we actually feel free and also to a large extent are factually freer than we have ever been compared to earlier times in human history. To be sure, history is not the right yardstick for a comparison of freedom for a critical theory. In fact, the very definition of a critical theory according to Adorno is that it evaluates the existing in the light of the future potential inherent in it. In addition, it is

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important for Adorno to note that the freedom we feel and perceive is in many respects illusory because different societal pressures constrain the realisation of freedom. One (and perhaps the most central) way in which we are constrained is by the necessity to participate in the market economy, e.g. by finding paid employment. Often the way in which society impacts on our freedom is hidden because these constraints on us have been naturalised and appear as ‘second nature’, i.e. as reified structures that are a natural part of humans’ lives and not something which is produced and reproduced by human beings themselves (Freyenhagen 2013: 75–81). According to Adorno, there is a strong moral force in knowing how society impacts negatively on human beings. Despite this, knowledge of the bad sides of society is not the same as knowing how to change society to something better. As a consequence of this position, another important question emerges: is there really nothing to be done about the antinomical structure of society? We will return to this question in the next section, because it links very closely to a discussion between the similarities between Adorno’s notion of ‘Negative Dialectics’ and Bauman’s use of ‘Active Utopias’. Turning to Bauman, he originally ended Modernity and the Holocaust with a conclusion and some afterthoughts in which he summarised his main finding that society cannot constitute the grounding for human morality and that the societal production of social distance, moral invisibility and immoral behaviour was one of the main problems of modernity, which became particularly evident in the Holocaust and in the enormous amounts of evil actions committed by quite ordinary people. If we accept that society is such a ‘factory of morality’ – through discipline, conformity to norms and socialisation – then we are unable to account for or rationalise why the Holocaust was indeed not only criminal but also morally wrong and we also cannot explain why some people actually refused to participate in the atrocities, acted differently and decided to help the victims instead, at times even risking their own lives (Bauman 1989: 169–207). Shortly after the publication of the book, an appendix was added – consisting, in fact, of the speech he delivered in May 1990 when accepting the 1989 European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Theory – discussing the broader sociological and moral implications of his critical Holocaust study. In this appendix, Bauman presented some thought-provoking ideas on morality as a pre-social phenomenon, as a precondition for all social life, and as something society desperately tries to suppress or neutralise (e.g. through techniques of ‘adiaphorization’), just as he severely criticised sociology for neglecting the importance of the topic of such ‘socially unsanctioned morality’ (Bauman 1989: 208–21). In hindsight, this appendix – together with the conclusion – became an important stepping stone for the subsequent development of Bauman’s so-called ‘postmodern sociology’ – or in his own words rather a ‘sociology of postmodernity’ (Bauman 1992a) – from the early and mid-1990s, which was concerned with proposing a sociological approach to morality and providing a basis for critiquing modern society and its enforced societal ethics that would ultimately exempt people from the

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inescapable moral responsibility they have for their actions and for their fellow human beings. In such later books as Postmodern Ethics (1993) and Alone Again (1994), Bauman – armed with massive inspiration from amongst others the moral philosophies and theological phenomenologies of Emmanuel Lévinas, Max Scheler and Knud Ejler Løgstrup (but with very few references to the work of Adorno) – in great detail outlined the contours of his understanding of how postmodernity opens up the world to moral living. To him, at least initially, postmodernity inaugurated a modernity that was coming to its senses and which had become aware of (some of) its own illusions and limitations. He even went as far as associating postmodernity with ‘re-enchantment’ (Bauman 1993: 33). Moreover, it was his contention that it is not ‘being-with’ the Other that constitutes a true moral relationship but rather ‘being-for’ the Other that epitomises the unconditional and unspoken moral responsibility as a cornerstone in the alleviation of human suffering. In such an understanding of morality, ‘being-for’ morally precedes ‘being-with’. Morality is not the rational or universalisable make-up of society – it is a non-rational and pre-social impulse that exists prior to the ethical indoctrination of societal institutions. This does not mean that people from the onset are either morally good or bad – for all practical intents and purposes they are always, and must remain, morally ambivalent. It is only through the choice to act in certain ways in certain situations that morality or for that matter also immorality comes into existence. Choosing to be and act in a moral way is also not the recipe for an easy or comfortable life – it is rather full of existential dilemmas and ethical torments. It is a daily Sisyphus work because it is – and must remain – unfulfilled and without any reassuring hope for completion or closure. The moral person is therefore a person who is always, endemically, suspicious that he/she is morally underperforming. As captured by Bauman: It is moral anxiety that provides the only substance the moral self could ever have. What makes the moral self is the urge to do, not the knowledge of what is to be done … One recognizes morality by its gnawing sense of unfulfilledness, by its endemic dissatisfaction with itself. The moral self is a self always haunted by the suspicion that it is not moral enough. (Bauman 1993: 80) A wonderful personification of this, quite possibly rare, moral stance is found in Liam Neeson’s impressive manifestation of Oscar Schindler in the 1993 film Schindler’s List, in which the main character towards the end of the film in a weeping and guilt-stricken moment realises that he, despite doing more than most others, could have done so much more and could have saved so many more lives from the gas chambers. Postmodern Ethics thus proposes that living under postmodern conditions in some respects makes it easier to live a moral life – a life full of moral choices – but also that postmodern living, contrary to its modern counterpart, promises freedom coupled with the

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insecurity, uncertainty and ambivalence that follows from making such choices. Bauman’s Life in Fragments (1995) lays out some of the challenges that living in such a postmodern habitat holds in promise for its inhabitants. Perhaps postmodernity fails to deliver on all of its promises. Although it in significant ways departs from the order obsession and sense of mastery so prominent to modern society, it also shows that postmodernity itself, for better or for worse, creates many paradoxes and dilemmas for those people – ‘vagabonds’ and ‘tourists’, ‘players’, ‘flâneurs’, ‘strangers’ and ‘nomads’ (all metaphors from Bauman’s great gallery of characters) – who have now lost the predictability and the however cramped and fearful sense of security of the past. Postmodernity is not all pie in the sky. Life now has to be lived in the shadow of the knowledge that it is no longer given – that it has to be made and remade continuously. Postmodern people will therefore, by themselves, have to struggle with problems of identity, purpose, paths, belonging and the meaning of life. Bauman thus frequently quotes Ulrich Beck’s proposition that contemporary society increasingly makes people seek biographical solutions to systemically created contradictions. One of Adorno’s most insightful aphorisms of Minima Moralia was that ‘the splinter in your eye is the best magnifying glass’ (Adorno 1951/1974: 55). This sentence has been interpreted in widely different ways. As mentioned above, one obvious way of reading the statement is to see it as a reminder that through knowledge of what is broken and splintered, we may still get a chance to reach a life that is better than the one accessible to us currently. As seen through the prism of Bauman’s postmodern perspective presented in Life in Fragments, it could be read as a possibility for rebuilding a broken life from the painful splinters left behind by the pulverised mirror of modern society, and that such a reconstruction effort can only commence exactly because some splinters – in the form of lost chances, forgotten dreams and charred hopes – were left behind. Life in Fragments in many ways marks the first tentative steps in Bauman’s beginning departure and dissociation from the notion of ‘postmodernity’ pointing towards his later idea of ‘liquid modernity’. So to summarise, Adorno’s aforementioned reflections on the ‘damaged life’ – a life that is damaged and diminished by external social pressures and structural domination – and Bauman’s ditto on ‘life in fragments’ – a life lived under increasingly contingent and ambivalent circumstances – have a great deal in common but also differ in certain respects. To both Adorno and Bauman, the pressures placed on the shoulders of individuals by society sometimes making their lives not only difficult and miserable but also vulnerable and life threatening are regarded as problematic. But to Bauman, contingency and ambivalence are not all bad – they also open up the possibility of taking a personal responsibility (a so-called ‘morality of choice’) that under the auspices of solid-modern society was precluded by the precedence of a ‘morality of conformity’ (Bauman 1998c). Like Adorno’s ‘minimal morality’ (Minima Moralia) – as opposed to the ‘big morality’ (Magna Moralia) proposed by

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Aristotle, on which the title of the book ironises – also Bauman’s sense of morality is, as we saw, ‘minimal’, because it starts out from the individual person reaching out – with an unconditional responsibility – to the persecuted, destitute and suffering Other in need of help. Bauman’s moral understanding thus rests on the notion of ‘moral proximity’, and such a ‘small-scale’ morality obviously encounters serious challenges when it is transferred to or is intended to influence and solve large-scale – potentially global – problems (Bauman 1999c). However, whereas Adorno’s ‘implicit moral philosophy’ is purposefully negatively phrased and abstractly formulated, Bauman’s basic idea is that morality must ‘earn its living’ not through some abstract philosophical reasoning but in concrete interhuman action. In many ways, Bauman therefore, unwittingly, answers Adorno’s question in Minima Moralia about how to live the ‘good life’ because he insists that such a life is achievable only by taking moral responsibility for the Other – and ultimately in the willingness to sacrifice one’s own life for the Other (Bauman 1992b: 210).

Negative dialectic and active utopia One of the main purposes of Minima Moralia was, according to Adorno, to ‘project negatively an image of utopia’. He is therefore often, and not without reason, portrayed as a very pessimistic and elitist thinker ‘who has taken up residence in the “Grand Hotel Abyss” … a beautiful hotel, equipped with every comfort, on the edge of an abyss, of nothingness, of absurdity’ (Lukács 1962/1971: 9). What Georg Lukács argues is that it is easy for intellectuals such as Adorno to criticise the existent world when you as an intellectual live a privileged life in a comfortable place and are not forced to take part in the absurdities and the existential nothingness such as monotonous and hard wage labour that ordinary people have to. Lukács was certainly not the only one who criticised Adorno for not wanting to turn to action (or Praxis) as a consequence of his fierce criticism of contemporary – capitalist, cultureindustrial and Enlightenment-stuck – society. In the years prior to Adorno’s death, he was heavily involved in disputes with students at Frankfurt University who found Adorno and the rest of the older generation to be hypocrites when calling the police to clear the seminar rooms at the Institute of Social Research which the students had occupied (Müller-Doohm 2005: 474–7). Adorno’s refusal to partake in concrete political action – despite his devastating critique of the lack of freedom in modern societies – is mirrored in his philosophical works and his refusal to engage in descriptions of concrete utopian destinations to be implemented. This refusal is one of the things that underlie the idea of a ‘negative dialectics’, which was developed in a book with a similar title. Negative Dialectics (1966/1973) was a polemic against G. W. F. Hegel and his claim ‘to have gained successful access to absolute truth’ (Jarvis 1998: 16) – something that Adorno did not buy into. As already stated in the first paragraph of the book:

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Dialectics is a phrase that flouts tradition. As early as Plato, dialectics meant to achieve something positive by means of negation; the thought figure of the ‘negation of the negation’ later became the succinct term. This book seeks to free dialectics from such affirmative traits without reducing its determinacy. The unfoldment of the paradoxical title is one of its aims. (Adorno 1966/1973: xix) The paradox in the notion of ‘negative dialectics’ is exactly that Adorno – contrary to most great philosophers previous and past – did not seek to integrate or sublate opposites into one final grand and unified system. Rather, for him, dialectics needed to remain purely negative in order to retain its critical potential. However, there is one sphere in contemporary society that according to Adorno should be paid particular attention to because he thought it could serve as a model for an altered relationship between human beings. This is the sphere of art and aesthetics and especially modernistic art. This may sound a bit strange, because there is nothing political about modernistic art when, for example, compared to more direct political art such as that found in Berthold Brecht or later in the protest songs of the 1960s. What is so special about modernistic art is that it systematically offers a promise of otherness, i.e. in art the relation between the subject perceiving the work of art and the object – i.e. the work of art itself – is not a relation of domination but a relation of mimesis. In order for the subject to gain an understanding of the work of art, he/she must immerse oneself in the work of art and imitate what it tries to express. According to Adorno, this process of imitation (or ‘mimesis’ which it is also called) is radically different to the logic of subsumption that underlies ‘identity thinking’. Art may therefore help us to discover and realise the ‘non-identical’ – that which cannot be reduced to something already existing. Does this, however, mean that it is only in the sphere of art that this altered relation can be found that can ‘salvage’ the non-identical? According to Jay M. Bernstein (2001), this is not the case because Adorno talks about ‘metaphysical experiences’, for example in Negative Dialectics. Bernstein (2001: 411ff) illustrates what Adorno means by this term by using the example of how Danes helped Jews escape from the country during the Second World War. Bernstein argues that this reaction was an exception in Europe when compared to how the people of other countries treated the Jews. Helping the Jews escape the country constitutes a ‘fugitive, metaphysical experience’, which is exemplary albeit in a ‘strange way’ because the exemplarity does not lead to succession and repetition as would be the normal case of exemplars. The argument pursued by Bernstein is that episodes such as the Danish rescue of Jews are examples of ‘right living’, i.e. of situations, however fleeting, in which we can escape the suppressive logic of ‘identity thinking’ even if it does not constitute utopian thinking in the normal sense of the term. In situations such as these Adorno might claim that we have found a very rare case of ‘right living’.

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Bauman, on the other hand, is a utopian of sorts (Jacobsen 2004), but he is also an ‘ambivalent utopian’ (Jacobsen 2016), because he is well aware that utopian ideas – when turned from ‘idle dreaming’ into grand designs for a great society – may turn out disastrous. Just as history is the graveyard of many great utopias that never materialised, it is also the dumpsite for incredible amounts of atrocities and inhumanities committed in the name of some utopia. In Bauman’s work, utopia has been a continuous presence – at times openly, at other times less so – for decades. In an interview Bauman once revealed that what infuriated him the most as a young student of sociology was Hegel’s contention that ‘the rational is the real and the real is the rational’ (Bauman in Kilminster and Varcoe 1992: 206). To Bauman, rationality and reality are not necessarily identical and in fact he has shown – particularly in his ‘postmodern writings’ – how rationality is quite often an insufficient explanation for understanding how people act and what motivates them. Any equation between the real and the rational would therefore simply amount to what Adorno called ‘identity thinking’. According to Bauman, it would be utterly delusional to believe that just because something exists, it is necessarily also something desirable. Moreover, to Bauman, the ‘real’ as something onedimensional, something that currently ‘is’ or ‘has been’, is too limited an understanding of the world, which, in his view, also encompasses that which ‘could be’ or ‘ought to be’. Therefore, Bauman is not a great believer in the utopias of social engineering or enforced ideological projects that often end in human disasters. To him, it is rather in the small cracks and the almost invisible crevices that the possibilities for something different and perhaps also something better resides. Italo Calvino, one of Bauman’s favourite writers, poignantly called it ‘a utopia of fine dust’ and Robert Musil, another writer at times referenced by Bauman, described it as a ‘sense of possibility’. Whether Bauman would also subsume Adorno’s ‘fugitive, metaphysical experiences’ under the category of some sort of utopia is an open question, however, it is not unlikely that this would be the case. So, contrary to many starry-eyed writers of utopian fiction, urban planners or political propagandists, who propose some sort of ideal future state in which human happiness and prosperity prevail, Bauman’s utopian understanding is at one and the same time much less ambitious and much more powerful. In his book Socialism: The Active Utopia (1976) – his ode to socialism as a critical counter-movement of capitalism and modernity alike – he outlines the potential of utopia as a cultural sensibility or current rather than as a grand political project to be pursued by party soldiers. To Bauman, utopia becomes stagnant and problematic when it is seen as something to be erected or enforced, but as an undercurrent in the way people act, think and hope in their lives utopia is an enormously powerful and potent presence. Utopia holds out the promise that the world might be different and that we are still allowed to imagine, hope and act towards something found missing. As in Ernst Bloch’s voluminous rendition of utopia as the very embodiment of the ‘not yet’ (Bloch 1954–9), Bauman’s utopian vision is also about reaching out

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for that which is not but which could be. This is also the reason why Bauman uses the term ‘active utopia’ to describe how socialism can be seen as an all-out attack on everything that is taken for granted and as a desire for creating something better than what currently is. He delineates many different dimensions and potentials of such an ‘active utopia’ that promises that we have not yet reached the final curtain: Utopias relativise the present … By exposing the partiality of current reality, by scanning the field of the possible in which the real occupies merely a tiny plot, utopias pave the way for a critical attitude and a critical activity which alone can transform the present predicament of man … The driving force behind the search for utopia is neither the theoretical nor the practical reason, neither the cognitive nor the moral interest, but the principle of hope … Utopias weaken the defensive wall of habit … Utopias enter reality not as the aberrations of deranged intellects, but as powerful factors acting from within what is the only substance of reality, motivated human action. (Bauman 1976: 12–17) Elsewhere, when revisiting the theme of utopia a quarter of a century later, Bauman stressed that our social scientific understanding of utopia is therefore too limited and narrow if we only think of utopia as some ideal society to be made flesh and blood by dictate or decree. In his understanding of utopia and utopianism, these are ineradicable ‘constants’ in the human way of being in the world (Bauman and Tester 2001: 50). It is obvious that there are also certain detectable connecting points here between Adorno and Bauman, although Bauman strikes us not only as more keen (or perhaps less dismissive) to embrace the concept of ‘utopia’ directly but also as more sympathetic to making utopia a moving force in human life. This is in part due to the hopes Adorno put in modernistic art which, especially when looking at art in the 2010s, seems like a rather narrow venue for formulating utopias and alternatives to society. However, Bauman does share with Adorno a concern with the impact of modern capitalism on the quality of human life and on our ability to consider alternatives to the present state of affairs. Adorno was concerned that we – as in the myth of Odysseus mentioned in Dialectic of Enlightenment – increasingly become alienated and pacified. Bauman is more anxious that we increasingly become trapped in alluring snares of consumerist freedom while missing out on the possibilities of creating a world that might be free in a more comprehensive and genuine manner. Compared to Adorno, Bauman’s utopian vision is therefore less reserved and at times – for example when championing the Scandinavian welfare state or supporting the idea of ‘basic income’ – more action-oriented. For Adorno, the ‘non-identical’ such as modernist art holds some promise – but admittedly a rather narrow one – of something escaping the totalising spirit of the Enlightenment. However, due to his ‘negative dialectics’ and his

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ideal of negativism in general, Adorno was, just as Bauman, reluctant to propose an ideal destination towards which we should strive, and as noted by Dennis Smith, ‘Adorno did not place any hopes in a third option: the strategy of free and open dialogue that Bauman had found so attractive’ (Smith 1999: 31). For Bauman, utopia is an always receding horizon and hence it cannot be eradicated. When he was awarded the Theodor W. Adorno Prize in 1998, in his acceptance speech he actually reflected on the important lessons learned from Adorno: Adorno knew – like so many others who for the sake of clear conscience and mental equilibrium do not know or would not admit that they know or would not wish to know – that there are not, nor should there be, straight answers to convoluted questions, neither are there any eindeutig solutions to ambivalent predicaments. He knew that whoever thinks and cares is doomed to navigate between the Scylla of pure yet impotent thought and the Charybdis of effective yet polluted bid for domination. Teritum non datur. (Bauman quoted in Smith 1999: 31; see also Bauman 1998b) So between the continuum that stretches from ‘pure yet impotent thought’ at the one far end and the ‘effective yet polluted bid for domination’ in the world at the other extreme, we would propose that Adorno and Bauman, although not occupying the exact same spot, both come much closer to the former than the latter in their utopian ideas and understandings.

From classical to contemporary critical theory There is, however, a central place for utopia to be found in Adorno’s thinking when it comes to his view on what constitutes a critical theory. As mentioned above, critique – in the version proposed by Horkheimer in his seminal essay from 1937 – should be understood as the evaluation of the current state of society in light of the possibilities inherent in it. One important feature of this type of critique is its ‘defetischizing’ consequences (for an elaboration of the different types of critique used by the Frankfurt School, see Benhabib 1986): the goal of critiquing society is to reveal how it is the product of human interaction, that it is historically constituted and for that reason contingent and most importantly that it for both of these reasons can be changed by humans again. The very idea of aspects of society that are inevitable or natural runs counter to this position. Even seemingly hopeless ideas such as the reconciliation between human and nature cannot be dismissed outright on the basis of what currently exists. In this sense, Adorno’s critical theory of society implies utopian thinking, although it may be in a somewhat different way than the one pursued by Bauman. At first sight, the idea of defetischising critique might seem rather obscure and elitist and not very action-oriented. However, one must remember that

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for Adorno a substantial part of his oeuvre consisted of essays originally published as radio talks aimed at reaching ordinary Germans who turned on their radio in order to gain new inputs. This reflects very well what the aim of critical theory was more generally: the aim was to stimulate reflection on part of the readers or listeners of the talks. Adorno seldom engaged in general theoretical debates with other sociologists, e.g. about the nature of certain phenomena. Instead the radio talks and the essays which was Adorno’s preferred mode of transmitting his ideas could be thought of as examples of ‘public sociology’ in Michael Burawoy’s meaning of the word, i.e. as dialogues with audiences that are not part of the sociological community themselves with the explicit goal of deepening their understanding of how society works (Burawoy 2005). One important aspect here is that for Adorno it is not enough for this encounter to be based on a pure description of how society takes form today. Instead, what is needed in order to live up to the ideal of critique is that the encounter with the audiences outside the sociological community stimulates reflection among those exposed to it. This brings us to a final important feature of critical theory – a feature that breaks with the apparent discrepancy between theory and praxis. For Adorno, theorising was in itself an important example of praxis. To treat it otherwise was to overstate the difference between the two types of activity. Adorno explains this stance by referring to the ultimate goal of theories. Contrary to common knowledge a theory should not set out to be as accurate a description of the social world as possible. The ideal is not correspondence between theory and reality, that the theory represents reality. Instead what is needed according to Adorno is for the theory to enable the one working with the theory and with reality to break with the latter, i.e. to be able to discern how the structures of society and the injustices and problems inherent in it are historical phenomena that have come into being because of certain conditions and that when these conditions are altered this will enable us to structure society in a radically different way. The act of theorising or the praxis of theorising is still relevant as long as society is responsible for antinomical structures of society or identity thinking dominating our way of using concepts and language. And this is indeed still the case. As Adorno wrote in one of his most important essays, ‘Cultural Criticism and Society’, on this state of affairs, at least in the mid-20th century: ‘In the open-air prison which the world is becoming, it is no longer so important to know what depends on what, such is the extent to which everything is one. All phenomena rigidify, become insignias of the absolute rule of that which is’ (Adorno 1949/1967: 34). Therefore, the totalising effect of the all-pervasive administrative society, a society responsible also for the total ‘reification of the mind’ that threatens to make even the ‘most extreme consciousness of doom … degenerate into idle chatter’ (Adorno 1949/1967: 34) continues to require cultural criticism and critical theorising. It is now quite a few decades since Adorno wrote and published his most important pieces of work. Many things have changed since then – and

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something also still seems to be the same. But why do we still need critical theory? Does our world – having within the last half a century moved from a totalitarian-prone and Panoptic solid-modern society to a liquid-modern variant in most respects less totalitarian and more freedom-minded – still require the critical mentality that was advanced by the early proponents of Frankfurt-style critical theory? The short answer, in Bauman’s view, is a resounding ‘yes’ – however with some modification and qualification. According to Bauman, sociology needs always to be a critical and inquisitive watchdog that assures us that the world does not ossify or become immune to human intervention. The task of sociology is to keep options open to people to take responsibility for their own lives as well as for the lives of others. Critical theory is and remains an indispensable part of this sociological feat. Just as utopia, as we saw above, relativises the present and pulverises all that which seems so impenetrable and immutable, so does critical theory. In Bauman’s perspicacious definition of the promises and potentials of critical theory – a definition that comes very close to the idea of a defetishising form of critique – he writes the following: Unlike other theories, critical theory will not be, therefore, satisfied with the optimally faithful reproduction of the world ‘as it is’. It will insist upon asking: ‘How has this world come about?’ It will demand that its history be studied, and that in the course of this historical study the forgotten hopes and lost chances of the past be retrieved. It will wish to explore how come that the hopes have been forgotten and the chances lost. It will also refuse to accept that whatever is, is out of necessity; it will suggest instead that the structures be explored which perpetuate what is and by the same token render the alternatives unrealistic. It will assume, in other words, that until the contrary is proved, the reality of some attributes of the world and of utopianism of their alternatives are both conditional on the continuation of some practices which, in principle, can be modified and altered … Critical theory, as it were, relativizes what seems to be absolute, pulverizes the solid contours of reality, transforms certainties into a mere game of chance, strips external pressures of their authority and brings them into the reach of human control. (Bauman 1991b: 280–1, 289) But although critical theory remains an important and pricker-sharp thorn in the side of society or the world ‘as it is’, something has also changed according to Bauman making it necessary to update and redirect the focus of the ‘classical’ version of critical theory to which Adorno belongs. The society that Adorno – and with him also Horkheimer – confronted in the mid-20th century is for many different reasons no longer the same, and so Bauman states on the decreasing relevance of the work of Adorno and Horkheimer in our contemporary society in which critique in its classical formulation has lost some of its urgency and penetrating capacity:

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At the time when classic critical theory, gestated by the experience of another, order-obsessed modernity and thus informed by and targeted on the telos of emancipation, was put in shape by Adorno and Horkheimer, it was a very different model, that of a shared household with its institutionalized norms and habitualized rules, assignment of duties and supervised performance, in which, with good empirical reason, the idea of critique was inscribed. While hospitable to critique after the fashion of the caravan site’s hospitality to the caravan owners, our society is definitely and resolutely not hospitable to critique in the mode which the founders of the critical school assumed and to which they addressed their theory. (Bauman 2000: 24–5) Today, a so-called ‘caravan site’ society – a society inhabited by, shaped after and accommodated to the needs of individualised caravan owners (the ‘open-air prison’ in Adorno’s aforementioned words) – has by and large replaced the great ‘shared household’ –society of yesteryear, the society in which Adorno and Horkheimer lived and against which they wrote (Bauman 1999b). In Bauman’s words, Adorno and Horkheimer’s critical theory was ‘aimed at defusing and neutralizing, preferably turning off altogether, the totalitarian tendency of a society presumed to be burdened with totalistic proclivities endemically and permanently’ (Bauman 2000: 26). Today, things look rather different – at least in many of the places originally analysed by Adorno and later by Bauman. So although we still – definitely – need critique, and perhaps more so now than ever, the object towards which it points – society – has changed quite drastically. In fact, Bauman proposes that the very concept and idea of ‘society’ has now been cast into serious doubt (Bauman 2002). This is a society which at the political level as well as the level of people’s everyday life is ruled by neoliberal mantras of ‘No more salvation by society’ (Peter Drucker) and ‘There is no such thing as society’ (Margaret Thatcher). This is a society in which the ‘public’ is now increasingly coming under attack from the ‘private’, in which dismantling and deregulation eradicate anything slightly smelling of ‘collective’ or ‘social’, and in which individual life pursuits and life politics have altogether eclipsed any notion of ‘the common good’ or ‘the good society’. As a consequence, we need to reverse the focus of classical Frankfurt-style critical theory – as it was also perhaps most prominently spelled out in Jürgen Habermas’s ‘colonization thesis’, in which the ‘life-world’, the very birth place and nesting box of ‘communicative action’, was colonised, distorted and destroyed by the instrumental logics of the ‘system’ (Habermas 1984). So Bauman’s diagnosis of the need to reconsider the agenda of critical theory is indeed very striking: The task of critical theory has been reversed. That task used to be the defence of private autonomy from the advancing troops of the ‘public sphere’, smarting under the oppressive rule of the omnipotent impersonal state and its many bureaucratic tentacles or their smaller-scale replicas.

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Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Claus D. Hansen The task is now to defend the vanishing public realm, or rather to refurnish and repopulate the public space fast emptying … It is no more true that the ‘public’ is set on colonizing the ‘private’. The opposite is the case: it is the private that colonizes the public sphere. (Bauman 2000: 39)

The project of human emancipation, for decades so central to and particularly associated with the agenda of critical theory, has now in Bauman’s view taken a new turn. We have moved from a ‘producer-style critique’ – often propounded by ‘movement politics’ and conceived as a collective endeavour – aimed at transforming the very social fabric in order to make it more inhabitable for and hospitable to human life pursuits to a ‘consumer-style critique’ – pursued through so-called ‘campaign politics’ and privatised initiatives – aimed at defending whatever is now left of a vanishing ‘society’ from the advancing yet amorphous storm troopers of deregulation, individualisation and privatisation. The purpose of critical theory is still, as always, human emancipation and to bring the world back under human control, however, now with a projector firmly fixed on making sure that society and with it everything binding people together is not smashed or relinquished in the process. One could ask whether employing immanent critique to the conceptual pair of ‘public’ and ‘private’ would reveal that what is truly private is vanishing fast from our view and that the real problem exposed by Bauman is the transformation of private life into something public via the commodity form. At least that could be one way in which Adorno might address this question. Although Adorno and Bauman both certainly work within and contribute to the proud realm of intellectual activity called ‘critical theory’ – even though Bauman never wears the official badge of the ‘School of Critical Theory’ – and although they both engage in an all-out critique of everything that diminishes human autonomy, human potential and the right to self-assertion, they also differ in the way they frame their argument and the targets towards which they aim. Since Bauman’s ‘liquid-modern turn’ at the threshold of a new millennium, he has discovered, charted and diagnosed a new social territory, a new habitat, that in many respects is markedly different from the ‘solid-modern’ world of the ‘classical’ proponents of critical theory. The most imminent and severe danger confronting contemporary human liquid-modern life is apparently no longer the ‘all-pervasive administered society’, as Adorno regarded as the proverbial ‘hair in the soup’, but it is, as we have shown above, according to Bauman perhaps rather the scarily realistic disappearance of ‘society’ or the ‘public’ from the face of the planet. It is, however, difficult to discern completely what Bauman puts into the concept of society in his critique of solid modernity and to what extent it actually diverges from earlier accounts of society. If consumer-like relations (associated with the market and therefore not truly private) have replaced relations formerly governed by communities and bonding (hence associated with something public and related to the life-world), then one could ask how different this diagnosis in fact is from the colonisation thesis proposed by Habermas?

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Conclusion This chapter has provided a comparison between two great critical thinkers – Theodor W. Adorno and Zygmunt Bauman. The purpose has been to show a kinship or an affinity that is not often recognised in the literature dealing with the work on Bauman – and also an intellectual kinship that Bauman himself at times seems reluctant to acknowledge. Perhaps this can best be summarised by what Peter Beilharz (2000: 172) once called an ‘undeclared dialogue between Bauman and Adorno’. We think this dialogue could have been declared more openly than is the case, which has been the aspiration behind this chapter. But although Adorno does not make a frequent appearance in Bauman’s note system, he nevertheless still pops up every now as a jack-in-the-box and substantiates some of Bauman’s own ideas. It also seems somewhat surprising that Bauman has apparently begun to recognise and rely more on Adorno’s work when analysing ‘liquid modernity’ than when he was concerned with ‘solid modernity’. But as we all know, intellectual indebtedness and infatuations are hardly ever once and for all. In this chapter we have particularly focused on the – at times undeclared, at other times more openly admitted – mutual ideas in Adorno’s and Bauman’s work on modernity, the fate of the Jews during the Second World War, the culture industry and liquid-modern consumerism, the difficulties of living a good and moral life under societal pressures, the possibilities for the ‘non-identical’ and utopian to germinate and finally the role of critical thinking. Obviously, other themes might also have been singled out for comparison. For example, the views expressed by Adorno on culture in the essay ‘Culture and Administration’ (Adorno 1991) – and which Bauman approvingly quotes in Liquid Life (2005: 53–8) – resembles what Bauman was himself saying in Culture as Praxis (1973) in which he pointed to the subversive dimension of culture as praxis. However, the themes covered in this chapter all illustrate that despite certain differences – some deeper than others and some perhaps stemming from them writing in different times – there is an underwood of commonly shared ideas and conceptions. In our keenness to uncover and highlight the intriguing similarities between their respective bodies of work, their significant differences should however not be neglected. For example, whereas Adorno’s (and with him also Horkheimer’s) arch enemy was spelled out as the deficiencies of the ‘Enlightenment’, to Bauman it was first solid-modern totalitarianism-infected society, which was the addressee of his critical analysis, then later it was liquid-modern society that became the primary target. Perhaps both Adorno and Bauman represent some sort of tragic vision in sociology. However, whereas Adorno sought human emancipation and a refuge from totalitarian administrative society in refined art and aesthetics, Bauman is much less concerned with such contemplative or unworldly efforts in and by themselves and is much keener to point to the important connection between vita contemplative and vita activa or between thinking and praxis. In this way, Bauman is – although still in a somewhat

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subdued manner – apparently more interventionist than Adorno (Smith 1999: 174), although one must remember that for Adorno theory and praxis were not the polar opposites they are often thought to be. We therefore read Bauman as positive and hopeful in a different and more direct way than was the case with Adorno, although other commentators and interpreters have come to different conclusions. For example, initially in this chapter we discussed if Bauman is indeed as gloomy in his work as Adorno seemed to be. In a review of some of Bauman’s recent books, Ali Rattansi concluded: Bauman’s hopes for progressive social and political transformation have now drowned in an overwhelming Adorno-esque pessimism. He is certainly not alone in feeling despondent about the future and one does not need to be in any way influenced by Adorno to feel that way; it is just that in Bauman’s case, his critique of contemporary popular culture and his analysis of a total reification in which social relations become nothing but relations between commodities is such that to see him as a latter-day Adorno is far from fanciful. (Rattansi 2014: 916) Perhaps Rattansi is right – or perhaps he just reads Bauman’s work even more ‘Adorno-esque’ than we have dared to do here. Anyway, many more similarities and differences – some subtle, others more blatant – could be mentioned, but this will have to be in the context of another comparative study. One could encourage others to pick up the torch and shed more light on the similarities and differences between the two thinkers. Obviously, any comparison between the works of Adorno and Bauman deserves a much more systematic and indepth effort than what we have been able to provide in this chapter. We do think, however, that scratching the surface is better than not scratching at all.

Note 1 The subtitle of this chapter is inspired by the subtitle of an article written by Lauren Langman (1991) on Erving Goffman bumping into Karl Marx in the shopping mall and providing an interesting critical interactionist analysis of the experience of alienation in contemporary everyday life.

References Adorno, Theodor W. (1949/1967): ‘Cultural Criticism and Society’, in Prisms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 17–34. Adorno, Theodor W. (1951/1974): Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life. London: Verso. Adorno, Theodor W. (1966/1973): Negative Dialectics. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Adorno, Theodor W. (1969/1976): ‘On the Logic of the Social Sciences’, in The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology. London: Heinemann, pp. 105–122.

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Adorno, Theodor W. (1991): ‘Culture and Administration’, in Jay M. Bernstein (ed.): The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture by Theodor W. Adorno. London: Routledge, pp. 107–131. Adorno, Theodor W., Else Frenkel-Burnswik, Daniel Levinson and Nevitt Sanford (1950): The Authoritarian Personality. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Arendt, Hannah (1962): Origins of Totalitarianism. London: Allen and Unwin. Bauman, Zygmunt (1973): Culture as Praxis. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1976): Socialism: The Active Utopia. London: Hutchinson. Bauman, Zygmunt (1988): Freedom. Buckingham: Open University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1988–9): ‘Strangers: The Social Construction of Universality and Particularity’. Telos, 78: 7–42. Bauman, Zygmunt (1989): Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991a): Modernity and Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991b): ‘Critical Theory’, in Henry Etzkowitz and Robert M. Glassman (eds): The Renascence of Sociological Theory: Classical and Contemporary. Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992a): Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992b): Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1993): Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (1994): Alone Again: Ethics after Certainty. London: Demos. Bauman, Zygmunt (1995): Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Moralities. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998a): Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998b): ‘Dankrede’, in the pamphlet ‘Theodor W. Adorno Preis 1998’ published in connection with the award ceremony. Frankfurt am Main: Stadt Frankfurt am Main. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998c): ‘What Prospects of Morality in Times of Uncertainty?’ Theory, Culture and Society, 15(1): 11–22. Bauman, Zygmunt (1999a): In Search of Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1999b): ‘Critique: Privatized and Disarmed’. Zeitschrift für kritische Theorie, 9: 121–131. Bauman, Zygmunt (1999c): ‘The World Inhospitable to Levinas’. Philosophy Today, 43(2): 151–167. Bauman, Zygmunt (2000): Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2001): The Individualized Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2002): Society under Siege. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2003): Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2005): Liquid Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2007): Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Keith Tester (2001): Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beilharz, Peter (2000): Zygmunt Bauman: Dialectic of Modernity. London: Sage Publications. Benhabib, Seyla (1986): Critique, Norm and Utopia: A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Benzer, Matthias (2011): The Sociology of Theodor Adorno. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bernstein, Jay M. (2001): Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bloch, Ernst (1954–9/1995): The Principle of Hope (Volumes 1–3). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bunting, Madeleine (2003): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: Passion and Pessimism’. Guardian Review, April 4: 20–23. Burawoy, Michael (2005): ‘For Public Sociology’. American Sociological Review, 70: 4–28. Elias, Norbert (1996): The Germans. Cambridge: Polity Press. Freyenhagen, Fabian (2013): Adorno’s Practical Philosophy: Living Less Wrongly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1984): The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Hammer, Espen (2005): Adorno and the Political. London: Routledge. Horkheimer, Max (1937/1975): ‘Traditional and Critical Theory’, in Critical Theory: Selected Essays. London: Continuum, pp. 188–243. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno (1944/2002): Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Hullot-Kentor, Bob (1985): The Problem of Natural History in the Philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno. PhD dissertation from the University of Massachusetts, Department of Comparative Literature. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2004): ‘From Solid Modern Utopia to Liquid Modern AntiUtopia? Tracing the Utopian Strand in the Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman’. Utopian Studies, 15(1): 63–87. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2016): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: An Ambivalent Utopian’. Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 70(277/3): 347–364. Jameson, Frederic (1990): Late Marxism: Adorno, or, the Persistence of the Dialectic. London: Verso. Jarvis, Simon (1998): Adorno: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. Joas, Hans (1998): ‘Bauman in Germany: Modern Violence and the Problems of German Self-Understanding’. Theory, Culture and Society, 15(1): 47–55. Kilminster, Richard and Ian Varcoe (1992): ‘Sociology, Postmodernity and Exile: An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman’, in Zygmunt Bauman: Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge, pp. 205–228. Langman, Lauren (1991): ‘Alienation and Everyday Life: Goffman Meets Marx at the Shopping Mall’, in Felix Geyer and Walter Heinz (eds): Alienation, Society and the Individual: Continuity and Change in Theory and Research. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, pp. 107–124. Lukács, Georg (1962/1971): The Theory of the Novel. London: Merlin Press. Müller-Doohm, Stefan (2005): Adorno: A Biography. Cambridge: Polity Press. Rattansi, Ali (2014): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: An Adorno for “Liquid Modern” Times?’ Sociological Review, 62(4): 908–917. Ritzer, George (1999): Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption. London: Sage Publications. Seawright, Jason and John Gerring (2008): ‘Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research: A Menu of Qualitative and Quantitative Options’. Political Research Quarterly, 61(2): 294–308.

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Sherratt, Yvonne (2002): Adorno’s Positive Dialectic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, Dennis (1999): Zygmunt Bauman: Prophet of Postmodernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tester, Keith (2016): ‘Sociology: The Active Catastrophe’. Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 70(277/3). Tester, Keith and Michael Hviid Jacobsen (2005): Bauman before Postmodernity: Invitation, Conversations and Annotated Bibliography 1953–1989. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. Wiggerhaus, Rolf (1986/1994): The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories and Political Significance. Cambridge: Polity Press.

6

Not yet Probing the potentials and problems in the utopian understandings of Ernst Bloch and Zygmunt Bauman Martin Aidnik and Michael Hviid Jacobsen

Introduction The demise of utopia after the fall of the Berlin Wall inaugurated an era where alternatives to the current social order were increasingly seen as either irrelevant or redundant by most people. The underlying belief was that liberal capitalism was the most sensible social, political and economic arrangement for sustainable and good society. Though not without shortcomings, it was to be preferred to the historical experiments (predominantly communist and socialist), which had been neglectful of individual freedom for the sake of totality or the collective. The history of the 20th century seemed to indicate beyond dispute that utopianism is a definitive cul-de-sac. Commenting on the fate of utopia in the post-1989 climate of opinion, German sociologist Wolf Lepenies claimed that ‘[t]wo years of unbelievable political change in Europe have been sufficient to proscribe the use of the word “utopia”. No one talks about utopia any more’ (Lepenies 1991: 8). Despite the fact that utopia was now largely discredited, there were still doubts about what the world of unfettered capitalism would turn out to be like. Scholars sympathetic to utopia like Indian sociologist Krishan Kumar argued that market-centred globalisation could seriously undermine culture and life-support systems on the planet. The question of social change would then emerge as a result of the planetary repercussions of capitalist development (Kumar 1993: 79). In hindsight, the concerns raised in the 1990s social thought about the fate of societies deemed to be beyond history and ideology is something of an understatement. As John Gray (1998) anticipated before the turn of the millennium, the Brave New World of global capitalism was a false dawn. Its claim to equilibrium and prosperity was giving way to disillusionment in the face of upward redistribution and disenfranchisement of a large section of societies. The economic crisis of 2008 represented a new low for the legitimacy of systems based on individualism and consumerism. The damage done to the ‘life world’ was equally significant, as the remarkable acceleration of social life has led to self-alienation and alienation from others. And, true to the spirit of the time, now individuals have to overwhelmingly bear the burden of failure for their own actions and choices, which are perceived to have very limited

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implications for institutional settings (Rosa 2010). Both meaning and fulfilment are found to be in short supply in an era where society is no more than the sum of its parts. Ernst Bloch and Zygmunt Bauman, whose views on utopia will be the topic of this chapter, both vehemently reject the idea that we live in the best of possible worlds, and that we should settle for what currently exists (see Jacobsen 2003). Things could be different and above all better because as Bloch, going to the heart of his utopia, once stated: ‘The world is full of propensity towards something, tendency towards something, latency of something, and this intended something means fulfilment of the intending. It means a world which is more adequate for us, without degrading suffering, anxiety, self-alienation, nothingness’ (Bloch 1986: 18). It is exactly this strange and intoxicating ‘somethingness’ that is at the very heart of utopia and which sets utopia against degrading suffering, anxiety, self-alienation and nothingness. Social orders are therefore neither immutable nor fixed for good. Utopia for Bloch and Bauman is indispensable for navigating the social dynamic and purposefully creating life conditions worthy of humans. The leitmotif in the case of both is the idea of hope – an unquenchable hope for something else, something different, something better. The aim of this chapter is to probe utopia and the problems and potentials of the concept in the works of Bloch and Bauman. We will begin with the ontology of the ‘Not Yet’ utopia in Bloch’s philosophy and his distinction between ‘concrete utopia’ and ‘abstract utopia’. Then we will turn to socialism as an ‘active utopia’ in Bauman’s early work Socialism: The Active Utopia (Bauman 1976a). Bauman’s cultural understanding of socialism as utopia in the 1970s will then be discussed in relation to Bloch’s dialectical materialism. Thereafter, the chapter will engage with art/music and morality, realms that Bauman and Bloch identify as utopian. This serves to illustrate the reality of utopia beyond (but not separate from) considerations of a better society and as being present in heterogeneous spheres of current reality. Finally, the chapter will engage with Bauman’s recent utopian thought in his liquid-modern writings. The transformation of utopia according to Bauman will be outlined as well as his political ideas to address excessive liquidity and one-sided individualisation. Despite strong overlapping concerns between Bauman’s recent thought and Bloch’s views, certain important differences remain between them, which will also be highlighted and discussed.

Anticipatory consciousness and hope In the introduction of his three-volume magnum opus The Principle of Hope, Bloch declares that it takes a whole philosophy to do justice to the concept of utopia (Bloch 1986: 15). The history of Western philosophy, argues Bloch, has been passive-contemplative, engaged with what has become and having little relation to the future (Bloch 1986: 8). The archetype of this kind of philosophy is Plato’s ‘anamnesis’, or the doctrine that all knowledge is remembering – an

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adequate understanding of what has been once known. Bloch declares that there are signs of utopia in Enlightenment philosophy. The examples are the concept of ‘tendency’ in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s thought and the concept of ‘hope’ in Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy. Yet utopia, the yet-to-exist, is undone in Enlightenment thought by its one-sided contemplation (Bloch 1986: 8). Henceforth the utopian notions and ideas did not achieve the standing they deserve because the Enlightenment philosophers failed to grasp humanity as creative in concrete, social-material terms. This applies even to G. W. F. Hegel whose dialectic postulates historical becoming and latent possibilities as fundamental to reality. Bloch claims that ‘even Hegel’s dialectic, in its ultimate “circle of circles”, is similarly inhibited by the phantom of anamnesis and banished into antiquarium’ (Bloch 1986: 8). Unsurprisingly, it is Karl Marx who represents for Bloch a real watershed in the history of Western thought. Marx is the first whose theory takes aim at the historically and materially possible and envisions radical transformation of the present that is mediated both through the future and the past. A philosophy of utopia is, however, necessary despite Marx, who generally took a dismissive stance on utopia and provided in Bloch’s terms only a cold stream – an analysis of capitalist economic formation. A warm stream in the sense of utopia or the Novum (the new) was missing and unduly disparaged. The human spirit in and the ‘What For’ of Marxism needed a much better articulation (Bloch 2000: 244–5). Hope is essential for Blochean utopia. Hope liberates from resignation to what happens to be the case. The dearth of social utopia in the era of globalisation that Russell Jacoby (1999) diagnosed is the result of apathy of which hope is a direct opposite and negation. Hope ‘makes people broad instead of confining them, cannot know nearly enough of what it is that makes them inwardly aimed, of what may be allied to them outwardly. The work of this emotion requires people who throw themselves actively into what is becoming, to which they themselves belong’ (Bloch 1986: 3). The crucial role that hope plays is shown by the daydreaming of even those who have little or no hope and (self)-deception as a source of motivation. Western (particularly existentialist) philosophy, which is largely hope-alien, contains the idea of transcendence according to Bloch. Hope as inwardness is held socially in high esteem (Bloch 1986: 5). For Bloch, hope survives in times of anxiety in fraudulent and manipulated forms. In addition, hope should be seen as more than an emotion; it is a directing act of a cognitive kind (Bloch 1986: 12). Hope not only overcomes fear but leads to the termination of the contents of fear. True hope should be seen as close to discontent, the latter is part and parcel of hope in the sense that both negate deprivation (Bloch 1986: 5). Bloch understands the urge to transcend deprivation as the fundamental human drive (much like Sigmund Freud understands libido) (Bloch 1986). He is adamant that genuine freedom from necessity is still something to be accomplished. In this sense, hope concerns frontiers and venturing beyond. Yet hope also remains fallible and can go

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wrong because what is possible can equally well turn into Nothing as well as into Being. What is hoped for is not settled and is contingent, open to both success and failure (Bloch 1986: 246). Hope ‘is surrounded by dangers, and it is this consciousness of danger and at the same time the determined negation of that which continually makes the opposite of the hoped-for object possible’ (Bloch 1989: 17). To Bloch, hope is dialectical-materialistically comprehended – docta spes (Bloch 1986: 9). ‘The New’ (Novum) emerges from the discontent and dissatisfaction with the existing, and hope is therefore always fused with critique. Bloch’s utopian philosophy has a distinct ontology – that of the ‘Not Yet’ – which explains why utopian consciousness is termed anticipatory (see Daniel and Moylan 1997). The ontology is both subjective and objective, respectively ‘Not-Yet-Conscious’ and ‘Not-Yet-Become’. The relation between the two is reciprocal, more specifically the Not-Yet-Conscious interacts with what is approaching in history (Bloch 1986: 13). Again, the subjective Not-YetConscious has Freud as its main point of departure. Bloch rethinks Freud’s theory of the unconscious, rejecting an account that he perceives as pastdetermined and repression-centred. Instead, the unconscious should be seen more as a pre-conscious, as intrinsically creative and as a source of the utopian impulse, which Bloch appears to regard as a fundamental human propensity (Levitas 2011: 101). Bloch is careful to distinguish the subjective layer of his ontology from arbitrariness and pure wishful thinking, terming it psychological anticipation of ‘Real-Possible’ (Bloch 1986: 144). The ‘Real-Possible’ is a topic to which we will return when discussing Bloch’s idea of ‘concrete utopia’. The correlate for the subjective-psychological is the material-social world with its own tendencies and possibilities. The subjective ceases to be one sided when it intervenes in the social order and attempts to make good that which blocks utopia. The Not-Yet-Become means in other words that life conditions still need an overhaul for there to be a world without deprivation (Bloch 1986: 147). As noted by Douglas Kellner on Bloch’s understanding of the Not Yet and its relation to the intimate connections between the past, present and future: ‘[Bloch] offers us a dialectical analysis of the past which illuminates the present and can direct us to a better future … For Bloch, history is a repository of possibilities that are living options for future action; therefore what could have been can still be’ (Kellner 2012: 84, original emphasis). This ‘repository of possibility’ must be seen as intrinsic and not extrinsic to reality despite the fact that the future remains undetermined. The content of the Not-Yet-Become is that which has hitherto not appeared and remains undecided. Bloch’s Hegelian-Marxist dialectical ontology avoids both the Scylla of pure voluntarism and the Charybdis of iron-clad economic determinism. Similarly to Bauman (1976a), the function of utopia is to prise open society in terms of different directions that it could take and subsequently to overtake the seemingly natural course of events. In the last instance, however, the credibility and worth of Bloch’s utopia hinges strongly upon its ‘concreteness’, as Bloch himself concedes the criticism

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directed at abstract utopia (Bloch 1986: 146). ‘Concrete utopia’ for Bloch is ‘concerned to understand the dream of its object exactly, a dream which lies in the historical trend itself. As utopia is mediated with process, it is concerned to deliver the forms and contents which have already developed in the womb of present society’ (Bloch 1986: 623). In the Hegelian tradition, the concrete is the point of overall totality at which we have arrived, whereas the abstract is an abstraction of this concreteness. A concrete utopia is therefore one that emerges out of its own attainment (Thompson 2012: 34). A concrete utopia has to concretise the abstract utopian tendencies that exist and go beyond mere inwardness. The somewhat abstract question regarding the best social constitution is also by no means decisive here. It is the material conditions of society that remain alienating and the task of the concrete utopia is to penetrate this nearest nearness, still the main locus of existence (Bloch 1986: 12). A concrete utopia has to provide a way out of the shared predicament of the era through engaging with it. Bloch states unequivocally that the concrete utopia should be taken to mean Marxist socialism. According to him [t]his road is and remains that of socialism, it is the practice of concrete utopia. Everything that is non-illusory, real-possible about the hope image leads to Marx, works – as always, in different ways, rationed according to the situation – as part of socialist changing of the world. The architecture of hope thus really becomes one on to man, who had previously only seen as a dream and as high, all too high pre-appearance, and one on to the new earth. Becoming happy was always what was sought after in the dreams of a better life, and only Marxism can initiate it. (Bloch 1986: 17) For Bloch, then, Marxist socialism provides a theory with which utopia can be materialised, achieved collectively and practically for the first time. Marx substantiates utopia with economics and immanent critique. Socialism is purified from its earlier abstract and contemplative character which could only build castles in the air (Bloch 2000: 236). Marx thereby rejects both narrow empiricism and skimming utopianism, cancelling the reified dualism between what is and what ought to be. It is only Marxism that is capable of getting to the roots of what is oppressive and alienating in capitalist modernity, making it condicio sine qua non for utopia. Bloch, however, remains a renegade Marxist despite clearly favouring Marxism to other branches of socialism and he considers it to be an all-important landmark in utopianism. The mainstream Marxist view of Bloch is that his utopianism, romanticism and in many ways affirmative understanding of religion makes him fundamentally anti-materialist (Levitas 2011: 119–22). It has been argued that ultimately Bloch is a Marxist because of two ideas that he consistently held. Firstly, he endorsed the idea of the young Marx’s vision of ‘humanized nature and naturalized humanity’, and secondly he held that a socialist adjustment of social and economic relations is needed for ‘the

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kingdom of freedom’ to come into being (Schmidt 1996: x–xi). Before turning to Bauman (a renegade Marxist as well) it is worth noting that Bloch’s socialist utopia envisioned a new synthesis between the individual and the collective, or in other words rebuilding a bridge between modernity and collective (Bloch 1986: 972; Thompson 2012: 38). These are issues that Bauman is grappling with both in his early study of socialism as utopia and in the much later analysis of the liquefaction of modernity.

Bauman and socialism Socialism: The Active Utopia (1976a), Bauman’s in-depth discussion of the intricate relationship between socialism and utopia, has been described as no less than his personal manifesto (Smith 1999: 85). According to Bauman, socialism could still ameliorate the stasis from which the divided Cold War world found itself. It remained a utopia like in the 19th century. Yet the history of socialism also meant that it needed a new beginning in the sense that it had to become an idea that could challenge the existing reality, socialist and capitalist alike (Bauman 1976a: 109). The really, empirically existing socialism in Eastern Europe had done so much to discredit socialism, and the partial realisation of socialism in Western Europe had sapped much of its earlier aspirations reducing it now to questions of policy making. Bauman’s claim in the book is that only in its role as utopia could socialism still aspire to be redemptive of what is alienating in modern societies. Both commonsensical and social scientific aversion to utopia had to be sidestepped as utopia had had a much greater impact on social process than is usually thought and even more it is and remains integral to human creativity (Bauman 1976a). Hence Bauman approaches socialism as an invigorating alternative that is fundamentally at odds with complacency and refusal to envision anything other than what happens to be the case. Similarly to Bloch, the utopian character of socialism for Bauman means that it is incompatible with determinism; with deterministic Marxism in particular. He argues critically that ‘implying such a necessity would mean ascribing to Marx a radically deterministic image of man, clearly at odds with the Marxian “philosophy of praxis”’ (Bauman 1976a: 139). For Bauman, determinism could be a tenet of much of institutionalised Marxism, but not part and parcel of Marx’s own theory. As the reproduction of capitalism had both material and ideological or cultural premises for a philosophy of praxis, the direction which society took remained open (to contestation). Hence also the significance of utopia because the future, unlike the past, remains a realm of freedom, and the presence of utopian projects is necessary for seizing freedom (Bauman 1976b: 110). The presence of Bloch in Bauman’s argument about the future is quite obvious and even more so in his conviction that before any other anthropological determinations, ‘man has to be he-who-hopes’ (Bauman 1976b: 112).1 The predisposition to hope and its relation to utopia have their nemesis in realism, positivism and determinism where the image of man is overwhelmingly dominated by ‘What Is’.

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Bauman’s Blochean view of utopia as a ‘constant in the human way of being-in-the-world’ (Bauman in Bauman and Tester 2001: 50) became seminal for his showdown with conventional sociology and Marxism that were hostile to ideas of creativity and choice (Jacobsen 2004, 2007). Bauman’s philosophy of praxis contains a ‘warm stream’ of its own in the sense of a utopian ‘Where To’ that sees the present as relative. His distinctiveness lies in positing culture as utopian (Bauman 1976a: 12). If utopia confronts the present with its sight on the future, then culture is the main resource for utopia. The NotYet is immanent to culture as it is always more than a set of habits and learned beliefs. Unlike many other views of culture that understand it as a preserving force, Bauman argues that the contrary is in fact the case. The unique feature of culture is found in the ability to refuse to learn and to resist pressures to adapt. Human beings are inventive as much as they are conditioned (Bauman 1976a: 11). Culture does condition but this should not signify culture’s essence which, pointing towards the future rather than to the past, is rather about going beyond the habitual and the ‘normal’. Hence, for Bauman, ‘the future of socialism will be decided in the cultural sphere’ (Bauman 1976a: 107). If Bauman resembles Bloch in his rejection of determinism and provides a warm stream of his own, then, we should ask, is his utopia also a ‘concrete utopia’? Does he follow Bloch’s distinction between concrete and abstract utopia, identifying Marxist socialism with the former? Bauman (1976a: 114–32) analyses different socialist measures to the social problems and charts their evolvement. The principle that modern socialism shares with its 19th-century origin is that the predicament of individuals is inseparable from the whole of social organisation and therefore cannot be meaningfully addressed without addressing the problems of social organisation. The second principle of the socialist utopia is egalitarianism. Inequality causes alienation and points to the existence of private property and a stratified ability to acquire private property. Yet according to Bauman, the abolition of private property was no longer a focal point for socialists in the second half of the 20th century. A change in property relations did not necessarily resolve the pathologies of capitalist modernity but could indeed exacerbate them. Learning from failed collectivisations means that freedom must rather be given a positive content. This, in turn, means removing what Bauman calls ‘surplus repression’ (Bauman 1976a: 122–3). Surplus repression is an inconspicuous everyday life phenomenon that naturalises consumer societies. Surplus repression portrays the social intercourse as conflict-free and hence without possibilities of (or need for) change. For Bauman, this does call for revolution – a cultural revolution. According to him [t]he cultural revolution, which alone can pave way to the establishment of socialist human relations, can take place therefore only by the removal of the entire ‘surplus repression’ whose sole function is to sustain the historically transient form of domination. Conversely, the removal of

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such repression would be tantamount to a veritable cultural revolution of a socialist nature. (Bauman 1976a: 123) Utopia, then, is cultural and not predominantly political or economic. This should be seen as a critique of previous socialist notions of utopia that was primarily and for Bauman simplistically preoccupied with these realms. In addition, in particular, Bauman’s utopia already in the 1970s is not a utopia of labour despite the fact that he proposes a return to the question of alienation that young Marx identifies as crucially a question of labour. The reinterpretation of utopia along these lines means that utopia loses it concrete Marxian-Blochean character. Bauman’s claim that utopia can be achieved only by a free and unconstrained dialogue by all the actors is abstract compared to Bloch’s insistence that utopia is to be achieved politically through revolutionising the relations of production and subsequently by changing the nature and character of social relations as such (Bauman 1976a: 140; Bloch 1986: 620). Classes in Bauman’s theory become historical actors, revolutionary struggle becomes dialogue and shared humanity outweighs conflicting interests. For Bauman, utopia is quintessentially an orientation, not a destination – the content of utopia is not part of his utopianism, and the way to or direction of utopia is decidedly oblique. For Bloch, however, utopia is both an orientation and a destination, a ‘homeland’ in one of his memorable terms (Bloch 1986: 1376). History for Bloch is teleological and socialism is its immanent direction. Bloch’s writings dialectically anticipate the radical creation of a post-capitalist society, whereas Bauman seeks to reinvigorate socialism vis à vis its welfare state realisation. Bloch’s hope is thus militant and radiant, Bauman’s is humanistic but rather more tempered. For Bloch, Marx stands unquestioned among socialist theorists, for Bauman a return to socialism as utopia implies interrogating all the history of socialist thought.2 The lack of any concrete utopia in Socialism: The Active Utopia indicates not only Bauman’s belief that utopia is an ongoing engagement with reality rather than a telos in history but it also shows that utopia can indeed become very dangerous when it turns into something to be implemented at all cost. Utopia should therefore remain on the horizon and should be approached only very carefully in practice (Jacobsen 2016). The book thus anticipated something of Bauman’s later critique of modern utopianism which at its worst resulted in totalitarianism (see Bauman 1987, 1989, 1991). Struggling against what is unjust and alienating is necessary, whereas turning discontent into grand and glorious projects of social engineering and urban design can lead to dystopia. Bloch is not dissimilar from Bauman in the sense that the utopia/ dystopia dialectic informs his utopianism, as both freedom and totalitarianism were latent in reality (Bloch 1986: 197). Yet this coupled with the reality of Soviet communism and the rise of national socialism in Germany for Bloch did not mean questioning the implementation of utopia.3 Hopelessness or

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indifference and not dystopia is the archenemy of utopia, for ‘[a]s long as no absolute In-Vain (triumph of evil) has appeared, then the happy end of right direction and path is not only our pleasure, but our duty’ (Bloch 1986: 446). Bauman’s view of human being-in-the-world as being-towards-the-future is, as we have indicated, strongly Blochean inspired. On the other hand, however, Bauman’s framework for this human being-in-the-world does not incorporate Bloch’s dialectical materialism. There remains an important difference. For Bloch’s dialectical materialism, thought is necessarily part of the material reality. Its capacity to reflect on being means, however, that it is not entirely determined and can transgress reality in the act of speculative reflection (Moir 2013: 128). Labour and thought are part of the matter itself of which they act upon. They alter their material conditions but are understood as immanent to matter. For dialectical materialism, concrete utopia is embedded in material reality as an objective-real possibility (Bloch 1971). No similar embeddedness or dialectic can be detected in Bauman’s conception of culture – in fact Bauman strongly warns against any such ossification of culture (Bauman 1973). Following Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Bauman describes culture as a ‘human dialectic’ whereby social and cultural structures are created but ultimately found unsuitable for human needs (Bauman 1973: 172). The essence of culture is ordering since all cultural praxis consists of imposing a new and artificial order on the natural one (Bauman 1973: 119). Bauman’s polemic is aimed against static or reductive views of culture. His emphasis is firmly on the creative capacity of culture, which appears as a human realm in itself and for itself, relatively autonomous both from embeddedness and constraints. Culture contains a dynamic of its own that is not a continuation of any material dynamic or even its dialectic. For Bauman, possibility in the Blochean sense is part of reality due to the nature of culture as such, rather than in the concrete material sense. Bloch’s work did venture out of the limits of materialist dialectic in terms of perceiving the Enlightenment tradition of natural law as relevant for his utopia (see Bloch 1996). The realisation of human rights postulated by the natural law implies socialism for Bloch just as socialism was the necessary condition of democracy for Rosa Luxemburg. What matters for Bloch, above all else, in the case of natural law is its vision of human beings walking upright. His notion for this is ‘upright gate’ (aufrechter Gang). Bloch argues that in terms of utopia, ‘orthopaedics of upright gate is one of its urgent tasks, it is precisely humane socialism that contains it as the highest human right’ (Bloch 1971: 173). It is the idea of dignity and walking upright that Bauman’s utopian socialism shares with Bloch. The attempt to build a socialist society should be taken to mean an effort to liberate human nature from the humiliation and mutilation of class society (Bauman 1976a: 101). Socialism, then, whatever it may otherwise be, is as the natural arch enemy of degradation, deepening what natural law hitherto could achieve only partially. Having now explored Bauman’s views on utopia in his early writing period in the 1970s and compared them to Bloch, we now turn to some exemplifications

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of Bloch’s and Bauman’s ideas about where we may possibly find some pockets, traces and remnants of utopia outside the conventional realms of politics and economics.

Music as utopia Art in general and music in particular are inherently utopian for Bloch. The belief in the transformative potential of art is what Bloch shares with Georg Lukács, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno and other ‘members’ of the so-called Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Art defamiliarises reality, shedding light upon it in ways that would otherwise remain hidden. Aesthetic portrayal is more immanent and accomplished compared to sensory perception. Art as anticipatory illumination remains an outward appearance but is not an illusion (Bloch 1989: 146). Great art for Bloch captures the real as an outward appearance that, by probing its contours, has a relation to its essence. Art by virtue of its relative autonomy from exchange relations anticipates a reality without heteronomy. An aesthetic image that grasps the essence is utopian because wherever art does not side with illusion, there beauty, even sublimity, is that which mediates the yet-to-exist freedom (Bloch 1989: 148). Art, then, is Vorschein, anticipatory appearance of great significance for the human life-world. In Bloch’s ontology, art is appearance of what is the ‘Not-Yet’. Music, for Bloch, occupies a special place among the arts. The language of music lies much further beyond existing designations and states of affairs than in other arts. Music overhauls the feelings as no other art (Bloch 1986: 1080). The distinctiveness of music for Bloch lies in its language – a view that is shared by British sociologist Ruth Levitas. She states that music ‘is uniquely capable of conveying and effecting a better world. Music’s alleged abstraction, its nonconceptual and non-verbal character, and its direct route to human emotion underlie its capacity to express what is not (yet) utterable’ (Levitas 2013: 220). Music, according to Bloch, has an immediate access to our emotional life not despite its foreignness but because of it. The language of music ‘fills the human and therefore belongs to the thrusting unrest and possibility in reality’ (Bloch 1986: 1080). Music is the art where humanity liberates itself from the constraints and rises above oppression. Thus, Bloch famously declared that every future storming of the Bastille is intended in Fidelio (Bloch 1986: 1103). The language of Beethoven’s music anticipates the French Revolution, forcefully conjuring up the upheaval of revolution in itself. Music has an explosive effect because, existing as a performance, it is played in the open spaces (Bloch 1989: 147). In other words, ‘[m]usic as it weaves within the shaft of the soul, as Hegel says, yet charged, a “gunpowder” within the subject-object relation’ (Bloch 2000: 279). Almost half of Bloch’s first major work – The Spirit of Utopia – is devoted to music. The history of Western music is discussed in depth in the book as well as the theory of music. The focus lies on the period from Bach to Wagner. Bloch, denying the aforementioned interpretation of ‘gunpowder’ as

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will, distances himself from the Schopenhauerian view of music that proved so influential for Wagner. Will, especially moral will, is certainly part of Beethoven’s music, but it is a will sui generis and not will as such. Arthur Schopenhauer essentialises a temporary condition of uncertainty (Bloch 2000: 101). Music should not be equated with the essence of this world, for it contains the promise of a different world. Music is presentiment for Bloch, a pledge of the beyond and spontaneously flashing dream-sky of the human soul (Bloch 2000: 157). Music is a phenomenology of its own, evoking states and metamorphoses of the self. This is the case of the composers that Bloch perceives as the greatest: Mozart, Bach and particularly Beethoven. Bloch claims that ‘[a]s Mozart in his excited way, lightly, freely, elatedly and brilliantly makes feelings sonorous, so does Bach display, in a more measured way, heavily, urgently, firmly rhythms and sombre profundity, the self and its emotional inventory’ (Bloch 2000: 55). In The Principle of Hope, Bloch rejects the idea that Bach’s music can be perceived as exclusively intellectual and thus unemotional. On the contrary, Bach’s music contains an unparalleled scale of expression from fear of death to peace and victory (Bloch 1986: 1065). Human expression is intrinsic to pre-Romantic music as well, with Bach being one of the finest examples of this. Expression, properly understood is a ‘word surpassing or wordless statement, ultimately always towards shaping of a call’ (Bloch 1986: 1067, original emphasis). Bach’s music expresses a struggle for the soul’s salvation and for the stage of Hope, yet there is more to our being-in-the-world than even Bach can express, namely illumination and apocalypse (Bloch 2000: 55). It is Beethoven, according to Bloch, who reaches these heights of (religious) phenomenology. It is the outer reaches of humanity that Beethoven accesses, music as presentiment truly finds its expression in Beethoven. For all its uniqueness, music is not less but more socially conditioned than other arts. Great composers stand in definite relations to their epoch. Their works presuppose discernible ideology and social structure. As Bloch says: No Haydn and no Mozart, no Handel and Bach, no Beethoven and Brahms, without their respective precisely varied social mandate; it extends from the form of performance right to the characteristic style of tonal material and its composition, to the expression, the meaning of content. Handel’s oratorios in their festive pride reflect rising imperialist England, its aptness to be the chosen people. No Brahms without bourgeois concert society and even no new music of ‘new objectivity’, of supposed expressionlessness, without the gigantic rise of alienation, objectification and reification in late capitalism. (Bloch 1986: 1063) Bloch’s reading of the history of music is thus to be seen in a historical materialist vein. The rise of the bourgeoisie and the modernist critique of alienation underlie movements and individual styles. The relationship of music to social divisions, however, is twofold for Bloch. On the one hand, and

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true to Marx’s base-superstructure schema, it is the ruling class whose selfconstitution forms the meaning of music. On the other hand, the immediacy of music incorporates the numerous sufferings of the oppressed classes. Hence no other art has so much surplus over the time and ideology in which it exists (Bloch 1986: 1063). Music is the cipher for historical and in an important sense also for the human costs of world history. Utopia for Bloch entails hope and music sides with hope. What music posits exists otherwise for hope. According to Bloch: The world or outwardness to which the moralitas musicae has its subterranean relation, the relation of a constant under-stream or a tone-flow of the ante rem: this world in not that which has already become but that which circulates within it, which, as the regnum hominis, is imminent only in future, anxiety, hope. The relation to this world makes music, particularly in social terms, seismographic, it reflects cracks under social surface, expresses wishes for change, bids us to hope. (Bloch 1986: 1088) Music expresses the utopian hope for a different kind of world that is more than a fantasy but that also does not exist (yet). Venturing beyond in tone spheres is music’s surplus vis à vis the existing and tangible reality. In music, humanity creatively rises above the natural course of events and overtakes them. Music is the telescope, the utopian consciousness that Bloch sees necessary for making sense of the nearest nearness. Having explored the utopianism inherent in music for Bloch, we will now look at how morality is seen as containing utopian potential for Bauman.

Morality as utopia It is Bauman’s critical trilogy of books on modernity from the late 1980s and early 1990s (Legislators and Interpreters, Modernity and the Holocaust and Modernity and Ambivalence) that paved the way for the preoccupation with morality that characterises the works that followed. In the ‘postmodern period’ of his writings that approximately spans the decade of the 1990s, it was no longer socialism that Bauman deemed a utopia. The studies on intellectuals, strangers and ambivalence had fundamentally problematised modernity for Bauman, including socialism (Bauman 1987, 1989, 1991). Different ideological currents of modernity resembled each other in their will to remake reality, to refashion it according to a grand plan or design. Modernity in Bauman’s postmodern writings is first and foremost an era of projects that came very close to materialising – and often with deadly results. His critique of Soviet communism and the critical analysis of the Holocaust revealed modernity as inimical to morality and responsibility. Hence, unlike most other theorists, Bauman approached the postmodern primarily through the lens of ethics. Moreover, ethics in the sense of individual responsibility and intersubjective

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proximity becomes the harbinger of the new being-in-the-world. The failure of modern utopias does not suggest the end of utopia but rather its transformation. The all-too-human yet precarious capacity for morality provides the prospect for utopia to emerge anew for Bauman. Towards the end of Socialism: The Active Utopia, Bauman actually stated on the status of utopia and utopianism that ‘attempts to emancipate utopian imagination from the shallow sands of daily realism tend inevitably to stray into the hanging gardens of moral and artistic criticisms’ (Bauman 1976a: 112–13). Knowingly or not, these lines clearly anticipated important parts of his own later work. Thus, the turn from socialism (in the 1970s) to morality (in the 1990s) is concurrent with the recognition that modern civilisation (and particularly its ‘daily realism’) was essentially bureaucratic and calculating. Bauman’s most acclaimed book, Modernity and the Holocaust (1989), discerns the consequences of large-scale social organisation, epitomised by bureaucracy and technology, for the moral being-in-the-world. Civilisation appears in the work as the social production of distance (‘adiaphorization’), meaning that mediation becomes part and parcel of societal intercourse. This development either annuls or weakens moral responsibility. Technical concerns overshadow the moral significance of actions, which promotes indifference to the plight of the Other (Bauman 1989: 199). Max Weber’s theory of instrumental rationality looms large in Bauman’s analysis, as the order of meaning and dwelling that proceeds modernity collapses under its aegis. There is no immanent moral sensibility that is capable of resisting instrumental rationality’s subsumption (Abbinett 2013: 108). The technological advancement coupled with Weberian means-oriented rationality meant for Bauman that dystopia as a possibility was continuously latent in modern society. The etiological myths of civilisation as an unequivocally benevolent force were thus untenable (Bauman 1989: 212). Modern society (and society in general) for Bauman, then, does not stand for or guarantee sensible moral arrangements. It is not the anchor, not even the origin, of human decency. Previous sociological theories of morality had greatly overestimated the extent to which society is a solid foundation or cradle of morality. For Bauman, this was the discipline’s blind spot, rooted above all in the writings of Émile Durkheim. Durkheim for Bauman played into the powers that be by foreclosing the opposite considerations – namely how society, demanding obedience, is a morality-silencing mechanism (Bowring 2011: 55–6). Sociology’s framework for understanding morality was so to speak an uncritical imitation of societal practices that distrusted the ability of individuals to act morally on their own. In Bauman’s understanding, most of modern sociology – as a by-product of modern society – was a ‘science of unfreedom’ aimed at explaining the regularity and non-randomness of human action through concepts such as ideology, tradition, domination, authority, class, power, socialisation, habits, culture, education and so on (Bauman 1988: 5). This, according to Bauman, also bears witness to a characteristically modern strategy of turning morality into a matter of rules and

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regulations. Moral decisions were rigorously regulated, legislated and rationally prescribed/proscribed in order to preclude the hazardous subjective inclinations of humans acting on their own free wills. As Bauman states, ‘modernity came up with two great institutions meant to achieve that purpose; to assure the prevalence of morality through following rules. One was bureaucracy, the other was business’ (Bauman 1994: 5). Hence bureaucracy and capitalist business became the impenetrable incarnations of morality turned into ethics – of morality moving from something residing or rumbling within human beings and affecting their dealing with others into something being enforced by the Law. The pre-modern divine sanction of ethical prescriptions was thus replaced by man-made artificial codes of conduct (Bauman 1993). Subjectivity and immediacy in moral affairs more often than not signified deviance or being below the level of proper ethical initiation. Bauman’s postmodern perspective postulated the possibility of a rejuvenation of the human habitat via morality – or what he later termed a ‘morality of choice’ (Bauman 1998). In Postmodern Ethics (1993), his decidedly philosophical manifesto from the postmodern period, he declares that ‘given the ambiguous impact of the societal efforts at ethical legislation, one must assume that moral responsibility – being-for the Other before one can be-with the Other – is the first reality of the self, a starting point rather than the product of society’ (Bauman 1993: 13). Somewhat paradoxical for sociologists and not without its fair share of problems, Bauman views moral disposition as something pre-societal. Morality comes before society in the sense that the capacity for responsibility pre-exists socialisation (and can in certain cases endure it). By way of a bold ontological reversal, social life is possible thanks to our being-for the Other, i.e. thanks to the so-called ‘moral party of the two’. Without the loneliness of the moral person, there would not be society (Bauman 1993: 61). The reality of moral decision making constitutes a human predicament. Responsibility will always be in short supply. But the crux of Bauman’s argument is that no matter how difficult the awareness of moral responsibility can be, it alone can make good the heteronomous effects of the impersonal social organisation – by bureaucracy and by business – that eventually proved fateful for the modern utopianism. Bauman’s ‘ethical turn’ would be utter unintelligible without taking into account the paramount influence of the moral philosophy of Emmanuel Lévinas on his ideas. Bauman has called Lévinas his ethics teacher, describing the turn to his philosophy as a ‘eureka moment’ (Bauman and Tester 2001). It is from Lévinas that Bauman derives his conception of morality as being-for-theOther, as a personal act of responsibility and commitment. Lévinas provides Bauman with an understanding of morality that illuminates the failures of modernity and reasons to be hopeful about postmodernity. Lévinas offers a utopia that works against excess. It is, on the contrary, a moderate utopia which is always leading the individual to make a moral choice or personal stance in relation to the Other (Tester 2002: 69). Lévinas offers a utopia that is not about a ‘classless society’ or ‘the great society’ and that instead of insisting

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upon change as Marx famously did in his eleventh thesis on Feuerbach, rather thematises our continued and indeed ceaseless moral relation to the Other. The ends did not justify the means for Bauman when socialism was the utopia but with Lévinas ethics, being transformative in and by itself, takes precedence over the question of alternative social formations. For Lévinas, responsibility is the essential structure of subjectivity. The very node of subjectivity is ethical, understood as responsibility (Lévinas 1985: 95). In the Lévinasian vein, Bauman states that this being-for is unconditional (that is, if it is to be moral, not merely contractual) – it does not depend on what the Other is, or does, whether s/he deserves my care or repays in kind. One cannot conceive of an argument that could justify the renouncing of moral responsibility – putting it in cold storage, lending or pawning. And one cannot imagine a point at which one could say with any sort of moral right: ‘I have done my share, and here my responsibility ends’. (Bauman 1994: 19) The responsibility for the Other is asymmetrical and non-reciprocal. It does neither entail nor demand that the Other would ever reciprocate. While in the case of Bloch, utopia means transcending without transcendence, then in the case of Lévinas, utopia means transcendence. In other words, transcendence is the absolute difference with the Other and thus the primary (inherently utopian) notion in the Lévinasin ethics (Lévinas 1996: 27). The ethical relationship for Lévinas excludes claims of identity or similarity which imply sameness and thus reduce the Other. Even in an extensively mediated society, for example, like our contemporary liquid-modern world, ‘Lévinas’s immediacy breaks through all kinds of mediations, be it laws, rules, codes, rituals, social roles or any other kind of order’ (Waldenfels 2002: 63). The immediacy of the moral relation breaks through what constitutes any kind of totality. The two are distinctly different, as the latter is based on reason, laws and reciprocity. In addition, being-for the Other signifies infinity that arises from one’s neverending responsibility (Lévinas 1985: 105; Bauman 1994: 44–5). The utopian connotations are evident here. The (only remotely social) relation of being-for the Other is the true form of human togetherness and this relation is thus in principle as well as in practice infinite.

Utopia in liquid modernity Bauman abandoned and substituted the notion of ‘postmodernity’ for ‘liquid modernity’ in 2000 in order positively to try and capture the essence of contemporary societies. Modernity, as we already know from Marx’s and Friedrich Engel’s The Communist Party Manifesto, has always been about uprooting and liquefying. At first, it was the medieval order with its traditions and customs that was dismantled for the sake of modern capitalism. Different

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social and cultural spheres were progressively integrated with the economy – the household economy was substituted with the factory. Liquid modernity stands for a new and unabated frontier of uprooting. It is the patterns of dependency and interaction, communication networks and life courses that have now lost their previous solidity or predictability (Bauman 2000: 7–8). Life in liquid modernity is thus excessively mutable and precarious, with shorttermism as its almost unavoidable quality. Work, identity, relationships – everything is open to renegotiation and cannot but be approached anew. Everything is for all practical intents and purposes ‘until further notice’. Liquid-modern life is not lived towards something; it is rather lived continuously coping with and escaping the foreseeable and unforeseeable difficulties that we are exposed to. Both individually and collectively, telos in the sense of an overarching and enduring aim is no longer among the credible issues. No one is outside the societal dynamic, yet social and political ‘steering mechanisms’ have been thoroughly and significantly undermined by consumerism and market-driven globalisation (Bauman 2000, 2005, 2007). Utopia in liquid modernity shares the fate of the notion of ‘progress’. Both are transformed almost beyond recognition rather than disappear in contemporary settings. And, in an important sense, it is this new unfolding that Bauman’s writings chart. As he puts it, ‘in contemporary dreams, however, the image of “progress” seems to have moved from the discourse of shared improvement to that of individual survival. Progress is no longer thought about in the context of an urge to rush ahead, but in connection with a desperate effort to stay in the race’ (Bauman 2007: 103, original emphasis). The threshold of progress has fallen considerably, as (Darwinian) survival signifies regression in comparison to shared improvement. The pressures of contemporary life are confidence sapping. The lack of hold on the present militates against the discourse of shared improvement. Progress is not part of the management of social affairs but is rather a task to be contemplated and carried out individually. This, in turn, presupposes that individuals, left to themselves, can so to speak find progress from within themselves – that they, like Baron von Munchausen, can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Under closer scrutiny, however, this cannot be said to be the case – at least not for the majority of people (Bauman 2000: 132–5). Progress 2.0 is the self-perpetuation of Risikoleben, in the new settings it stops short of ever reaching anything resembling the ‘genuinely new’. Today, utopia has been thoroughly transformed – perhaps even distorted. Prior to liquid modernity, utopia was conceived territorially or materially. The utopian imagination did not leave the universe of sovereign, territorial rule that we since the 17th century have associated with Europe. The ‘good life’ meant life lived in a ‘good society’ conceived within the framework of a sovereign state (Bauman 2003b: 14). It is, however, the very principle of state sovereignty that has been dealt a blow with the advent of the age of globalisation. The power of states has been considerably contested by forces that are extraterritorial such as international corporations, stock markets and political

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bodies like the European Union (EU). Political and economic institutions no longer operate on the same level. The latter exist in a global space, free from political control or public responsibility/accountability. Echoing Manuel Castells, this global space is indeed a ‘space of flows’ (Bauman and Rovirosa-Madrazo 2010: 55). This progressive separation between power (above all else: economy) and politics means that sovereign control over territory is no longer feasible – all states are now firmly within the grip of transnational arrangements. There are no yet-to-be discovered parts of the planet for the realisation of utopia. The ‘somewhere’ to which utopia historically pointed as a travelling guide or destination is in our time now truly a ‘nowhere’. There is no ‘outside’ in conditions that Bauman terms ‘globalitarian’, and utopia is therefore bereaved of its topos and of the opportunity to strike its roots (Bauman 2003b: 21–2). All departures from reality are topographically pre-emptied from finding an island that the early utopians such as Thomas More and Thomas Campanella envisioned as fit for harmonious and trouble-free living. What is left of utopia, then? It persists, having survived its death by proselytising a strained status quo. Utopia in liquid modernity offers no hope and bestows no meaning upon life – apart from the meaning found in engaging in a carnivalesque life of constant consumerism. Bauman unpacks the disenchantment of utopia in the following way: Unlike the utopias of yore, the hunters’ utopia does not offer a meaning to life, whether genuine or fraudulent. It only helps to chase the questions about life’s meaning out of the minds of living. Having reshaped the course of life into an ending series of self-focused pursuits, each episode lived through as an overture to the next, it offers no occasion for reflection about the direction and sense of it all. When (if) such an occasion finally comes, at the moment of failing out of hunting life, or being banned from it, it is usually too late for that reflection to bear on the way of life – one’s own as much as that of others – is shaped, and so too late to oppose its present shape and effectively dispute its propriety. (Bauman 2007: 109) Although the Blochean hope is still – below the surface – part of Bauman’s liquid-modern writings, so are moments of strong pessimism. Liquidmodern utopia that Bauman terms a ‘hunting utopia’ seems to offer few alternatives to self-centred and episodic pursuits of happiness and prosperity (see Jacobsen 2012). Utopia, like progress, is now a matter of the individual’s being-in-the-world; something that would have been inconceivable for Bloch and his contemporaries. In addition, Bauman is not among the theorists who propose that individualisation has resulted in increased reflexivity. Skilfulness in the art of reflection is today an exception more than it is a rule (Bauman 2004b: 18). It is the fear of staying in the race that propels denizens of liquid modernity rather than reflection.

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During the first decade of the 21st century, the dystopian side of contemporary life in the sense of fear, meaninglessness and especially suffering has been persistently explored by Bauman. In particular, Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts (2004a), Liquid Fear (2006) and Collateral Damage (2011) all study the sufferings of surplus populations – the new poor, the sans papier, the asylum seekers, the strangers, the unemployed. The global scale of ongoing modernisation, of economic-growth management and order building produce ‘human waste’; people who are redundant and cannot be accommodated (Bauman 2004a). Unconstrained capitalism shows no mercy or sympathy for the less able or successful. Both human and natural waste is met with equanimity, instead of being seen as social failures requiring the awakening of our moral responsibility. The unequal distribution of life chances both within nation states and globally is a key concern in Bauman’s recent writings (Beilharz 2006). His works voice unyielding moral opposition to social conditions that give rise to human suffering (Wilkinson 2007: 244). Bauman faces dystopia point blank. The concern for a society without suffering leads him to study various experiences of human suffering. Utopia is present in all these sociological investigations as a relief from suffering (Jacobsen and Marshman 2008). Bauman has stated that the guiding principle of his sociology is perhaps best captured by Albert Camus’s declaration: ‘There is beauty and there are the humiliated. Whatever difficulties the enterprise may present, I should like never to be unfaithful either to the second or the first’ (Bauman in Jacobsen 2011: 386). Bauman is indeed faithful to both albeit more to the plight of the humiliated – a trademark of his utopia, which explains why he has been called the ‘sociologist of misery’. Like in Socialism: The Active Utopia, Bauman’s liquid-modern writings contain utopia in the form of critical engagement with the existing society and its ailments and pathologies. Bauman’s utopia is a continuous and undying refusal to bow to the might of the status quo but also a refusal to resign to the fate of the time. It is an ‘iconoclastic utopia’ that debunks the dominant ways and understandings that perpetuate misery (Jacobsen 2004). The iconoclasm serves to uncover the unknown and suppressed so that we could begin to recognise that (echoing Bloch) ‘something is missing’ (Bauman and RovirosaMadrazo 2010: 51). What matters is change of consciousness and self-perception, a blueprint (in the sense of a design) of a new society is never sought. Disclosing the future alternatives, again, is the very raison d’être of utopia for Bauman. He insists on the fallacy of the TINA (‘There Is No Alternative’) position that has so successfully elbowed out more critical discourses (see, e.g., Bauman 2014). Does Bauman, however, provide a vision of a different society in addition to his critique? Without wishing to dispute the relevance of intellectual critique, readers of Bauman’s polemic against TINA can expect no definable alternative from him, so even though his writings could set in motion, or contribute to, social change as he undoubtedly wants, nowhere does he present his readers with any clear-cut prophylaxes or solutions to the problems confronting our world.

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However, Bauman is not completely silent about the possibilities that may be sought out and tested. Much of his thinking about alternatives since his 1999 book In Search of Politics has focused on the question of democracy. It is the Ancient Greek democracy with its agora that provides a model for contemporary democracy for Bauman (Bauman 1999, 2011). The agora, the marketplace, is the site of mediation between the private sphere and politics. It is where citizens come together for deliberation, paving the way for a shared agenda of concerns and interests. The function of the agora is in other words ‘the two way translation between the language of individual/familial interests and the language of public interests’ (Bauman 2011: 11, original emphasis). The importance of this should be understood against the background of the disenfranchising effects of individualisation, whereby individuals solely bear responsibility for their fate without the means for a collective selfdetermination (Bauman 2000, 2005). It is the refurbished public sphere that should restore the capacity for self-determination and a common cause. Without these, individual freedom is more illusory than real. Bauman, then, has clearly remained faithful to the socialist belief that a concern with the individual predicament calls for social solutions. Despite the new republican language, the core argument persists. The problem with ancient models of democracy, of course, is that we no longer live in a small city-state in which the agora could provide a physical space that could accommodate all citizens. Bauman concedes the problem but does not engage with it, suggesting in different places that it should be taken literally as a space or that it should be seen more like a civil society (Dawson 2012: 565). Commenting on Bauman’s unspecified conception of how to institute the ancient model of direct democracy, Nicholas Gane says that ‘it is one thing to propose the reinvigoration of collective (public) life through the rebuilding of the agora, but another to apply this ancient ideal to life today, and to specify exactly how the public sphere may proceed to regain its past autonomy’ (Gane 2001: 275, original emphasis). An outline for the practice of an agora-centred democracy does not emerge in Bauman’s social thought; how this site of discussion should actually look remains unclear. Bauman could well argue that nothing like an ‘outline for a practice’ should ever be expected from him, as this would rather contradict his iconoclastic utopia. Yet, as the turning of the tide of individualisation (hence much of what is wrong with liquid modernity) depends on it, Bauman could indeed be more concrete. The unconcrete character mirrors the extraterritorial nature of power that is at the root of the decline of contemporary democracy for Bauman. It is a weakness, especially compared to his sophisticated discussion on the relations between social and political rights and individual and social autonomy (Bauman 1999, 2011). Bauman’s interpretation of the relation between power and politics and the questions concerning how to revitalise democracy is a response to the developments of capitalism roughly since the 1980s. This likens Bauman to the German economic sociologist Wolfgang Streeck, whose work provides an in-depth

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engagement with the current transformation of capitalism. Streeck, similarly to Bauman, claims that nation states have become limited in their capacity to set the economic agenda. With ever increasing global interdependence, tensions between capitalism and democracy and economy and society cannot be resolved on the national level. International constraints and obligations increasingly constrain local governments (Streeck 2013: 282). What is more, unlike in the 1970s and 1980s, the battlefields on which the contradictions of capitalism are now decided have become ever more inaccessible to anyone outside the political and financial elite. Interests are difficult to recognise, let alone to pursue (Streeck 2013: 284). Alternatives to these conditions are difficult to articulate and seem indeed unlikely. For example, political parties that offer alternatives to austerity need to be soundly defeated or disciplined by international institutions. This interference and pressure on proposing alternatives serves to make both politics and consciousness watertight. Streeck documents what Bauman (2000: 148–55) metaphorically calls the ‘marriage of labour and capital coming to an end’. He claims that around the middle of the ‘Roaring Seventies’, later so called on account of the high expectations of prosperity and freedom that dominated politics and the public mood, the owners and managers of capital – and not, as legitimation crisis theory had hoped and expected, the broad mass of wage-earners – opened a long struggle for fundamental restructuring of the political economy of post-war capitalism. (Streeck 2014a: 26–7) The struggle turned out to be a successful one. Arguably the main casualty of this struggle was the social contract of the ‘three glorious decades’.4 In practice, this meant the end of economic justice and redistribution-oriented politics and augured the rise of ‘flexibilization’, ‘deregulation’ and ‘privatization’. From the frontiers of globalisation, the ‘three glorious decades’ embody aspects of the better in the past, and Bauman himself admits that the term was coined only after it turned out that the conditions for which the era stood had now passed (Bauman in Jacobsen and Tester 2007: 308). In addition, ‘the “pendulum-like” trajectory of historical sequences, a close proximity of “forward and backward” or “utopia” and “nostalgia” pregnant with confusion is virtually inevitable’ (Bauman in Jacobsen and Tester 2007: 321). Bauman’s liquidmodern utopia suggests at times a ‘social state’ in the form of the welfare state, which indeed comes across as somewhat nostalgic utopianism; or, with a different take, utopia is the unprecedented (planetary scale) human integration to the level of the whole of humanity (Bauman 2003a, 2011). The present, it can be seen from Bauman, prefigures utopia in the sense that the current lack of the institution of society becomes seminal. In Socialism: The Active Utopia, it is rather the alienating and debilitating effects of a tightly integrated society that utopia needs to tackle in Bauman’s view. Socialism remains the active utopia and once again, like with the

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transition from the 19th to the 20th century, it is marked by both continuity and change. Streeck, working in the tradition of political economy, presents both a more concrete critique of the status quo and is able to outline something akin to a ‘concrete utopia’. Democracy cannot be done without political economy (Streeck 2014b: 208). Redemocratisation of society implies a redemocratisation of the economy. This, in turn, implies a critique of political institutions on the EU level. Instead of facilitating democratic participation, the current EU institutional configuration consolidates economy from democratic interference – a trend which has culminated with the strict fiscal discipline of the single currency and the technocratic rule of unelected technocratic institutions like the European Commission and the European Central Bank. Its design is teleologically dystopian, meaning that utopia has to be about going against the flow, dissent and political mobilisation. Disembedded markets would have to be democratically re-embedded for democracy to have any real substance. This is a tall order, an antagonistic relation between democracy and capitalism that borders on either/or. The ‘issue would not be to achieve social peace in the face of growing inequality, but to improve the lot of those excluded from neoliberal growth, if necessary at the expense of social peace and growth’ (Streeck 2014a: 173, original emphasis). European cooperation, prosperity and solidarity would stand much better chance without the current straightjacket-like and disciplinary institutional design of the EU. In order to break the current deadlock, much of what has been done would need to be undone, including the monetary union (Streeck 2014a: 189). As in Socialism: The Active Utopia, where utopia is identified with culture, Bauman’s liquid-modern utopian thought eschews political economy. Bauman’s engagement with capitalism is certainly critical and with a keen eye on polarisation. However, his theory of the changed relation between labour and capital remains oblique, with metaphors and catchwords prevailing over institutional theorising. Bauman’s demystification stops short of proposing determinate arrangements, no matter how convincingly it deconstructs the accompanying ideology and experiences that they give rise to. Bauman’s poignant description of the contradictions of individualisation could do with a more concrete thinking about the alternatives than notions of the public sphere and republican citizenship. Bauman thinks beyond the consumerist order, yet as global institutions are not (yet) embedded in the current stage of globalisation, the Marxian-Blochean dialectic between thought and practice remains oblique. We are offered no concrete strategies to rebuild the broken bridge between modernity and collective; this Blochean aspiration comes arguably truly to the fore in Bauman’s recent works. It is, however, somewhat undone by Bauman’s identification of concrete utopia as an exclusively solid-modern phenomenon (understood in terms of industrial proletariat or sovereign nation state) and thus necessarily liquefied.5 Critique with moments of visionary thought (that bears some resemblance to the early utopian socialists) remains a predominant feature of Bauman’s utopia in the liquid-modern period.

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Conclusion This chapter has engaged with the utopian ideas of both Ernst Bloch and Zygmunt Bauman. The comparison of the utopian mentality of these two theorists is timely especially at a time marked by growing disillusionment with individualism and the reign of markets. The era that spelled the end of utopia has itself increasingly come to be seen as unsustainable and inimical to human and environmental needs. There is a growing awareness that the globalised world is nearing a dystopia. Utopia, looking at Bauman and Bloch, is neither a nuisance for sensible social change nor is it a mere pipedream. On the contrary, it is essential for the autonomous and creative human being-inthe-world. Thus, Bloch has claimed that ‘[t]o be human really means to have utopias’ (Bloch quoted in Bloch 1988: 33). For Bauman, humans are such utopia makers – for better or for worse (Jacobsen 2016). The withering of utopia, then, is both unlikely and would signify the total estrangement of mankind. In our all-too-common tendency to disparage utopia, what we fail to recognise is the possibility and powerful presence of the ‘Not Yet’ and the ‘Ought’ in addition to the ‘Is’. It is the ‘Ought’ that is utopia’s elective affinity. Overtaking the natural course of events is its main purpose. Both Bauman and Bloch are utopian thinkers of humanity’s shared, collective prospects. They have, however, as we have shown, also different views on the attainability of utopia. For Bloch, utopia does have to be attained and implemented. Utopia for Bloch becomes political-emancipatory with the advent of Marxist socialism that complements utopian aspirations with an understanding of social practice and its concrete possibilities. Utopia, going beyond anticipatory inwardness, finds its historical fulfilment in Marxism as a free society. Bauman, on the other hand, throughout his writings insists that utopia should remain on the horizon. Utopia activates thought and discussion but is not supposed to be implemented. Concrete utopia, unlike hope and the Noch Nicht Geworden character of social life, is not among the Blochean affinities to be found in Bauman. Bauman’s liquid-modern writings discuss at length the problem of the relationship between individual and society that finds its solution and culmination in socialism in Bloch’s utopia. It is a merciless critique of individualisation rather than concrete reconstruction that Bauman provides. The politics of republicanism, the agora and shared moral responsibilities approach the new synthesis but nevertheless remain oblique. It is a utopia of alterity rather than of positivity. If Bauman’s notion of dialogue, present both in the early Socialism: The Active Utopia and in his recent liquid-modern writings, points to ethics in utopianism, then the postmodern period of the 1990s ethics, as we saw, is seen as utopia in itself. It is the infinite responsibility, the unconditional moral commitment to the other person that makes ethics utopian. The immediacy of the ethical relation means that it is and remains socially ambivalent, as societal organisation is based on extensive, impersonal mediations. The ‘moral party

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of the two’ originates from personal responsibility and provides a cornerstone for human cohabitation. Bloch’s utopian spirit, both in The Spirit of Utopia and The Principle of Hope, finds in music the finest expression of utopia. It is in music that humanity’s yet-to-be-achieved potential may find its greatest source of exploration. Utopia for Bloch is a radical creation, a genesis, which music epitomises. Music articulates the psychic life and social tendencies like no other art form. Music contains a promise – a call – to a different world without alienation where humans rise above the arbitrary and circumstantial. It is a Vorschein, a pre-appearance, as it were, of utopia. The overarching motif and agreement in the case of both Ernst Bloch and Zygmunt Bauman is that what is hospitable to humanity still lies ahead. In Bloch’s famous and enigmatic words that open his first magnum opus, first published in 1918, The Spirit of Utopia and persist throughout his later philosophy: ‘I am. We are. That is enough. Now we have to begin. Life has been put in our hands. For itself it became empty already long ago. It pitches senselessly back and forth, but we stand firm, and so we want to be its initiative and we want to be its ends’ (Bloch 2000: 1). Utopia in the 21st century is as ever ahead of us. Being more often than not against the odds only adds to utopia’s continued significance and topicality. Bauman already buttressed this belief in the last paragraphs of Socialism: The Active Utopia when stating: Men climb, as it were, successive hills only to discover from their tops virgin territories which their never-appeased spirit of transcendence urges them to explore. Beyond each successive hill they hope to find peacefulness at the end. What they do find is the excitement of the beginning. Today as two thousand years ago, ‘hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?’ (Bauman 1976a: 141) Utopia always needs to remain unfulfilled in order to serve the human purpose of dreaming and hoping. More recently, in Bauman’s liquid-modern writings, he has continued to stress that the road ahead, despite its promises of a bumpy and indeed uncomfortable ride, is still, as always, open to alternatives, His liquid-modern writings – caught between perceived ends and anticipated beginnings – meditate on the form of life that lies beyond the current one: One can easily imagine a world better fit for the journey towards Kant’s ‘universal unity of mankind’ than the world we happen to inhabit today, at the far end of the territory/nation/state trinity era. But there is no such alternative world, and so no other site from which to start the journey. And yet not starting it, or not starting it without delay, is – in this case beyond doubt – not an option. (Bauman 2003a: 155, original emphasis)

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Notes 1 The influence of Ernst Bloch on Bauman has not been well documented in comparison to the importance of Emmanuel Lévinas (see Jacobsen 2007; Tester 2002), Hannah Arendt (see especially Bowring 2011) and Antonio Gramsci (see Beilharz 2000; Davis 2011). Key ideas in Bauman’s sociology like the indeterminacy of the social order and the possibility of a reconstitution of the seemingly immutable in human cohabitation have often been associated particularly with the work of Gramsci, with Bloch’s ontology of the ‘not yet’ and utopianism being placed much more on the margins of his writings. 2 Peter Beilharz (2000: 64–6, 74) notes that, already in the 1970s, Marxism, rather than methodologically, was important for Bauman in the sense that it worked on the general problems of the human condition. Socialism: The Active Utopia (1976a) contains a critique of Karl Marx in the sense that hope for Bauman needs more vision about overcoming capitalism than Marx could provide in his later writings. Bauman’s Marxism is therefore more hermeneutical rather than strictly social-scientific. 3 For a critique of Bloch, see Leszek Kołakowski (2005). In Kołakowski’s reading, Bloch and Marxism in general represent the self-defeating self-deification of mankind. Kołakowski perceives Bloch’s Marxist socialism as incompatible with democratic socialism. The latter, towards which Kołakowski is much more sympathetic, would gradually reduce the subordination to profit, do away with poverty, diminish inequality and minimise the threat to democratic liberties from state bureaucracy. 4 Wolfgang Streeck (2014a) outlines the trajectory of the state from the 1970s onwards in terms of inflation, indebtedness and neoliberal consolidation. The trajectory is a deadly spiral of low investments and low incomes that in turn lead to new cuts. Spending and not diminished revenues are singled out as the cause of recession. As a consequence, the mutual separation of economy and (redistributive) democracy has indeed been the fate of Western societies. The political means of nation-state democracies to influence the distribution of wealth have largely declined. In addition, capitalism had to consolidate itself from democratic interference to the degree that legitimation crisis gave rise to accumulation problems. 5 A somewhat ‘concrete’ dimension of Bauman’s otherwise rather elusive utopia can be discerned in his argument for a basic income/citizen’s income (Bauman 1999). This idea, that is currently gaining ground in different parts of the world, would according to Bauman provide the social security that is necessary for an active and engaged citizenship. The fact that citizen’s income appears only in one of Bauman’s books suggests that it is a musing rather than a constant presence in an otherwise non-specific utopia.

References Abbinett, Ross (2013): ‘On the Liquidity of Evil: Modernity and the Dissolution of Ethics in Bauman’s Social Theory’, in Mark Davis (ed.): Liquid Sociology: Metaphor in Zygmunt Bauman’s Analysis of Modernity. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 103–120. Bauman, Zygmunt (1973): Culture as Praxis. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bauman, Zygmunt (1976a): Socialism: The Active Utopia. London: Allen and Unwin. Bauman, Zygmunt (1976b): Towards a Critical Sociology: An Essay on Commonsense and Emancipation. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1987): Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1988): Freedom. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

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Bauman, Zygmunt (1989): Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991): Modernity and Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1993): Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (1994): Alone Again: Ethics after Certainty. London: Demos. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998): ‘What Prospects of Morality in Times of Uncertainty?’ Theory, Culture and Society, 15(1): 11–22. Bauman, Zygmunt (1999): In Search of Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2000): Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2003a): Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2003b): ‘Utopia with No Topos’. History of the Human Sciences, 16(1): 11–25. Bauman, Zygmunt (2004a): Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2004b): ‘Liquid Sociality’, in Nicholas Gane (ed.): The Future of Social Theory. London: Continuum, pp. 17–46. Bauman, Zygmunt (2005): Liquid Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2006): Liquid Fear. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2007): Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2011): Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2014): ‘A World without Alternatives’. Global Dispatches, November 12. Available online at: http://www.theglobaldispatches.com/articles/tinaa-world-without-alternatives. Bauman, Zygmunt and Citali Rovirosa-Madrazo (2010): Living on Borrowed Time: Conversations with Citali Rovirosa-Madrazo. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Keith Tester (2001): Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beilharz, Peter (2000): Zygmunt Bauman: Dialectic of Modernity. London: Sage Publications. Beilharz, Peter (2006): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: To Build Anew’. Thesis Eleven, 86(1): 107–113. Bloch, Ernst (1971): Über Karl Marx. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Bloch, Ernst (1986): The Principle of Hope (3 Volumes). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bloch, Ernst (1989): The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bloch, Ernst (1996): Natural Law and Human Dignity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bloch, Ernst (2000): The Spirit of Utopia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bloch, Jan Robert (1988): ‘How Can We Understand the Bends in the Upright Gait’. New German Critique, 45: 9–39. Bowring, Finn (2011): ‘Comparing Bauman and Arendt: Three Important Differences’. Sociology, 45(1): 54–69. Daniel, Jamie O. and Tom Moylan (eds) (1997): Not Yet: Reconsidering Ernst Bloch. London: Verso. Davis, Mark (2011): ‘Bauman’s Compass: Navigating the Current Interregnum’. Acta Sociologica, 54(2): 183–194. Dawson, Matt (2012): ‘Optimism and Agency in the Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman’. European Journal of Social Theory, 15(4): 555–570.

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Gane, Nicholas (2001): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: Liquid Modernity and Beyond’. Acta Sociologica, 44(3): 267–275. Gray, John (1998): False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism. London: Granta Books. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2003): ‘Ikke endnu: den ufuldkomne (u)virkelighed: Om utopien i Baumans og Blochs samfundstænkning’ [‘Not Yet: The Incomplete (Un)Reality: On Utopia in the Social Thought of Bauman and Bloch’]. Social Kritik, 87: 64–81. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2004): ‘From Solid Modern Utopia to Liquid Modern AntiUtopia: Tracing the Utopian Strand in the Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman’. Utopian Studies, 15(1): 63–87. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2007): ‘Solid Modernity, Liquid Utopia: Liquid Modernity, Solid Utopia: Ubiquitous Utopianism as a Trademark of the Work of Zygmunt Bauman’, in Anthony Elliott (ed.): The Contemporary Bauman. London: Routledge, pp. 217–240. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2011): ‘Sociology, Mortality and Solidarity: An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman on Death, Dying and Immortality’. Mortality, 16(4): 381–393. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2012): ‘Liquid Modern “Utopia”: Zygmunt Bauman on the Transformation of Utopia’, in Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester (eds): Utopia: Social Theory and the Future. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 69–98. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2016): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: An Ambivalent Utopian’. Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 70(277/3): 347–364. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid and Sophia Marshman (2008): ‘The Four Faces of Human Suffering in the Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman: Continuity and Change’. Polish Sociological Review, 1(161): 3–24. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid and Keith Tester (2007): ‘Sociology, Nostalgia, Utopia and Morality: A Conversation with Zygmunt Bauman’. European Journal of Social Theory, 10(2): 305–325. Jacoby, Russell (1999): The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy. New York: Basic Books. Kellner, Douglas (2012): ‘Ernst Bloch, Utopia and Ideology Critique’, in Patricia Vieira and Michael Marder (eds): Existential Utopia: New Perspectives on Utopian Thought. London: Continuum, pp. 83–96. Kołakowski, Leszek (2005): Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown. New York: W. W. Norton. Kumar, Krishan (1993): ‘The End of Socialism? The End of Utopia? The End of History?’ in Krishan Kumar and Stephen Bann (eds): Utopias and the Millennium. London: Reaktion Books, pp. 63–80. Lepenies, Wolf (1991): ‘Hopes Derailed on Way from Utopia’. Times Higher Education Supplement, December 27. Lévinas, Emmanuel (1985): Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Lévinas, Emmanuel (1996): Basic Philosophical Writings. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Levitas, Ruth (2011): The Concept of Utopia. Oxford: Peter Lang. Levitas, Ruth (2013): ‘Singing Summons the Existence of the Fountain’, in Peter Thompson and Slavoj Žižek (eds): The Privatization of Hope: Ernst Bloch and the Future of Utopia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 219–245. Moir, Cathrine (2013): ‘The Education of Hope: On the Dialectical Potential of Speculative Materialism’, in Peter Thompson and Slavoj Žižek (eds): The

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Privatization of Hope: Ernst Bloch and the Future of Utopia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 121–143. Rosa, Hartmut (2010): Alienation and Acceleration: Towards a Critical Theory of Late Modern Temporality. Malmö: NSU Press. Schmidt, Dennis (1996): ‘Translator’s Introduction: In the Spirit of Bloch’, in Ernst Bloch: Natural Law and Human Dignity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. vii–xxv. Smith, Dennis (1999): Zygmunt Bauman: Prophet of Postmodernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Streeck, Wolfgang (2013): ‘The Crisis in Context: Democratic Capitalism and Its Contradictions’, in Armin Schäfer and Wolfgang Streeck (eds): Politics in the Age of Austerity. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 262–286. Streeck, Wolfgang (2014a): Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. London: Verso. Streeck, Wolfgang (2014b): ‘Small State Nostalgia? The Currency Union, Germany, and Europe: A Reply to Jürgen Habermas’. Constellations, 21(4): 213–221. Tester, Keith (2002): ‘Paths in Zygmunt Bauman’s Social Thought’. Thesis Eleven, 70: 55–71. Thompson, Peter (2012): ‘What Is Concrete about Ernst Bloch’s “Concrete Utopia”?’ in Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester (eds): Utopia: Social Theory and the Future. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 33–46. Waldenfels, Bernard (2002): ‘Language and the Face of Other’, in Simon Crithley and Robert Bernasconi (eds): The Cambridge Companion to Lévinas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 63–81. Wilkinson, Iain (2007): ‘On Bauman’s Sociology of Suffering: Questions for Thinking’, in Anthony Elliott (ed.): The Contemporary Bauman. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 241–256.

7

Exploring modernity’s hidden agenda in Europe The complementary contributions of Zygmunt Bauman and Ernest Gellner Dennis Smith

Introduction Zygmunt Bauman and Ernest Gellner were both born in 1925, one in Poland, the other in Czechoslovakia. They grew up in a world heavily influenced by the 20th-century agenda of modernity, which emphasised liberation and rights, especially for nations and individuals. Later, from the 1970s onward, Bauman and Gellner witnessed the emergence of a new agenda for modernity, one that shifted the focus towards the challenges of global rebalancing, regulation and restraint. The old agenda was about dismantling colonial empires, undermining arrogant aristocracies and challenging all kinds of enslavement. The new agenda is about conservation, control and managing a more crowded planet. It has met resistance: the richest are in no hurry to conform; the old colonial powers are slow to shed feelings of superiority and special entitlement; and the poor’s accumulated resentments feed insurgencies. As a result the new 21st-century agenda has met delay and denial. It has been monumentalised in lofty speech but not yet made the basis for determined and sustained action on a sufficiently large scale. It has been hidden in plain sight. This chapter asks what is at stake for Europe. The inquiry is given sharpness through a critical comparison between some aspects of the lives and ideas of Zygmunt Bauman and Ernest Gellner. In different ways they each confronted the dilemmas that have shaped both the old and new agendas. One key item on the new agenda is how to cope with fundamental shifts in global power balances without triggering destructive cycles of humiliation and violence. Europe and its near neighbours in the Maghreb and the Levant are at the centre of these power shifts with their attendant dangers. Can Bauman and Gellner help us understand the threats and opportunities these processes bring? We may consider, for example, Bauman’s analysis of liquid modernity and Gellner’s approach to nation-formation processes and the dynamics of Islamic societies. Do they help us make sense of the uprisings and civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa since 2001 and the Eurozone crisis since 2007? In this chapter these issues will be contextualised through a brief discussion of the biographies of Bauman and Gellner, some of their key ideas, the

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challenge to those ideas posed by the new agenda of modernity, and the place on that agenda filled by recent transformations and crises in the Middle East, North Africa and the European Union (EU). It will then be argued that Bauman’s contribution can best be adapted to a world ‘beyond Bauman’ by identifying three distinct versions of his approach to modernity. These three Baumans are mutually contradictory in some respects but each yields rich resources. They are the products of a particular biography that produced certain strengths as well as some inevitable gaps. Gellner’s different biographical path has produced work with some complementary strengths that help fill those gaps. Taken together, the two writers provide us with a useful platform for further inquiry. But let us begin by identifying the two agendas of modernity in a little more detail.

Two agendas of modernity Several drivers shape modernity. These include: clusters of transforming new technologies; decisive alterations in global climate; tides of demographic growth, decline and migration; devastating regional or world wars; great economic recessions; and generational waves of religious fervour expressing the population’s deep anxiety. From 1914 onwards a combination of such forces overwhelmed the great European land and sea-borne empires, a process accelerated by the rapid spread of an optimistic global agenda for 20th-century modernity focused on national aspirations, human rights and individual freedom. By the 1960s demands for both individual and collective rights and freedom had become common ideological coinage. Indeed, the original agenda of modernity remains highly relevant in the early 21st century. Many dedicated campaigners fighting for the rights of women, employees, the victims of racial abuse and so on still have their hands very full with necessary work. However, during the 1970s the global landscape shifted significantly, signalling new global threats and priorities. In 1978 the great reformer Deng Xiaoping became paramount leader of the Chinese People’s Republic. The first climate change conference was held at Geneva in 1979. The Iranian Revolution took place in the same year. A hurricane of change arrived during the 1980s, with the rise of neoliberalism and the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Bloc. The three-way struggle between communism, fascism and capitalist democracy was won, temporarily at least, by the last-named, mainly due to the military strength and economic vigour of the United States. By the 1990s the defeated political ideologies were making comebacks in hybrid form. Chinese communism amalgamated with a non-democratic form of capitalism. Meanwhile, fascism’s militarism, glorification of violence and dreams of domination had strong echoes in movements such as extreme jihadism. The new and still hidden agenda (see Smith 2006) has four main items. One is the task of making climate change manageable. That means finding peaceful and fair ways to conduct the current struggle for access to key resources, including energy supplies. This is the most prominent new agenda item,

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fighting its way through a vigorous and determined campaign of denial. A major climate change control agreement was signed in December 2015. A second item on the new agenda is how to make urban living as civilised as possible for all inhabitants of the megacities coming into existence across the planet. Unhappy urban citizens eventually turn into rioters. Combating this threat to socio-political order requires resources such as health services, education and housing, delivered through integrative democratic politics. Acknowledging this issue has so far been little more than an act of piety by world leaders. The third item is how to manage the rise of China and India as they come into balance with the West and then overtake it. Humiliation is a risk both for challenger nations that seem threatening and hegemonic powers forced into partial retreat. The dynamics of humiliation are potentially explosive but too little progress is being made towards understanding and controlling them (see, for example, Smith 2006, 2010, 2012). The final item is the need to prevent widespread war during the power struggle under way for influence within the large ‘world island’ of Eurasia (Brzezinski 1997; Kaplan 2012; Petersen 2011). That means avoiding incautious entanglement between this intercontinental ‘great game’ and the bitter regional fights currently going on within Islam. In practice, the United States, Russia and Europe are all finding it difficult to reconcile their ‘world island’ strategies with their approaches to the ramifying conflicts within and between Islamic states in the Middle East and North Africa.

Two Central European intellectuals Now we have mapped out the shifting landscape of modernity, let us also trace the contrasting journeys Zygmunt Bauman and Ernest Gellner have made through that landscape. Gellner was brought up in Prague, some 300 kilometres away from Bauman’s home town of Poznan´ (see Hall 2010). Both are Jewish and when Nazi influence increased, both escaped but in different directions: Gellner to Britain, Bauman to the USSR. Both served in the military during World War II, Gellner with the Czech armoured brigade that joined the siege of Dunkirk and later entered Belgrade in triumph, Bauman with the Polish division of the Soviet Red Army, which eventually helped to take Berlin. Both experienced extreme vulnerability and intense danger during early life. Bauman suffered anti-Semitic prejudice in his youth at Poznan´, and when Hitler’s troops arrived his family, like many others, was faced with the choice of either leaving or being rounded up. Gellner’s family was still in Prague when the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia and had a hair-raising escape. A family friend was shot dead crossing the Polish border (see Smith 2001: 38–41; Hall 2010: 17–25). Bauman and Gellner are similar not just in their preoccupations but also in their productivity. They have both been recognised as brilliant scholars and formidable advocates for their positions: the first a remarkable seducer with his words, the second a notorious verbal gun fighter; Gellner once noted,

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self-mockingly, that he had acquired ‘a certain name for writing abusive prose’ (Gellner 1987: 152). There is, in both writers, a kind of obsessiveness, albeit carried off with great charm, in their repeated return to a fairly small range of themes and examples. It is almost as if each has been regularly checking that a sticking plaster stays in place over a wound. In the work of both writers there occasionally surfaces a fond remembrance of historic times and places when Jews and other minorities felt safer. Bauman recently spoke in a public lecture about the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which fell in 1795, and which has been widely admired in retrospect for its tradition of cooperation and dialogue between diverse cultures, and respect for local identities. Gellner had similar feelings about the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, and found the idea of rule by the Hapsburgs infinitely preferable to being subjected to Soviet domination. As he put it, Franz-Joseph (Hapsburg) was preferable to Joseph (Stalin) (Smith 2012: 556; Hall 2010: 329–30). Both Bauman and Gellner have constructed their analyses of the present and future under the shadow of the sad fact that those comfortable old habitations, the commonwealth and the empire, with their capital cities in Warsaw and Vienna, respectively, are gone forever. Bauman and Gellner both see modern life as a struggle but they see different struggles. Bauman has been closely involved in the three-way battle between fascism, communism and capitalism that dominated much of the 20th century. He has lived through two moments of absolute victory and utter defeat. The first was in 1945 when he witnessed the crushing of the Nazi machine and entered Berlin, possibly, so it is rumoured, either inside or on top of a Russian tank. The sequel occurred forty-four years later, when, like many of his contemporaries, Bauman watched the dismantling of the USSR, the same vehicle for socialist transformation that he had leapt aboard in 1939 when his family fled from Poland to Russia. By 1989 Bauman was in the West. He concluded that after a fifty-year battle, capitalism had resoundingly won the three-way confrontation. The only question remaining was how individuals would be able to hold body and soul together as they wander, so to speak, like Hansel and Gretel through the leafy forest full of gingerbread houses that is the world’s market place. In Bauman’s view, the struggles of life are now above all focused on the individual level. Modern-liquid men and women are on their own as they worry about their health, their prospects for food, shelter, income and employment, about how to conquer the fear of other wandering strangers, and about whether they can find viable pathways through the capitalist forest that might lead towards a personally meaningful destination. Gellner, who died in 1995, was also deeply involved in the 20th-century battle to define the political, economic and cultural parameters of modernity. However, unlike Bauman, Gellner saw 1989 as the start of another key phase in the struggle between visions, models or systems of modernity. He thought that major victories had been won but there was still much to play for. Like Bauman in the mid-1940s, Gellner was ‘on the front line’ in 1989 and the

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years that immediately followed. Gellner happened to be in Moscow on academic business during 1988–9, and he saw the political and social turmoil at reasonably close quarters. During the early 1990s he was actively involved, along with fellow Czech Jiri Musil, in setting up the Central European University in Prague and he took the lead in founding its Centre for the Study of Nationalism. Unlike Bauman in 1945, Gellner in the early 1990s was not wearing a soldier’s uniform. However, he was part of an advance guard trying to secure a bridgehead in Prague from which to mount a defense of newly liberated Central Europe against fanaticism and cynicism from many directions (Hall 2010: 353–6, 365–70). Gellner was engaged with others in a politicocultural struggle against the remnants of the nomenclatura with their hankering for the old authoritarian days, against black marketeers made newly respectable by the rediscovery of Adam Smith, against carpet-bagging business consultants from the West, and against extreme forms of radical Islam. Like Bauman, especially the young Bauman of the 1960s, Gellner saw the key battlefield as the education of the young. For Gellner education was the key to defending and advancing a form of modernity that was rational, scientific, democratic and humane, all being Enlightenment values that are, of course, shared by Bauman. Although Bauman and Gellner shared the same cultural nest, they looked out from it in different directions. According to Bauman, an ever increasing number of us are enduring, and occasionally enjoying, a liquid-modern existence that is unjust, unequal, uncertain and ultimately unsatisfying. We have no choice but to make the best of it. Some may pass their time analysing the moral and political dilemmas it presents. Others will restlessly pursue liquid modernity’s temporary satisfactions when and if they can. Many will be marginalised or excluded. The overall drift of things, to which capitalism is well adapted, is towards social fragmentation so that the core unit of the social world becomes, to an increasing extent, the isolated individual living in a world of indifferent, exploitative or hostile strangers. By contrast, Gellner focused his attention on the way disparate and highly localised groups could be combined into larger, more complex bodies whose elements cohere reliably, producing robust and coherent nation-states with a relatively solid existence. His message is as follows: our best hope for living decent and humane lives together is to understand, defend, strengthen and, where possible, extend the influence of liberal democracy and Enlightenment values, making sure these precious assets are protected within relatively solid institutional structures. So Bauman points to a drift towards increased fragmentation, urged on by the way capitalism operates. Gellner sees a movement towards increased integration, fostered by nation-building bureaucrats, intellectuals and politicians. Both these approaches are potentially relevant to Europe in the early 21st century because the development of the EU has been, on the one hand, an exercise in trying to create a relatively solid institutional structure capable of integrating a number of European nation-states and, on the other hand, a

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series of attempts to clear away structures that interrupt the tidal flows of market forces and the forward push of corporate interests. Furthermore, in the wake of the Eurozone crisis the EU is currently poised between two possible futures: either developing into something much closer to a European state, with its own system of top-down fiscal discipline; or disintegrating into a more fragmented arena offering rich pickings for market operators and business opportunists. But, however tempting, we cannot reduce the whole world to a simple formula that equates the market with fragmentation and the state with solidification. To demonstrate this, consider the following.

Liquid crowds and solid selves The American-led invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) were soon followed by widespread disruption of governance throughout the region. Two other results were widespread civil war and the release of fundamentalist energies, channelling multiple frustrations into violent transgressions. Knockon consequences included the toppling of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, helped along by NATO and the so-called Arab Spring of 2011, including the Syrian uprising, which led to yet another civil war. These facts pose difficulties for Bauman’s central argument, which is that liquid modernity is shaped by global capitalism through skilful manipulation and seductive charm. Not so in Syria, Iraq or Libya. International corporations have helplessly witnessed the disruption of the region’s rich large potential market for consumer goods during the past decade and a half. For well over a decade the main business of politicians, generals and insurgents operating over much of the Middle East and North Africa has been to break down and destroy the organisational capacities and morale of their opponents. The outcome has been human misery and the fragmentation of states within the region. Yet many migrants fleeing into Europe from this shattered region illustrate the human condition that Bauman associates with liquid modernity. Across the Mediterranean and through the Balkans has come an atomised crowd of wanderers. They have been forced into alien territory where they continually encounter uncaring strangers. Many are clearly highly educated and from the professional middle class. These refugees are fully switched on to the digital world. Here are Bauman’s ‘liquid’ people. However, many of these migrants live in a world of strong belief and regular worship, conditions that counteract the impact of Bauman’s ‘liquid modernity’, as Ernest Gellner’s work on Muslim societies implies (Gellner 1969, 1981). They are in liquid crowds but have fairly solid selves. The refugees’ estranged condition is not due to constant bombardment by commercial advertisers or a zombified existence as spectators in a media wonderland. Nor is the liquidisation of their relatively peaceful urban life to be explained by the market’s relentless permeation. The teeth in the crushing machine belong to protostates and the remnants of half-ruined states. The problem is that too many

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would-be states or radically diminished states, be they Kurdish, jihadist, Ba’athist or whatever, are trying to occupy the same territory. War and migration are turning the wheels of destruction. They in turn drive the black market exploiting the refugees.

Loss of a world The destruction and disorder in parts of the Middle East and North Africa in 2015 are not dissimilar to the situation in Central Europe during Bauman’s youth. But Bauman’s approach to liquid modernity comes from a later stage in his biography, specifically from his experiences during the 1970s and 1980s. Bauman’s work on liquidity, like his earlier writing on postmodernity, was in large part a response to the fact that his plans for a neo-Marxist sociology to reshape modernity (see Bauman 1969) were thoroughly trashed during and after the Thatcher–Reagan era. Bauman’s plans depended on the existence of a vibrant public sphere, a place where citizens could debate and intellectuals such as Bauman have their influential say. By this means enlightened sociological and philosophical perspectives would help to shape public policy. But the neoliberal project attacked Bauman’s preferred home territory, shrinking the state and diminishing the public sphere. It surely hurt Bauman to lose his field of dreams in this way. Bauman cauterised that wound and distanced himself from the disaster scene by making the rather over-the-top assertion that all bureaucracies killed off moral sensitivity in their officials (see Bauman 1989). In fact, Bauman had spent his formative years in just such a bureaucratic role, as a high-ranking officer within the Polish military during the late 1940s and early 1950s. However, for the new poststate Bauman, the primary agent in shaping the world was global capitalism. Bauman built a model of how such a postmodern (or ‘liquid’) capitalist world might work. He presented that model (call it Y) to his readers as ‘the real situation’ that existed behind or within the confusing cultural and political signals they received in their daily lives (call that X). In this respect, the basic structure of his subsequent message has been: ‘You have experienced X (confusion); the explanation is Y (liquid modernity)’. In other words, Bauman has invited us to see contemporary history through his particular lens. However, it is possible to reverse that relationship and explore Bauman’s life, career and opinions through the lens provided by the wider context of contemporary history. The present author first did this in a book subtitled ‘prophet of postmodernity’ (Smith 2001). But by 2000 Bauman had already switched track, moved on from ‘postmodernity’ and was reworking his case notes under the heading of ‘liquid modernity’ (see, e.g., Bauman 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007). It is time to ask how his writings both before and after 2000 might help us face the current challenges of 21st-century modernity, especially those currently faced by Europe and its Islamic neighbours. There is no space here for detailed analysis of all the political, sociological and indeed moral issues indicated at the start of this chapter but two things

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follow. First, some conflicts between three versions of Bauman’s approach to modernity are discussed, readily accepting that their co-existence increases the richness and variety of the intellectual resource he provides. Second, the potential value of Bauman’s contribution is extended by merging it with some aspects of the work of Gellner.

Three Baumans Bauman’s readers have encountered at least three Baumans over the decades. They certainly overlap but they do not fit together easily. First, early on in his career Bauman identified some basic orienting theoretical principles that have remained relatively unchanged in his work over the past half century. Second, Bauman has spent the past decade and a half offering guided tours around liquid modernity, a socio-political environment that is in many respects a relabelled version of postmodernity, an idea Bauman seized upon and elaborated during the eight years before he ‘went liquid’ (see Smith 2001: 136–66). Liquid modernity, like postmodernity, was presented as a new world intimately associated with late 20th-century globalisation in the wake of the collapse of socialism. Finally, in 2004 Bauman produced an articulate analysis supporting the EU as a political project. Unusually for a book by Bauman in this period, the term ‘liquid modernity’ is absent from the index. It should be evident that in a long writing career there is likely to be experimentation with different approaches. This is not a criticism. Above all, Bauman is an activist. He always wants to shape his readers’ intentions as well as their understanding. Every text he produces is a potentially valuable resource. With that in mind, let us examine in turn these three different positions: Bauman I, Bauman II and Bauman III. Bauman I Since the mid-1960s, early on in his academic career, Bauman has placed at the centre of his thinking the challenge of endemic uncertainty. He continues to believe this condition confronts all human beings in all complex societies. As a dissident Marxist in Poland working in higher education, Bauman witnessed his own students’ confusion when faced by many conflicting values and ways of living such as, for example, wide-eyed dogmatic Communist orthodoxy, envious admiration of the West, inward-looking self-cultivation, cynical opportunism and dilettante hedonism (see Bauman 1966; Smith 2001: 62–4). Early on, Bauman identified his preferred solution to this challenge: a decent humane society managed through rational dialogue amongst the major interests. His interest in these themes has never wavered. However, his assessment of the relevant institutional means and constraints has changed in response to the different ways that history has, so to speak, reshuffled the pack. Bauman’s commitment to Enlightenment values is another constant although his pessimism has tended to increase.

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Another aspect of Bauman’s approach is his belief that when people moved out of their medieval villages and off the feudal landed estates in large numbers, ‘solidity’, stability and intelligibility fled from the social, moral and ontological orders. Gone were the days when God was in the world and people could see the divine cosmos reflected in earthly hierarchies and communities. The cosmic order and social world became disjointed and confusing but human brains and muscle power re-established a degree of coherence. Rulers and their advisers were faced with three almost impossible tasks: categorising hordes of restless individuals into defined groups; explaining those categories to members of the groups; and maintaining order within and between them (see Bauman 1973, 1976, 1978). Bauman argues that uncertainty was endemic. The efforts of bureaucrats created chronic ambivalence because their categories always created leftovers that did not fit into the social order. Intellectuals made matters worse by joining in the subsequent quarrels. Attempts at sustained rational dialogue failed. Human efforts to construct their own socio-political world created a modernity that was ambiguous, uncertain or, to use his most recent terminology, ‘liquid’. This leads us to Bauman II, which requires a more extended discussion since it is the Bauman most people know best. Bauman II Bauman introduced the term ‘liquid modernity’ in a 2000 book with that exact title (Bauman 2000). It refers to a highly fluid world of uncertainty, anxiety and continual change in institutions, relationships, attitudes and self-identities. By comparison, solid modernity consists of socio-political arrangements that keep groups and individuals securely in their place as subjects or citizens, with a clear sense of where and how they ‘fit in’. Bauman has said relatively little about solid modernity apart from his characterisations of Soviet repression, which he has typically contrasted with the seductive techniques of commercial advertising in the West (see Bauman 1988). Other advanced forms of solid modernity include Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s or North Korea as it likes to represent itself: a whole people moving as one. For advanced liquid modernity, think of, say, Chicago when it was a wide open city in the late 19th century, or the city of London after deregulation. Liquid modernity is a logically coherent model that focuses on a number of specific, apparently interconnected features within a social situation, insisting upon their preponderance and systematic nature. The world of liquid modernity is occupied by the following: consumers, strangers, exploiters and victims; the rich and the poor; and towering forces such as the market (insidiously everywhere), technology (dangerously out of control) and bureaucracy (domineering and amoral but recently diminished in influence). This is a world where the middling rich and those who are not quite poor gaze at celebrities while shutting their eyes and ears to the sufferings of the marginal and excluded.

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In the liquid-modern world there is inequality and injustice on a large scale. However, it is very difficult for liquid-modern citizens to open a constructive dialogue with the powerful corporate interests that keep in place these unfair structures that help maintain their profit levels. Those interests have penetrated the political structures that inhabit the public sphere at a national and local level while, at the same time, exploiting their own capacity to move around the world with relative ease, inhabiting a poorly policed extraterritorial sphere. The book Liquid Modernity (Bauman 2000) is buttressed by two others: Globalization: The Human Consequences (Bauman 1998), which reminds us about the impact of increasingly powerful market forces stretching across oceans and continents and reaching deep inside national economies; and In Search of Politics (Bauman 1999), which records the shrinking of the public sphere. Bauman’s macroeconomics and macropolitics are depicted in a very dramatic spirit sometimes reminiscent of Francisco Goya’s war paintings or J. M. W. Turner’s stormier seascapes. This grabs our attention. What is more, he puts us right in the middle of the picture. He models our minds for us, telling us ‘what it is like’ for us to be liquid-modern people. As Bauman sees it, liquid-modern men and women engage with the world through a multitude of loosely connected projects. Some they begin themselves: such as a job, a relationship, a hobby, a gang membership. Others are, so to speak, sold to them: for example, a style, a package holiday, a political allegiance, a new government. These projects generally carry a promise. They will reassure the fearful, blow away ambivalence, produce feelings of satisfaction or generate some private profit or other advantage. Almost invariably, these promises are broken producing even more anxiety and uncertainty. As a result, we experience liquid modernity as a disturbing mishmash of deregulation, uncertainty, fragmented individuality, fractured time, estranged space, fragile work bonds, artificial community and pervasive loneliness. How did all this come about? According to Bauman, in this guise at least, our modern world apparently became predominantly liquid sometime between the early 1980s and 2000. Liquid tendencies existed before then in the form of modernity’s dark matter, so to speak, which Bauman termed ‘postmodernity’ during the 1990s. However, by 2000 this dark matter had transformed itself from the world’s shadow into the world itself. Since that date, Bauman has conducted an intensive survey of this pan-oceanic territory he has named and claimed. How are liquid and solid modernity related? Bauman seems to imply that the heavy regime of solid modernity was brought into being by industrialisation, urbanisation and the need to mobilise and control a mass urban-industrial workforce. In other words, it was initially a European 19th-century phenomenon that continued far into the 20th century. After the 1980s the lighter regime of liquid modernity associated with global capitalism came into existence and this regime will apparently stretch forward deep into the 21st century. Bauman obviously realises that if taken literally this is a rather misleading

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characterisation of the past two centuries. It may, perhaps, be regarded as a useful imaginative sketch designed to dramatise his model, a sort of ‘just so’ story. In fact, Bauman is perfectly well aware that the experience of living in ‘liquid’ conditions of profound ambivalence can already be found at the very beginning of the 20th century (see Bauman 1991). In 1900 we find Georg Simmel, a man familiar with urban society in both Central and Western Europe, writing about the disturbing fluidity of modern life. He describes ‘the lack of something definite at the centre of the soul [which] impels us to search for momentary satisfaction in ever-new stimulations, sensations and eternal activities’. Thus, it is, he adds, that ‘we become entangled in the instability and helplessness that manifests itself in the tumult of the metropolis, as the mania for travelling, as the wild pursuit of competition and as the typically modern disloyalty with regard to taste, style, opinions and personal relationships’ (Simmel 1900/1978: 484). Simmel relates these phenomena to money itself, since they share money’s intrinsic ‘emptiness and merely transitional character’ (Simmel 1900/1978: 484). In the same vein, he finds it significant that ‘we term money in circulation “liquid” money: like a liquid it lacks internal limits and accepts without resistance external limits that are offered by any solid surroundings’ (Simmel 1900/1978: 495). Going back to the mid- and early 19th century, and here we find other historical parallels with Bauman’s vision. Consider, for example, The Art of Life (Bauman 2008), Bauman’s elegantly written guide designed to help perplexed people who fear to drown in liquid modernity. This book was published in 2008. However, its central message can be found a full century and a half earlier, albeit in a less polished and scholarly guise. It exists between the covers of a work called Self-Help (Smiles 1859/2008) by the popular author and lecturer Samuel Smiles. This earlier book was based on lectures Smiles gave in the 1850s to young apprentices trying to make their way in the dangerously exciting industrial city of Leeds, later Bauman’s own dwelling place. By the time of Smiles’s death in 1904 nearly a quarter of a million copies of Self-Help had been sold (see Briggs 1965). In offering guidance, Smiles and Bauman have a similar checklist of points for their readers to bear in mind: the need for them to cope with the unsettling uncertainties of existence, the danger of being seduced by superficial glitz, the warning that constant pressure would be put upon their mental, physical and emotional resources, the reminder of the need to keep one’s moral antennae fully activated, the comforting fact that deep satisfaction could be found in sheer hard work and, not least, the thought that fashioning a worthy and satisfying life is like painting an aesthetically satisfying picture. Smiles in 1859 and Bauman in 2008 are of almost one mind. The market for advice on dealing with fluid and unpredictable life circumstances was booming throughout the second half of the 19th century. Further back also, in the 1830s Alexis de Tocqueville discovered in North America a polity that already had, in Bauman’s terms, strong liquid-modern tendencies.

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There was a strong individualistic spirit, no limits on personal desires and each person was caught up in a ‘futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes him’ (Tocqueville 1968: 639). Individuals were self-centred, frustrated and lonely. In fact, looking even further back, the repeated impacts of war, migration and market fluctuations have meant that liquid modernity with its uncertainty, anxiety, ambivalence, fear of strangers, restless flight from betrayal and ardent pursuit of temporary delights has been the prevalent or default condition for large swathes of the human population throughout at least the past half millennium in Europe, stretching back to early modernity. A swift historical journey, travelling backwards from the late 20th century, takes us through Yugoslavia’s bloody breakup, the harsh turbulence of the immediate post-Soviet years in Russia and Central Europe, past the horrendous refugee crisis of the late 1940s and through two world wars punctuated by a global depression. Travelling further back still, the 18th and 19th centuries brought the massive upheavals of urbanisation and industrialisation, transformations interwoven with revolutions and wars directed against the old aristocratic regime. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the reformation and counter-reformations, which concerned not just territorial power but every individual’s soul, rolled across almost the whole of Europe, bringing the French religious wars (1562–98) and the Thirty Years War (1618–48) (see Bayly 2004; Eksteins 1990; Findlay and O’Rourke 2007; Mazower 1998; Wasserstein 2007; Wolf 1982). Bauman I knows this already, just as he knows that the peace, prosperity and welfare states of Western Europe during the 1950s and 1960s were very untypical. At which point we may turn to Bauman III. Bauman III As already mentioned, in 2004 Bauman published a book on the EU which eschews analysis of liquid modernity although there is a substantial attack on what the author sees as a rapacious American ‘empire’ (see Bauman 2004: 45–90). In effect, the United States figures in the text as a major promoter of globalisation with all its alienating consequences. By contrast, the EU is presented as the main potential antidote to this unwholesome tendency in the world. Bauman’s book is entitled Europe: An Unfinished Adventure (Bauman 2004). This work may have come as something of a surprise to readers of Bauman’s immediately previous and subsequent work. He asserts that Europe possesses a distinctive and well-developed intellectual and political culture. He also acknowledges that there is a substantial capacity for political and governmental agency vested in Europe’s state-like bureaucracies based in Brussels. The red meat is found in the final chapter. Bauman’s question is: what should Europe try and do in the world? He sees two possibilities. One is that Europe might undertake ‘local retrenchment’, which involved ‘reconstructing at the [European] Union level the legal-institutional web which in the past held together the “national economy” within the boundaries of a nation-state’s

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territorial sovereignty’ (Bauman 2004: 136). He thinks that such a strategy would lack ambition when ‘viewed from a planetary perspective’ (Bauman 2004: 136) since it would only be seeking ‘local solutions for globally generated problems’ (Bauman 2004: 137). Bauman recommends instead giving priority to another approach, which he calls ‘global responsibility and global aspiration’ (Bauman 2004: 135). He gives no practical details but the general idea is that Europe should be a ‘global pattern-setter’, deploying ‘its values and the political/ ethical experience of democratic self-government it has acquired, in order to assist in the substitution of a fully inclusive, universal-human community for a collection of territorially entrenched entities engaged in a zero-sum game of survival’ (Bauman 2004: 141–2). This is, of course, a very tall order. With some justification, Bauman compares such an enterprise to being ‘on a rising slope of a mountain pass we have never climbed before’ (Bauman 2004: 140). In any case, whatever happens or is attempted, Bauman is surely right to emphasise the EU’s latent capacity to engage in political action, drawing not only upon the pooled sovereignty of member states but also the prestige and authority Brussels has accumulated over half a century of successful expansion. If we are interested in how Europe’s ‘unfinished adventure’ may be further pursued in the light of the current EU crisis, one thing is worth noting. What Bauman calls ‘local retrenchment’, in other words, strengthening the EU’s legal-institutional basis, its economy and its territorial sovereignty, is not some kind of evasion from more ambitious action. On the contrary, it is a necessary precondition for achieving international goals. It would, for example, strengthen the EU’s capacity to reach an even-handed deal with the United States over free trade, and reinforce its resilience in working towards diplomatic and institutional solutions that might help bring an end to the long war underway close to the continent’s southern and eastern borders.

Gellner and solid modernity Ernest Gellner can help map the territory here. He brings a different perspective on the viability and effectiveness of political action within the framework of the state. It is relevant that, unlike Bauman, who served as a high-ranking military officer in postwar Poland, Gellner spent the decade after 1945 making his way into and up the academic hierarchies of Oxford, Edinburgh and the London School of Economics. In other words, Gellner cut his teeth within the self-confident and relatively tolerant ambience of British elite education. By contrast, Bauman’s formative encounters with officialdom were as a manager within a supposedly omniscient communist regime trying to force through immense transformations at an impossible speed. Gellner learned the potential of soft power, especially if its objectives are relatively conservative or gently reformist. For his part, Bauman learned the limits of hard power, especially if its objectives are rapid and radical social reconstruction.

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Bauman never penetrated the English establishment as successfully as Gellner, who learned on the way that a strong, shared culture can integrate institutions in spite of some underlying incoherence. Generalising from this, Gellner emphasised the value of mechanisms such as a universal education system, which could provide whole populations with shared understandings and experiences that would deepen their sense of common membership. Bauman despaired of state bureaucracies and feared a drift towards increased fragmentation, urged on by the way capitalism operates. Not so Gellner, who foresaw continued movement towards increased political integration, promoted by nation-building bureaucrats, intellectuals and politicians. In practice, Gellner and Bauman agree that ideally a modern society should be rational, just and democratic (see Bauman 2004: 124–6; Hall 2010: 159–65). Also, they both assume that such a society should, if possible, be neither so ‘liquid’ as to condemn its members to a highly fragmented, anomic and isolated existence, nor so ‘solid’ as to impose bureaucratic regulations or communal constraints depriving people of all individuality and freedom. But they had very different missions. During the 1960s and 1970s, Bauman was fashioning a modern Marxist sociology as a vehicle for driving towards a socialist utopia where he hoped to set up house. During those same years Gellner felt he was, so to speak, already happily accommodated in the right dwelling but duty bound to check the roof for leaks, just in case. In other words, Gellner was preoccupied with intellectually justifying the liberal-democratic-scientific-industrial way of life that he felt privileged to enjoy in Western Europe. Bauman has still not found what he was looking for. He remains far distant from the good society for which he has worked and hoped. Gellner, on the other hand, believed that, as the inhabitant of a West European democracy, he was fortunate enough to be already living in such a society. For him the question was: how can we preserve and protect our own good societies and, when possible, raise other societies up to the same standard? (See, for example, Bauman 1967, 1969, 1971; Gellner 1964, 1973, 1974a, 1974b, and much later, Gellner 1992a, 1992b. Also relevant are Gellner 1987, 1988.) One strategy was to maintain democratic standards within Europe. Gellner’s vision of the EU in the 1990s was that it should be a mutually supportive combination of nation-states that were not subject to oppressive political centralisation (see Gellner 1997). Like Bauman he saw dangers on the horizon. However, his concern was not that liquid modernity would become completely predominant; in fact, quite the reverse. Gellner’s anxieties about the future were stimulated by his research into Islamic cultures, which he assumed would become increasingly influential as economic development occurred beyond Europe and America. They would also, he thought, become more politically assertive. In an interview published in 1991 Gellner recalled that after World War II he had concluded that ‘the solution of the Jewish national predicament by the establishment of the state of Israel would lead to a dramatic, tragic, perhaps insoluble confrontation with the Muslim world. The least one could do was try to understand that world’ (Davis 1991: 66).

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Gellner’s exploration of Muslim societies ran parallel with his work on nation building and nationalism. He concluded that democracy could thrive, potentially at least, when common membership and cultural identity were focused on belonging to a nation (Gellner 1983). However, he became more pessimistic when he turned to another potential source of cultural solidarity and identity. This was the arena of shared spiritual faith, specifically Islamic faith, an arena that many believers consider to be universal, more important than individual secular ambitions and uncontainable by national boundaries. In North Africa and the Middle East Gellner found a world where religion was certainly supportive but could also be oppressive. He suggested that the most active and radical forces in this arena were pushing hard towards a type of modernity that inhibited freedom and individuality and was much too solid, although he did not use Bauman’s terminology. To summarise, Bauman has gazed disconsolately westwards towards America, the seat of neoliberal capitalism. He has seen, coming from that direction, the advance of liquid modernity, a regime that gives prominence to dedicated consumers while despising the poor. By contrast, Gellner, equally disconsolate, has looked eastwards towards the lands of Islam. He has seen, coming from this other direction, the advance of solid modernity, a regime that breeds obedient adherents of the Muslim faith, whose believers are, in general, very ready to enjoy whatever material benefits Western capitalism can offer them. Democratic citizens do not have a prominent place in either of these scenarios for the future development of capitalist modernity. According to our two key witnesses, capitalism prospers but democracy and human rights decline whether we look East or West. What has to change to avoid this projected future? Some suggestions follow.

Conclusion My object in this chapter has not been to set up a contest between Zygmunt Bauman and Ernest Gellner. Instead, I have treated their work and biographies as a resource pool which might yield insights into some pressing socio-political and cultural questions affecting Europe and that continent’s near neighbours. The spirit of this analysis has been pragmatic. The discovery of three approaches from the same Bauman has made his work more, not less, useful since this has increased the range and diversity of the insights available. This comparison between Bauman and Gellner has found a high degree of convergence between them in two key respects. First, they share the same fundamental Enlightenment values, those expressed in the widespread demands made during the 20th century for individual freedom, national liberation, secure and comfortable living conditions, educated and engaged citizens and democratic socio-political arrangements. Second, they both regard certain European societies as providing the nearest approach to this ideal. They also diverge in two key respects. First, Bauman believes that global capitalism is sweeping away the conditions that make civilised social

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democracy possible. By contrast, Gellner reckons that the cultural strength of many Western national societies is probably sufficient to preserve their democracies. Second, they both see threats to the stability and security of democratic arrangements but they see these threats coming from different directions. Bauman derides footloose capital’s lack of commitment to specific localities and the ruthless extraction of profit by large corporations, especially those based in or backed by America. By contrast, Gellner has identified a deep distrust for secular individualism in some aspects of Islamic teaching and thinks this suspicion would perhaps undermine attempts to spread Western-style democracy beyond its current base into Islamic communities and nations. Both writers emphasise the limitations of the old agenda for modernity, especially the failure of the democratic nation-state to contain either corporate power or Islam. The point is that those two forces have been able to insist on the priority of a broader frame of reference that is either the global market or the supranational ummah, demanding that governments yield before their demands. Those tensions threaten to undermine the citizenship rights that were one of the main achievements registered under the 20th-century agenda for modernity. Overcoming those tensions is an essential precondition for effectively tackling the new agenda of modernity. That means going beyond both Gellner and Bauman. We need to deploy a sense of historical perspective. This reminds us that international capitalism of some kind has been around for well over half a millennium and Islam much longer, as have other universal religions such as Christianity. It is noticeable that in the past traders and priests of all stripes have been forced to moderate their demands and mind their manners within national or dynastic territories when the bond between ruler and subject or, more recently, between government and citizen has been a strong one. That is where attention should now be paid. The upsurge of populist movements across Europe and in its near neighbourhood has expressed a strong desire to re-establish that bond on terms that respond to the deep dissatisfactions of the citizenry. Eventually that is likely to happen. However, will the main cement of such a bond be hostility to outsiders, be they ‘intrusive’ corporations, ‘alien’ religions or whatever? Or will a spirit of tolerance and humanity be embedded in our future politics and constitutional arrangements? Will the needs of the poor and weak from all backgrounds be respected on the grounds that they are citizens with social, legal and political rights? Fortunately, the EU provides a framework within which socially responsible democratic energies may be mobilised (see Smith 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2015). Resilience and flexibility are needed. In this respect Bauman has recently provided welcome encouragement. In Moral Blindness (Bauman and Donskis 2013), he argues that Europe has an unrivalled ‘adaptability and a capacity to set things in motion’ (Bauman and Donskis 2013: 183). It has been able ‘to learn the art of living with others’. Europeans are ready to ‘negotiate the terms of neighbourhood’ in a spirit of ‘robust (or in today’s parlance

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proactive) solidarity’ so as to ‘lend a stable structure to human habitation’ (Bauman and Donskis 2013: 190–1). This is, he believes, a great asset in the age of multiple diasporas, throwing people from many cultures and ethnic backgrounds together. However, a major challenge is that those living either in a fortress-like environment or among the ruins of war are liable to feel intense fear and hatred. This condition is likely to retard or disrupt attempts to create stronger bonds of communication among different communities with diverse religions and cultures. How might that be overcome? It is vital that Europe’s approaches to its near neighbours take full account of the barriers built by generations of humiliation. We need to create a politico-cultural climate that permits democratic dialogue between moderate and open minds on all sides. In recent months relevant evidence has been arriving daily on our media screens. We see that the families from Syria and adjacent countries who find themselves in Europe after their dangerous flight from destruction are, in general, very like ourselves. When they speak we see they share with us many of the discourses that frame our own lives. Seeing how similar we are is the best possible basis for creatively exploring our differences. That would indeed be a helpful contribution to the task of tackling modernity’s new agenda for the 21st century.

References Bauman, Zygmunt (1966): ‘Three Remarks on Contemporary Educational Problems’. Polish Sociological Bulletin, 6(1/13): 77–89. Bauman, Zygmunt (1967): ‘Marx and the Contemporary Theory of Culture’. Social Science Information, 7(3): 19–34. Bauman, Zygmunt (1969): ‘Modern Times, Modern Marxism’. Social Research, 34(3): 399–415. Bauman, Zygmunt (1971): ‘Twenty Years After: The Crisis of Soviet-Type Systems’. Problems of Communism, 20(6): 25–51. Bauman, Zygmunt (1973): Culture as Praxis. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1976): Towards a Critical Sociology. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1978): Hermeneutics and Social Science. London: Hutchinson. Bauman, Zygmunt (1988): Freedom. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1989): Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991): Modernity and Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998): Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1999): In Search of Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2000): Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2003): Liquid Love. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2004): Europe: An Unfinished Adventure. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2006): Liquid Fear. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2007): Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2008): The Art of Life. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Bauman, Zygmunt and Leonidas Donskis (2013): Moral Blindness. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bayly, Christopher (2004): The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914. Oxford: Blackwell. Briggs, Asa (1965): ‘Samuel Smiles and the Gospel of Work’, in Victorian People. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, pp. 124–147. Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1997): The Grand Chessboard. New York: Basic Books. Davis, John (1991): ‘An Interview with Ernest Gellner’. Current Anthropology, 32(1): 63–72. Eksteins, Modris (1990): Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age. London: Black Swan. Findlay, Ronald and Kevin O’Rourke (2007): Power and Plenty: Trade, War and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gellner, Ernest (1964): Thought and Change. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Gellner, Ernest (1969): Saints of the Atlas. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Gellner, Ernest (1973): Cause and Meaning in the Social Sciences. London: Routledge. Gellner, Ernest (1974a): Legitimation of Belief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gellner, Ernest (1974b): Contemporary Thought and Politics. London: Routledge. Gellner, Ernest (1981): Muslim Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gellner, Ernest (1983): Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Gellner, Ernest (1987): Culture, Identity and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gellner, Ernest (1988): Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History. London: Collins Harvill. Gellner, Ernest (1992a): Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. London: Routledge. Gellner, Ernest (1992b): Reason and Culture: The Historic Role of Rationality and Rationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Gellner, Ernest (1997): Nationalism. London: Phoenix. Hall, John (2010): Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography. London: Verso. Kaplan, Robert (2012): The Revenge of Geography. New York: Random House. Mazower, Mark (1998): Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Petersen, Alexandros (2011): The World Island: Eurasian Geopolitics and the Fate of the West. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Simmel, Georg (1900/1978): The Philosophy of Money. London: Routledge. Smiles, Samuel (1859/2008): Self-Help. Oxford: Oxford World Classics. Smith, Dennis (2001): Zygmunt Bauman: Prophet of Postmodernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Smith, Dennis (2006): Globalization: The Hidden Agenda. Cambridge: Polity Press. Smith, Dennis (2010): ‘Social Fluidity and Social Displacement’. Sociological Review, 58(4): 680–688. Smith, Dennis (2012): ‘Dimensions of World Making: Thoughts from the Caspian Sea’, in Ann Dennis and Deborah Kalekin-Fishman (eds): The Shape of Sociology. London: Sage Publications, pp. 113–133. Smith, Dennis (2014a): ‘Coping with the Threat of Humiliation: Contrasting Responses to the Crisis of the Eurozone in Greece and Ireland’, in Nikos Petropoulos and George Tsobanoglou (eds): The Debt Crisis in the Eurozone: Social Impacts. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 84–108.

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Smith, Dennis (2014b): ‘When the Peloton Hit the Mud: Displacement Struggles and the EU Crisis’, in John Erik Fossum and Augustín José Menéndez (eds): The European Union in Crises or the European Union as Crises? Oslo: ARENA Report Series, pp. 157–183. Smith, Dennis (2014c): ‘Making Sense of the EU Crisis’, in: Dennis Smith in Ljubljana. Ljubljana: University of Ljubljana, pp. 89–109. Smith, Dennis (2015): ‘Not Just Singing the Blues: Dynamics of the EU Crisis’, in Virginie Guiraudon, Carlo Ruzza and Hans-Jorg Trenz (eds): Europe’s Prolonged Crisis: The Making or the Unmaking of a Political Union. London: Palgrave/Macmillan, pp. 23–43. Tocqueville, Alexis de (1968): Democracy in America. New York: HarperCollins. Wasserstein, Bernard (2007): Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in Our Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wolf, Eric Robert (1982): Europe and the People without History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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‘Getting to Norway’ Do we need to go beyond Zygmunt Bauman and Pierre Bourdieu in order to understand contemporary Norwegian society? Rune Åkvik Nilsen

Introduction Francis Fukuyama (2011) has used the phrase ‘getting to Denmark’ in referring to an imagined, ideal liberal democracy. Another Scandinavian land, Norway, is the best society in the world to live in, according to the UN.1 In this chapter,2 the notion of ‘getting to Norway’ refers to the actual country, the best one the contemporary world has to offer. If Norway is the exemplary version of a contemporary society, leading sociological theorists should have something to say when it comes to explaining it. I will discuss how the insights of Zygmunt Bauman and Pierre Bourdieu may be applied to Norwegian society. Why Bauman and Bourdieu? Firstly, because the critical dimension is paramount in the works of both of these thinkers, and after ‘the death of Pierre Bourdieu, Bauman emerges as the most central social critic of our time’ (Nilsen 2005: 10).3 Criticism is often blended with pessimism. Bourdieu said towards the end of his life that the more he learned about society, the more reasons he found to be pessimistic about the future (Prieur 2006: 210). Bauman too offers ‘a rather pessimistic worldview’, according to Mark Davis (2008: 107). His theory of liquid modernity is probably the most pessimistic diagnosis of the contemporary era available in sociology. ‘If you take social pessimism from a sociologist, you take away his happiness’, claims Gunnar C. Aakvaag, paraphrasing Henrik Ibsen.4 The critical dimension is certainly something sociology should be proud of, but it sometimes leads to gloomy analyses that blind us to the positive achievements of modern societies. Secondly, comparisons and critical discussions of leading theorists are a central part of sociological discourse. There are, however, curiously few discussions of Bauman and Bourdieu.5 This is somewhat strange, because they share some obvious points of reference. Bourdieu is the most influential contemporary sociologist when it comes to scrutinising the connections between culture, power, consumption and lifestyles, and Bauman, more persistently than any other leading sociologist, insists that we in fact live in a consumer society. The prime example of a consumer society today is ‘not the US but

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Norway’, claims Daniel Miller (2012: viii). If this is so, the case of Norway should be an interesting battleground for the theories of Bauman and Bourdieu. I want to confront Bauman’s liquid vision of society with Bourdieu’s more solid one: the thrust of my argument is that Bauman’s perspective is too liquid while Bourdieu’s is too solid. They also have common weaknesses. We need an understanding of agency, power and democracy different from Bauman’s and Bourdieu’s in order to explain both the social order and the development of Norwegian society. I will begin by presenting and interpreting key elements in the sociology of Bauman and Bourdieu.

Zygmunt Bauman: from solid to liquid modernity Zygmunt Bauman does not offer a grand theory and his work may seem fragmented and eclectic. Nevertheless, in his writings on liquid modernity, globalisation and the consumer society, he has developed a challenging and controversial diagnosis of contemporary societies, analysing most aspects of human life. Premodern society, Bauman (1987) claims, was primarily a locally based social order, anchored in tradition, kinship and religion; a Gemeinschaft mostly regulated by itself. With the transition to modernity, this locally based order is dismantled, and social order is no longer something taken for granted; instead, social order has to be cultivated, like a ‘garden’. The nation-state is the ‘garden’ of the new, solid-modern order, dominated by intellectual ‘legislators’, the elite ‘gardeners’ of the modern nation-state. The legislators concentrate on the production of universal knowledge relevant for the perfection of the social order. Bauman, inspired by Michel Foucault, focuses on discipline (Beilharz 2000: 14; Aakvaag 2005: 10); deviants are placed in special institutions for treatment and control (e.g. prisons and mental hospitals). State-guided instruction shapes the motivations and self-control of the general population, the introduction of obligatory schooling being a vital element. The legislators ‘put forward the propagation and implementation of discipline as the chief task of educators’ (Bauman 2011: 53). The rise of capitalism supplements this. For most people, at least men, this meant the transition from being a peasant to a worker. In the 20th century, the discipline of work is a key element in Bauman’s portrait of the social order in solid, ‘Fordist’ modernity. Bauman (1987) opposes the ‘hero’ of his narrative, the intellectual ‘interpreter’, to the authoritarian ‘legislator’. The ‘interpreter’ is not a positivist, he believes that social life is open to description from a multitude of perspectives; any description is just one of many. Bauman clearly embraces dialogue and pluralism as normative ideals, both for intellectuals and society in general. Bauman (1987, 1988) believes, optimistically, that such changes are occurring, not only among intellectuals, but also in society in general. The turning point seems to be the 1970s, a decade Bauman later (2007a: 49) describes as a ‘genuine watershed in modern history’. There is a basic structural change from a ‘society of work’, to a ‘consumer society’. This means greater human freedom: the individual is no longer tied to society primarily through

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repressive state control, or the discipline of work, but by the more attractive seduction of consumption (Bauman 1987, 1988, 1998). However, Bauman’s optimism was short-lived; his depiction of contemporary society gradually darkens. If the problem of the previous ‘solid’ modernity was too much control and order, the problem of the new ‘liquid’ modernity is the opposite: the neoliberal turn to a globalised, deregulated market economy has negative consequences in all aspects of social life. In the liquid-modern consumer society, ‘all that is solid melts into air’ (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s classic phrase), trapping people into lives with short-term perspectives on everything. The ‘hunter’ replaces the ‘gardener’: in liquid modernity, hunting ‘is a full time occupation’ (Bauman 2011: 27), we are constantly chasing new pleasures, preferring the hunt itself to the capture. An important consequence is what I will call Bauman’s trickle-down hypothesis of moral decay: the primacy of the market colonises life in general (see Bauman 2007a: 62) and undermines our capacity for commitment and the ability to uphold lasting social bonds. Consequently, there is a dark undertone in Bauman’s (2000, 2001b) analyses of individualisation in contemporary societies. He emphasises atomisation and the isolation of the individual. In liquid modernity, identity is volatile and fragile, because when ‘the beliefs, values and styles have all been “privatized”’ (Bauman 2000: 178), the individual is thrown back on himself, identity is transformed from something given, by class or gender, to an ongoing task (Bauman 2001a: 144–6). Individual consumer choices become the primary strategy for identity construction. This is not satisfactory, however, because the individualised logic of markets undermines our need for security and belonging (Bauman 2001a), and the freedom of consumer choice leads ultimately to a chronic state of anomic dissatisfaction. Randall Collins (1994) distinguishes between four sociological traditions, and we can easily place Bauman’s theory of solid modernity into the conflict tradition. Solid modernity is a social order based on domination. Initially, Bauman’s portrait of the consumer society signalled a break with the conflict perspective: the freedom of the individual now seemed to be possible without the previous repression from the ruling elite of solid modernity. With his writings on globalisation, however, Bauman (1998) reintroduces conflict sociology into the heart of his analysis. The villains in his narrative of liquid modernity are the new globalised elites who dictate the rules of the game: the freedom of the markets to operate with a minimum of political regulation and interference. This development undermines the autonomy of nation-states, leaving them powerless when confronted with the dictates of the globalised elites. The result is increased inequality and marginalisation of the poor, the dismantling of the welfare state, and ‘the collapse of long-term thinking, planning and acting’ (Bauman 2007a: 3).

Pierre Bourdieu: a solid modernity? Like Bauman, Bourdieu is no grand theorist. However, his work is more systematic, the core of his sociology constituting ‘an interwoven set of essentially

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theoretical analytical concepts’ (Jacobsen and Poder 2008: 2). Bourdieu mostly applied his analytical framework to France and Algeria. Nevertheless, he insists (Bourdieu 1984: xi–xii) that his work has a more universal application, and this is exemplified by his reception in Norway: Bourdieu is probably the most influential thinker in contemporary Norwegian sociology. There are affinities between Bauman’s theory of solid modernity and Bourdieu’s sociology. Both men are inspired by Foucault and the case of France looms large in Bauman’s (1987) depiction of the modern fixation on discipline and order. France established a strong, centralised state, and both Bauman and Bourdieu place the state at the centre of power in (solid-) modern societies. There is, however, an important difference in perspective: Bauman published a book with the telling title Memories of Class as far back as 1982, after which the vocabulary of class disappeared from the core of his analytical framework. In contrast, Bourdieu is a conflict theorist, consistently stressing class domination as a vital key to social order. Bourdieu (1986) distinguishes between three basic forms of capital: economic, social and cultural. A high volume of capital indicates a more privileged and powerful position in the class structure, the composition of capital points to the kind of power an individual possesses. In Distinction (1984), he focuses on economic and cultural capital, constructing a class structure with two competing elites: the cultural elite (e.g. professors, artists) and the economic elite (e.g. large capitalists, top managers). This is the ‘field of power’ in society, a field ultimately dominated by the economic elite. The dominating classes in the field of power have symbolic power: the ability to make the social order appear as something natural, as doxa, something taken for granted. An important consequence of this is the naturalisation of the class structure itself, ‘encouraging the dominated to accept the existing hierarchies of social distinction’ (Swartz 1997: 83). Bourdieu argues that this naturalisation from ‘above’ is supplemented by a naturalisation from ‘below’, from the logic of individual practice. The key concept is habitus: embodied, durable dispositions for action. Bourdieu (1977, chapter 2, 1984) has a strong theory of internalisation: individuals occupying an equivalent position in the class structure develop a homogenous habitus; similar positions lead to similar dispositions: common lifestyles, tastes and political views. The amalgamation between positions and dispositions seems to imply that anomie is impossible. If so, this is a vision of society compatible with Bauman’s solid modernity, but at odds with his portrait of the chronic anomie of liquid modernity. Bourdieu, however, is a conflict theorist, and with the concept of field, he portrays modern societies as a collection of battlegrounds, in sharp contrast to a Durkheimian conception of society as a harmonious whole. Bourdieu accepts the classic idea that a high degree of institutional differentiation characterises modern societies, but with his concept of field, he ‘wants to emphasize the conflictual character of social life whereas the idea of institution suggests consensus’ (Swartz 1997: 120). His use of the concept is confusing; it sometimes seems to refer to a traditional institution (e.g. education) and sometimes has no clear institutional reference (e.g. field of power). The

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point, however, is to analyse society as a collection of relatively autonomous arenas of power struggle. The theory of fields points to a fragmented vision of modern society. Bourdieu (1994, 2014), however, portrays the state as a ‘meta-power’, holding society together. In the state, we find a concentration of different forms of capital, ‘a sort of meta-capital granting power over other species of capital and over their holders’ (Bourdieu 1994: 4). This concentration enables the state, with its own ‘statist capital’, to exercise power over the various fields in society. The state in Bourdieu (1994: 3) has a monopoly, not only on physical violence (Max Weber), but also on symbolic violence. More conciliatorily, the powerful state also grants its citizens rights, and replaces the particular with the universal. The modern state bureaucracy has its own interests in the functioning of the state, but we must not ‘ignore the very real effects of the obligatory reference to the values of neutrality and disinterested loyalty to the public good’ (Bourdieu 1994: 17). If Bourdieu’s portrait of the modern state is ambivalent, he still implants in the reader a gloomy feeling of an all-powerful state, not unlike Bauman’s solid-modern, ‘garden’ state. In Bourdieu’s (1998a, 1999) later and more explicitly political work, however, there is a shift in his perspective on the state. Again, there is a striking parallel to Bauman (1999, Bauman and Bordoni 2014). Both of them are turning from critics to defenders of the state, for similar reasons: globalisation and the neoliberal attacks on the welfare state. Whereas Bauman (1998) portrays globalisation as a fact, Bourdieu (1998a) regards it as something of a myth: 70 percent of the trade of European countries is with other European countries, and there is no globalised competition affecting all of us, demanding cuts in wages and welfare state benefits. The problem, however, is that the neoliberal turn in politics has turned this myth into ideology, into a political doxa. The neoliberal, globalised order presents itself as TINA: ‘There Is No Alternative’. Bourdieu and Bauman seem to share this diagnosis and Bourdieu also identifies a long list of negative consequences, similar to the ones we find in Bauman. ‘Precariousness is everywhere nowadays’,6 claims Bourdieu, and Bauman (2000: 160–3) could not agree more. Bauman (1987: 167–8) refers to a key passage in Distinction. He points out that Bourdieu claims that there has been a change in the mode of domination. In the new mode, seduction replaces repression, ‘imposing needs rather than inculcating norms’ (Bourdieu 1984: 154). In the neoliberal order, however, it becomes apparent to both Bauman and Bourdieu that the seductive consumer society is not for everyone: a substantial proportion of the population is poor, ‘flawed consumers’ (Bauman 1998: 38), kept in place by the old-fashioned repression of the solid-modern order. Bourdieu, unfortunately, died before he managed to integrate the ‘solid’ part of his sociological legacy with the ‘liquid’ perspectives that he identified towards the end of his life. In discussing the case of Norway, it will be the ‘solid’ part of his sociology that I shall focus on. Basic knowledge of a small

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country cannot be taken for granted. Consequently, before we proceed to the discussions, I will present some facts about Norwegian society.

Norwegian society: some basic facts Norway is a small (5 million inhabitants) country with an open, globalised economy. According to the World Bank,7 Norway is the second richest country in the world. Contrary to a widespread myth, Norway is not rich from oil and gas alone: the contribution from this sector was only 15 percent of GDP in 2015.8 The state-controlled Norwegian Oil Fund manages the revenue from oil and invests it abroad, for the benefit of all Norwegian citizens. The fund is the largest of its kind in the world, owning on average 1.3 percent of listed companies in the world and 2.5 percent of companies in the European stock market. The Norwegian state is also a major owner in many big Norwegian companies, making Norway a kind of a state-capitalist society. Nevertheless, most companies in Norway are small, two thirds being owned by families. The Norwegian public sector employs 34 percent of the workforce, compared to just 16 percent in the US (in 2013). The expansion of the welfare state in Norway, especially since the 1970s, is tightly bound to women entering the workforce. While in 1960 only 24 percent participated in paid employment, the proportion in 2015 was much higher: 87 percent of women aged 40–4. Females make up 70 percent of the workforce in the public sector,9 showing that the welfare state serves a double purpose for women: it provides both work and the services needed to combine work with family and children. In 1970, only 2 percent of Norwegian children went to nursery school; in 2015 this figure had risen to over 90 percent. Norwegian women have one of the highest birth rates in Europe (1.95 in 2010), and parents are granted twelve months’ paid leave from work when they have children. Norway is the best country in the world to be a mother, according to Save the Children. 10 Men still earn more, and are more often top managers. Women, however, dominate higher education and are well represented in politics and government. The current prime minister is a woman. The high degree of equality between the sexes matches the most egalitarian distribution of disposable income in Europe, measured by the Gini-coefficient.11 There are three main reasons for the relatively equal distribution. Firstly, a central part of the so-called Norwegian Model is the tripartite collaboration between the government and employers’ and workers’ organisations. An important consequence of this collaboration has been a comparatively high degree of equality in the distribution of wages. Contributing to this equality is also the fact that most people are working: unemployment in Norway is low, 4.5 percent, compared to 9.6 percent in the European Union in June 2015.12 Only 7 percent have temporary jobs, and the perceived level of security is high.13 Secondly, the universalistic welfare state provides generous services to all citizens in nursery, education and health care. The Oil Fund supports pensions and is thus also labelled the ‘Pension Fund’. Thirdly,

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Norway still has a progressive tax system: those with high incomes pay considerably more taxes. ‘Norwegians are the most naive people in Europe’, the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten claimed in 2009: four out of five Norwegians believe other people are to be trusted, the highest figure in Europe.14 It is unlikely that Norwegians are more naive than people from other countries; rather the high level of trust says something important about the quality of Norwegian society. The atrocities of Anders Bering Breivik in 2011 are an exception: the level of violence is low, levels of crime in general have dropped in recent years (Lid and Stene 2011), corruption is low and trust in government and democratic institutions is consistently high (Wollebæk 2011). Clearly, the catalogue of misery that has accompanied globalisation and the neoliberal turn identified by Bauman and Bourdieu does not really apply to Norway. What, then, of Bauman’s idea that we live in a consumer society?

Is Norway a consumer society? Modelled after the BBC, NRK is the public broadcasting company in Norway, financed by licence money. Until the 1980s, NRK had a monopoly of TV and radio broadcasting. This was the era of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and in 1981 a right-wing government took over from the Labour Party in Norway. The new government abolished the NRK monopoly, and a tsunami of commercialised broadcasting followed, first in radio and later, in the 1990s, in TV. As never before, the public space was crowded with advertising. The appearance of a new culture of conspicuous consumption in the 1980s symbolised this change; it was represented by a small group of Young Aspiring Professionals (YAPs) who earned a lot of money in a short time, mostly from stock-market speculation. Their hedonistic lifestyle attracted a lot of public attention in a country traditionally dominated by more puritanical and ascetic values. In Bauman’s narrative, the transition to the consumer society started in the 1970s. In Norway, the 1980s seems to be a turning point. The YAP culture was short-lived, but Norway was definitely changing, in the direction of a more commercialised society. As noted in the introduction, Norway has even become the world’s prime example of a consumer society, according to Daniel Miller (2012: viii). A consumer society, writes Miller (2012: 40), is a society ‘in which commodities are increasingly used to express the core values of that society but also become the principal form through which people come to see, recognise and understand those values’. This definition is compatible with Bauman (1998, chapter 2), who makes even stronger claims: consumption is the key to personal identity, social integration and system integration. Identity is now something that ‘can be carved only in the substance everyone buys and can get hold of only through shopping’ (Bauman 2000: 84). In neoclassical economics, consumption follows the pattern of diminishing marginal utility. It is a perspective compatible with Bauman’s portrait of the

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consumer seeking instant gratification and immediate obsolescence, opening up for a new sequence of consumer seduction as soon as possible. Bauman presumes a radical individualism, claims Scott Lash (1994: 144), not a utilitarian individualism of a controlling ego, but an aesthetic individualism of ‘a heterogeneous, contingent desire’. Bauman (2000: 75–6), radicalises his aesthetic individualism even more, by supplementing ‘desire’ with ‘wish’ as a key concept. Whereas ‘desire’ has a social element, of comparison, vanity or envy, the ‘wish’ strips the purchase naked; it is merely causal, unexpected and spontaneous. Bauman wavers between two descriptions of homo consumens: he is either someone controlled by his wishes or desires or, alternatively, a more active ‘consumer as chooser’. The latter description stresses, as in neoclassical economics, the market freedom of consumer choice. In either case, the source of the preferences of the consuming individual is something of a mystery; in both neoclassical economics and Bauman, the foundation of preferences is psychological, not social. Bauman, however, makes the curious claim that consumption is also the key to social integration. This is curious, because the way he portrays consumption makes this claim unlikely: ‘Consumption is a thoroughly individual, solitary, and in the end lonely activity which is fulfilled by quenching and arousing, assuaging and whipping up a desire which is always a private, and not easily communicable sensation’ (Bauman 1998: 30). In consequence, he asserts, there is no such thing as collective consumption. ‘The activity of consumption is a natural enemy of all coordination and integration … rendering all efforts of bonding impotent in overcoming the loneliness of the consuming act’ (Bauman 1998: 30). ‘No lasting bonds emerge in the activity of consumption’ (Bauman 2007b: 78). It is indeed something of a mystery how Bauman imagines the connection between this portrait of consumption and social integration. Finally, there is the third claim, that consumption secures system integration. This might be plausible; after all, without seduced consumers, capitalism will run out of steam. As his portrait of contemporary society darkens, however, even Bauman himself loses faith in the attraction of this mechanism. The reason for this is what I have previously referred to as his trickle-down hypothesis of moral decay: a market society dominated by seduced consumers undermines the moral fabric of social life. A concern and discontent with this gloomy diagnosis pervades Bauman’s writings (see, e.g., Bauman 2008: 61). Is the diagnosis justified?

Bauman versus Bourdieu on the consumer society Bourdieu may have inspired Bauman’s essential idea of seduction; however, his depiction of the consumer society is at odds with Bourdieu’s Distinction. Henrik Dahl (2005: 36), states bluntly that Bauman’s analysis is ‘from a purely empirical perspective completely wrong’. More specifically, Dahl (2005: 36) dismisses the idea that in the liquid society, ‘all efforts of segmentation break down’. Bauman (2011: 1–17) distances himself from Distinction.

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He argues that the ties between culture, class and stratification are broken; instead, we live in an individualised society, marked by ‘a “flexibility” of preferences’ (Bauman 2011: 14). The elites seem to be especially flexible: ‘The sign of belonging to a cultural elite today is maximum tolerance and minimal choosiness … feeling at home in every cultural milieu’ (Bauman 2011: 14). This kind of flexibility, however, has its limits: few people are truly cultural omnivores. Armed with the framework laid down in Distinction, segmentation is indeed possible. In Norway the Bates advertising company has even constructed a model of segmentation, Sosioraster, based on Bourdieu (Tangen 2007). Using this kind of perspective, a very different picture of society emerges. Firstly, preferences are not psychological mysteries, they are deeply social. Through using correspondence analysis, distinct lifestyles and clusters of tastes and preferences emerge, dispositions traceable to positions in the class structure. The substantial details of the case of France in Distinction are of course not transferable to Norway. However, the form of the class structure is easily recognisable. Secondly, the image of the seduced, anomic consumer, constantly on the hunt for new amusement, is misleading. Consumers do not typically give in to spontaneous wishes. Instead, lifestyles are conservative, and patterns of consumption are stable over time (Dulsrud 2007: 77–8). Correspondence analysis, the preferred method of Bourdieu and his Scandinavian followers, is a quantitative method, removed from actual social interactions in everyday life. If we supplement Bourdieu with anthropological field research, the solidity of the social order is even more apparent. Daniel Miller (2012) and Runar Døving (2003), in his field research on consumption and lifestyles in Norway, make the same point: consumption is relational, deeply embedded in moral commitments and common meanings. Much consumption centres on family life, and women are the leading protagonists and managers of the family, taking the brunt of the responsibility for the family in everyday life, including decisions on consumption. In other words, the moral fabric of society is alive and well, even in the heart of consumer activity.

Consumption and identity: gender, class and age Given his individualistic perspectives on consumption and identity, it is logical that Bauman does not make important distinctions between gender, class and age. In the previous ‘society of work’, Norwegian women were housewives, isolated from the world of work. With the transition to the contemporary ‘society of consumers’, Norwegian women left home and entered en masse the world of (paid) work. It is reasonable to presume that work is now much more important for the personal identity of Norwegian women. Bauman (1998: 34) admits that work may still be important for identity, but not for many: ‘work as vocation, has become the privilege of the few’. The concept of vocation, of course, has gone out of fashion, but ‘work that is rich in gratifying experience, work as self-fulfilment’ (Bauman 1998: 34), as the source of

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pride and self-esteem, may apply to many more than a privileged few. In Norway, 90 percent report that they are satisfied with conditions at work, they enjoy many of the tasks they are given and experience mastery in their performance at work (Horgen and Rønning 2008: 39). We should not jump from this to the conclusion that Norway is a kind of Marxist utopia, granting self-realisation through work for everyone. The degree of the necessary autonomy at work is variable and, not surprisingly, academics score high on this measure (Vrålstad 2011: 45). However, if you address the question ‘what do you do?’, not only to the elites, but also to broad segments of the middle class, people will most certainly tell you about their work, not their consumer preferences. In Trinidad, Miller (2012: 46) found that this question caused confusion, even offence, to workingclass people. For them, work was a matter of necessity, not a free choice. Instead, Trinidadians ‘would light up as soon as the conversation turned to things that they chose for themselves’ (Miller 2012: 46–7), such as music, clothing, drinking and cars. ‘For them it seemed obvious that it is these consumer activities that generate and express personal authenticity, in stark contrast to labour’ (Miller 2012: 47). If you visit a shopping mall in Norway, you will most likely meet ordinary people, especially working-class women, presumably feeling more free and authentic in this environment. This is a problem for Bauman, however: consumption may be more important than work for this category, but working-class women, entangled in thick webs of obligations and responsibilities towards family and children, are probably the least individualised category in Norwegian society. Even if the importance of work for personal identity varies among social classes, the value of work has a hegemonic status in Norway. In his New Year speech in 2010, former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg quoted Erik Brofoss (Minister of Finance in 1946), saying: ‘We must free ourselves from the notion that money is the foundation of our living standard and prosperity. Let us always have in mind that we live by each other’s work’ (italics added).15 An ascetic form of organic solidarity underpins the legitimacy of the welfare state: you must provide before you can enjoy. Consequently, because of this so-called ‘work line’, the size of welfare benefits is in many cases directly tied to your contribution in work. A consideration of age brings further nuances to the importance of consumption for identity. Prolonged schooling means that people enter work at a much higher age than before, and the prolonging of life itself means that there is still a life to live after retirement. It is clear that for these two age categories work means less and consumption means more. One sub-category is especially interesting from the perspective of Bauman: the so-called ‘young adults’ (Frønes and Brusdal 2000), typically students in their 20s, and living in cities. These young adults enjoy an unprecedented amount of freedom to experiment with their lives, not only with consumer items in a narrower sense, but also with sex, partners and cohabitation. Bauman (2007b: 21) interprets the concept of ‘pure relationship’ (Giddens 1992) as nothing more than a cynical exchange,

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‘partners are entitled to treat each other as they treat the objects of consumption’. Even if this interpretation does not stand wide empirical scrutiny, it is not so far off the mark when it comes to the lifestyle of these young adults. It is here we find a culture closest to Bauman’s portrait of the liquid, consumer society. It is here we seemingly find short-term perspectives and an unwillingness to be stuck in long-term commitments. However, if we zoom out and look at the lives of these young people from the wider perspective of their life span, a very different picture emerges. In their 30s, the party is over for most of them. Life is now about work, marriage, family, children, nursery, primary school and organised leisure activities; in short, life is highly institutionalised.

Functional differentiation: the architecture of a solid society Norway is a hierarchical class society; horizontally, the key to the architecture of society is functional differentiation. Norwegian society is grounded in thirteen basic institutions, claims Aakvaag (2013: 92–5). Most of what we do during a day we do in the basic institutions (e.g. economy, family, education). The basic institutions are the most important social arenas, characterised by width (they involve most of the population) and depth (they are important for selfunderstanding and life chances). An institution is a package of roles (or positions), values, norms, sanctions and common definitions of situations. This package is unique to each institution, and is not easily exchangeable. This ensures that each institution has a relative autonomy: money does not make a scientific theory more true; you cannot buy a verdict in court or good grades in school. Bauman’s theory of the consumer society, by contrast, is a theory of dedifferentiation (Aakvaag 2005). Bauman (1987: 158) first opens the door to the idea that society is composed of autonomous institutions, then he slams the door shut: ‘And over this institutionally fragmented world towers the new validating meta-authority: the market, with price and “effective demand” holding the power of distinguishing between true and false, good and bad, beautiful and ugly’. In Norwegian society, markets are indeed more important than before. Finance is deregulated and several markets, including housing, have been privatised. However, if money really is the measure of all things, then we should ultimately have a society of generalised corruption. If so, the fact that Norwegian society is low on corruption is impossible to explain. This would also be a society bereft of any normative foundation, a Gesellschaft with no ‘consensus before contract’ (Durkheim 1893/1991). If so, the fact that Norwegian society is high on trust is equally impossible to explain. Bauman (2000: 73) is not content with the idea that consumption is a primary source of identity; his claim stretches even further: ‘Whatever we do and whatever name we attach to our activity is a kind of shopping’. Small children playing in the nursery, pupils learning to write in school, surgeons trying to save lives, presumably they are all involved in shopping. In the dark, all cats

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are grey. This kind of one-dimensional utilitarian thinking makes it difficult to appreciate that Norwegian society is a colourful mix of institutions, offering extended pluralism and a wide range of normative frameworks. In Norwegian society, there are more norms than ever (Aakvaag 2013: 106). This is not only a challenge for Bauman, but also for Bourdieu.

Agency and power in Bourdieu Both Bauman and Bourdieu emphasise aesthetics rather than norms in their understanding of consumption. In contrast to Bauman, Bourdieu nevertheless presents a solid, embedded portrait of the actor. We find no theory of individualisation in Bourdieu. The analysis above demonstrates that segmentation is possible; we do find distinct lifestyles in Norway. Thus, Bourdieu offers a better understanding of consumption than Bauman: Bourdieu acknowledges the social dimension of consumption, and his theoretical framework has more explanatory power when confronted with empirical data. However, this is only half of the story. Bourdieu’s primary focus is on what divides us, not on what unites. His views on agency, fields and power all testify to this. Even if habitus operates on a subconscious level (Bourdieu 1977: 22), it nevertheless emphasises strategic action: people do not follow a rule because it is the right thing to do, but only ‘when there is more to be gained by obeying it than disobeying it’. He even makes the strong utilitarian claim that ‘practice never ceases to conform to economic calculation’ (Bourdieu 1977: 177). Even though the actors in a field share one fundamental doxa, the unquestioned belief and acceptance of the value of the field itself, they nevertheless behave strategically towards the rules of that field. Bourdieu ‘sees the scientific field as a market rather than a moral community where various so-called normative stances are viewed as strategies for struggle within the scientific field’ (Swartz 1997: 251, note 7). A field is mainly about the struggles over the value and relevance of different types of capital, and the prestige, privilege and power assigned to different positions in the field. This blend of instrumentalism and conflict perspective gives Bourdieu’s sociology a cynicism that makes it difficult to understand the high level of trust in Norwegian society. Bourdieu’s theory of power does not make things any easier. He sees power as a relational, zero-sum game: if someone has more capital, others, by definition, have less. Firstly, this must imply that economic capital means less as an instrument of power in a relatively egalitarian society like Norway. Secondly, cultural capital is also less important. Bourdieu ties cultural capital to the mastering of a legitimate high culture. It is doubtful if such a high culture exists in Norway (Danielsen 1998). For Bourdieu, taste implies distaste; it involves symbolic violence, ‘acts of humiliation and degradation through which the social hierarchy is reinforced’ (Aldridge 2003: 88). By contrast, the (upper-) middle class has internalised the egalitarian culture of Norway, and is reluctant to pass elitist judgements of taste, claims Ove Skarpenes (2007). He overstates his case: even in Norway, cultural distinctions of taste and

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distaste are not unimportant (Jarness 2014). However, in contrast to elitist France, in egalitarian Norway matters of taste are not such powerful tools of symbolic domination. Finally, in Bourdieu social capital is found in networks, groups or relationships individuals may draw upon in order to maintain or improve their relative position in society (Field 2003: 13–20). Social capital in this sense is surely useful in order to explain the reproduction of the privileges of individuals belonging to Norwegian elites. In his later political work, however, Bourdieu himself highlights the limitations of this instrumentalist conception. Like Bauman, Bourdieu is worried about the destructive impact of the primacy of markets in the neoliberal order. The situation is not hopeless; there are still resources for resistance ‘in the reserves of social capital which protect the whole block of the present social order from falling into anomie (a capital which, if it is not renewed, reproduced, will inevitably run out, but which is still far from exhaustion)’ (Bourdieu 1998a: 103). ‘Reserves of social capital’, not the state or markets, are presumably the ultimate source of social cohesion. The problem, however, is that this points to a wide-ranging understanding of social capital very different from his own instrumental, zero-sum conception. In Bourdieu, social capital is ‘an asset of the privileged’ (Field 2003: 20). Robert Putnam (1995: 664–5), in contrast, defines social capital as ‘features of social life – networks, norms and trust – that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives’. Norway is high on social capital in this broad, more Durkheimian sense (Wollebæk 2011), managing to combine efficiency and growth with equality, trust and solidarity.

Power, democracy and reflexive modernisation The Durkheimian quality of the social order in Norway has deep historical roots. Due to its geography, Norway has never been very suitable for agriculture, thus the aristocracy was weak in pre-modern times. With the transition to modernity, Norway lacked a strong class of industrial capitalists. Nineteenthcentury Norway was primarily an egalitarian rural society of small farmers and fishermen. This society was ruled by a small elite of state officials, who established a predictable, modern state. In the late 19th century, new urban elites of capitalists, intellectuals and artists emerged. Powerful social movements, however, confronted the power of the elites. ‘Modernization from below’ characterises modern Norwegian history: first small farmers, and later workers and women, successfully challenged the power of the elites, paving the way for a vibrant democracy and a generous welfare state. Putnam’s definition of social capital points towards a plus-sum conception of power: a society high on social capital is beneficial for many people, not only a privileged few. Norway has managed to develop what Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (2013) call ‘inclusive political institutions’. These are found in societies that combine a strong state, sufficiently centralised to maintain law and order, with a pluralistic distribution of power. The result is

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‘strong synergy between economic and political institutions’ (Acemoglu and Robinson 2013: 81), spreading the benefits of growth and modernisation to large segments of society. The management of the Oil Fund for the benefit of the whole population of Norway is an excellent example. The successful management of the fund demonstrates not only synergy and inclusiveness, but also that it is possible for a small country to enjoy autonomy. Contrary to Bauman, global elites do not dictate Norwegian politics. Norway’s ‘political intelligence in storing the legacy of its oil wealth, rather than squandering it in political advantage, leaves me close to awestruck’, writes Miller (2012: viii). By contrast, the most common reason why nations fail to modernise is that they have ‘extractive institutions’. A vicious circle ensues, concentrating power and privilege in the hands of the few, leaving the rest of the population in a chronic state of powerlessness and poverty (Acemoglu and Robinson 2013). My point is that neither Bauman nor Bourdieu offers a framework that makes it possible to understand why some nations manage to establish good, inclusive circles of development, while others are stuck in vicious, exclusive circles. They both have a ‘modernization from above’ perspective on the history of modernity and a zero-sum conception of power, one that stresses the limits of democracy and the power of elites. In Bauman’s solid modernity, the common people are minions, not citizens of a vibrant democracy like Norway and, from his perspective, the situation in liquid modernity is no better. We do not find a theory of reflexive modernisation in Bauman, in the sense of modernity empowering the subject. On the contrary, his portrait of the main character in contemporary society, the consumer, is reminiscent of the classical Greek definition of an idiot: an altogether private man, incompetent or uninterested in public matters. Bourdieu has problems with explaining change, and this is the main reason why his portrait of society is too solid. One basic theoretical intuition pervades much of his work: the idea that the established social order, ‘with its relations of domination, its rights and prerogatives, privileges and injustices, ultimately perpetuates itself so easily’ (Bourdieu 2001: 1, italics added). People experience the social order as something natural, as doxa, which is the main reason why it perpetuates itself so easily. The concept of habitus, however, is supposed to bridge structure and actor. Habitus is structured, it is determined; but there is also room for freedom and agency (Bourdieu 1977). Bourdieu’s strong theory of internalisation contradicts this: if there is always a perfect fit between positions and dispositions, where does the dynamism come from? His answer seems to be that in a period of crisis, a mismatch between positions and dispositions may evolve, disturbing habitus and opening for change (Bourdieu 2000, chapter 4). This is not satisfactory. Norwegian women no longer experience masculine domination as doxa, and no specific crisis has caused this change. There has been a gender revolution in Norway in recent decades; women are no longer exclusively housewives, but participants on equal terms with men in work, higher education and politics. Bourdieu (2001), by contrast, gives us the

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impression that Masculine Domination has not changed much; it is seemingly just business as usual. The problem is that Bourdieu also lacks a theory of reflexive modernisation.16 His (1977) paradigmatic example of an amalgamation between positions and dispositions is the traditional Kabyle society of Algeria (Swartz 1977: 113–14). Such a portrait of habitus, however, is not transferable to contemporary Norway. Lifestyles may be conservative, but they are far from static. The gender revolution is not the only example: in a dynamic, globalised, highly educated society like Norway, disturbances in habitus are a matter of routine; they are not caused by specific crises. Certainly, much of what we do is still pre-reflexive. Nevertheless, reflexivity on both an institutional and personal level characterises Norwegian social life (Aakvaag 2013), and this is a vital key both to the dynamism of Norwegian society and its vibrant democracy. This brings us to the matter of why the existence of more norms than ever is compatible with what Gunnar C. Aakvaag (2013) calls ‘a democratization of freedom’ in Norway. There is an alternative to Bauman’s fear of norms imposed from without, or the strategic orientations to norms in Bourdieu. The ultimate authority in Norwegian society is not the state, or markets, but democracy. No democracy is perfect, but Norwegian democracy is much closer to the ideal democracy portrayed by Jürgen Habermas (Aakvaag 2010), than the gloomy perspectives on democracy in Bauman and Bourdieu. This means that the norms regulating the basic institutions of Norway are not alien rules imposed on people from without, not ‘social facts as things’ (Durkheim 1895/1992): they are norms evolved through democratic processes, and open for further critical discussion and revision.

Conclusion Norway is indeed a rich society with a high level of consumption. In this chapter, however, I have argued that Norway is not a consumer society in the all-embracing sense envisioned by Zygmunt Bauman. Instead, Norwegian society is a colourful mix of social institutions, offering pluralism and a wide range of different normative frameworks. This pluralism provides plentiful resources for identity besides consumption, and work is still of primary importance for large segments of the population. Even if the reproduction of capitalism in Norway is dependent on consumption, the normative frameworks of the social institutions are much more important for overall social integration. Pierre Bourdieu offers a more convincing understanding of consumption than Bauman. Consumption is not highly individualised and anomic, it is deeply social and the patterns of consumption are stable over time. However, the lack of appreciation of the moral dimension of consumption connects to deeper, common problems in their sociologies. Bauman (2008: 142–3) praises the Nordic countries, not Norway in particular, for their ability to combine ‘social justice and economic efficiency, loyalty to the social state tradition and

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the ability to modernize swiftly … with little or no damage to the social cohesion and solidarity’. However, in order to understand how such a state of affairs is possible in the case of Norway, we need to go beyond both Bauman and Bourdieu. Their views on agency, power and democracy do not provide a framework that makes the high trust, solidarity, social cohesion and social justice of Norwegian society plausible. On the contrary, the sociologies of Bauman and Bourdieu offer a gloomy diagnosis of a world dominated by elites, characterised by inequality and injustice, with a lack of solidarity and trust. For Bauman and Bourdieu it is the duty of a sociologist to be critical. The uneven distribution of wealth and life chances is unjust and rests on arbitrary conditions. Both Bourdieu and Bauman emphasise that it is the task of the critical sociologist to reveal that society is a contingent, historical and manmade construction, in principle always open to change in different directions. Critical sociologists must also show how individual problems ultimately are rooted in social causes. However, it is difficult to see the liberating effect of this critical sociology. Both Zygmunt Bauman and Pierre Bourdieu are the masters of their own sociological universes, and there is a seemingly unbridgeable gulf dividing them from the people who are the presumed benefactors of the liberating sociology they offer. People portrayed as minions, idiotic consumers or doped on doxa are hardly the most responsive audience for a critical sociology.17

Notes 1 Human Development Report (2014), available online at http://hdr.undp.org/en/con tent/human-development-report-2014 2 Thanks to Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Rønnaug Sørensen and Gunnar C. Aakvaag for useful comments. 3 In this chapter, translations from the Scandinavian languages are made by the author. 4 ‘If you take the life lie from an average man, you take away his happiness as well’ (Henrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck). Aakvaag is quoted from an interview in Aftenposten, 30 November 2013. 5 Tony Blackshaw (2013) offers comparisons, with a special focus on leisure. Bauman (2002) discusses Bourdieu. 6 Title of chapter in Bourdieu (1998b). 7 GDP per Capita Ranking 2015. 8 See https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/energi/olje-og-gass/id1003/# 9 NOU 2012. 10 Mothers Index Rankings 2015. 11 Eurostat 2014. 12 See https://www.ssb.no/arbeid-og-lonn/statistikker/akumnd/maaned/2015-08-26 13 YS Arbeidslivsbarometer 2014: 47. 14 The newspaper was referring to data from the European Social Survey. 15 See https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/statsministerens-nyttarstale-2010/id589483/ 16 Annick Prieur (2003: 320), however, finds much reflexivity in Bourdieu (1999). 17 There are many more accommodating readings of Bauman in the sociological literature. See, e.g., Dawson (2012), who finds ‘a very optimistic worldview’ in Bauman.

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Prieur, Annick (2006): ‘Bourdieus raseri: Sociologiens etiske og politiske projekt’, in Annick Prieur and Carsten Sestoft (eds): Pierre Bourdieu: En introduktion. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Putnam, Robert D. (1995): ‘Tuning in, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America’. Political Science and Politics, 28(4): 664–683. Skarpenes, Ove (2007): ‘Den “legitime” kulturens moralske forankring’. Tidsskrift for Samfunnsforskning, 481: 531–563. Swartz, David (1997): Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Tangen, Karl-Fredrik (2007): ‘Forbruk som kampsport: Pierre Bourdieus sosiologi som verktøy for forbrukerforståelse’, in Gerhard E. Schelderup and Morten W. Knudsen (eds): Forbrukersosiologi. Oslo: Cappelen Akademisk Forlag. Vrålstad, Signe (2011): ‘Utfordrende jobbhverdag i mange yrker’. Samfunnsspeilet, 5–6: 41–46. Wollebæk, Dag (2011): ‘Norges sosiale kapital i nordisk og europeisk kontekst’, in Dag Wollebæk and Signe Bock Segaard (eds): Sosial kapital i Norge. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk. YS Arbeidslivsbarometer (2014): Available online at: http://www.ys.no/kunder/ys/mm. nsf/lupgraphics/YS%20Arbeidslivsbarometer%202014.pdf/$file/YS%20Arbeidslivsba rometer%202014.pdf.

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Overcritique and ambiguity in Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology A long-term perspective Richard Kilminster

Introduction In this chapter I take a long-term view of Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology as such, leaving aside the party political dimension.1 I think that establishing the genesis, nature and scientific status of the works of any important sociological thinker is essential for a comprehensive understanding of their writings. This approach enables us to discern not only what their work is but also what it is not. It is a theme of this chapter – contra the tenor of some interpretations of his recent writings (see, for example, Jacobsen 2013; Wolff 2013) – that Bauman has not established a new hybrid discipline or field which blurs the distinction between science and art. In fact, his entire output is a form of social criticism which embodies a mode of thinking and a moral commitment to the plight of outcasts, the stigmatised and the excluded which goes back a very long way in his eventful biography. He applies and reapplies a critique of the deleterious consequences of life in a capitalist consumer society in the name of a radical, socialist alternative. This impetus is not always obvious in his copious and erudite works because of Bauman’s skilful use of diverse modes of persuasion, including ingenious metaphors, archetypes, literary tropes, guilt effects, rhetoric, stylistic switches and dialectical inversions. These devices are deployed in his writings as part of an effort to awaken moral obligations towards outsiders and constitute a continuation of that same calling or mission by different means. The vision of the realisation of a communist utopia of social equality found in Karl Marx has been decoupled by Bauman from the proletariat and transformed into the standpoint of the deprived and underprivileged generally. This provides him with a stance of permanent political opposition. He avowedly stands on the shoulders of Antonio Gramsci, who stated that since society is created by human praxis alone it was not inevitable that it should be the way it is. There was always the possibility that it could be different. In all of Bauman’s scholarly creation this ‘emancipatory’ moral obligation or ‘critical’ spirit takes precedence over everything else. These Marxian traces in his thinking shape the problems he tries to solve and the parameters of their solution, as well as his scornful attitude towards the sociologists with whom

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he disagrees or finds wanting, mostly on political grounds. This side of his work resembles in tone and intent the many other Marxist critiques of ‘bourgeois sociology’ in recent decades.2 As I will show, one consequence of all of Bauman’s intellectual labours being focused on one political priority is that from a sociological point of view his approach pays the high price of a severe narrowing of scope and results in significant theoretical lacunae. This is because Bauman does not see himself as contributing to the fund of reliable sociological knowledge in a cumulative fashion as part of an institutionalised academic discipline. Nor does he see sociology primarily as a voyage of discovery into the complexities of society to find out exactly how it functions and changes because there is a sense in which he already ‘knows’ what is wrong. For him, everything bad in society is a symptom of pathologies generated by global capitalism, sometimes referred to as liquid modernity. He keeps this conviction in focus by adopting the position of vigilant outsider, taking his distance from the sociological establishment. Yet he is inside it and outside of it at the same time. He advocates a conception of sociology as an activity of ‘critical’ self-reflection, relativising existing interpretations of social reality in the course of the activity of sociology itself. Social predictions are to be ‘ploughed in’ to the society, to become part of the historical context and potentially fulfilled or otherwise, depending on the play of social forces. This assumption, he argues, is by its very nature ‘obstinately opposed to conformity to the norms of academic respectability’ (Bauman 2001b: 52, my italics). In a recent interview, he also talks in very general terms of sociology as a ‘dialogue’ between sociologists and people’s daily experiences (Bauman et al. 2014: 98–9). Without specification, though, this conception of sociology remains opaque. How does this imperative relate to other attempts at ‘reflexive sociology’, ‘dialogic sociology’, more tolerance towards folk knowledge and ethnic knowledge, gay and lesbian perspectives or ‘taking findings back to the people’ which are widespread in contemporary sociology (see Kilminster 2004: 37)? No real participants in the dialogue are mentioned. Partners are said to be jointly clarifying the issues. Which partners? Which issues? The role of sociologists in these non-specific dialogues is defined as ‘defamiliarizing the familiar … and familiarizing the unfamiliar’ (Bauman et al. 2014: 98, italics in original). Such dialectical inversions do nothing to clarify his position and in any case these ideas are standard fare in any introductory sociology text. Bauman also talks in the same interview approvingly of ‘succulent (one could say “sensual”) words that appeal to the listener’s imaginative powers and evoke and rouse images’ (Bauman et al. 2014: 96, italics in original) as the best way for sociology to stimulate people’s reflections on their experience. However, it has long been recognised since Georges Sorel that in certain political contexts an uncontrolled, ad hoc appeal to emotions carries dangers of its own (Kilminster 1979/2014: 148ff; Horváth 1998). At the very least, Bauman’s ambivalent observations about ‘dialogue’ are in need of clarification. He acknowledges, as did Horkheimer, the precarious status of ‘critical theory’

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but tries to draw the teeth of this uncertainty by identifying with a mode of theorising which ‘knows of no criterion of its own validity except the practical transformation of the historical process’ (Bauman 2001a: 150). One can respect this risky stance whilst at the same time noticing that it effectively immunises Bauman in the here and now against any challenge to the results of the ‘critical’ theorising that he is seeking to actualise. This chapter argues, amongst other things, that this theoretical road leads into a cul-de-sac. In the first section after this introduction I will briefly locate Zygmunt Bauman’s work in the longer-term development of sociology since the Enlightenment, with reference to its bifurcation into Two Tracks in the 1840s. Before I do that I need firstly to make explicit a basic question closely related to it – that is, the relationship between sociology and philosophy. This question and the fate of philosophy itself after the ‘sociological revolution’ (Kilminster 1998) of modern times are issues of great moment and go beyond short-term disciplinary demarcation disputes between them. They have to be faced if we are to grasp the profound burden and responsibility that history has placed on the shoulders of sociology as the discipline to reframe philosophically posed problems, transforming them on to another level. The mainstream sociology tradition – notably as the sociology of knowledge – has found other ways of handling values and normative matters more systematic and convincing than the overwhelming emancipatory moral focus of Bauman’s activistic social critique (see Kilminster 1998: 53–4, 2004). His stance excludes the myriad of possible research priorities and other options for sociology, which could be of great benefit to people as well as contributing to the general fund of human knowledge. Bauman only raises this highly controversial issue of the status of philosophy in the limited context of specifying the nature of critical theory (Bauman 2001a: 138–63). He calls for sociology to take over more areas of epistemology traditionally ceded to philosophy, notably the ‘truth-grounding’ of normative beliefs which sociology can show are shaped by historical conditions (Bauman 2001a: 162–3). Here he is not advocating the building of an independent and comprehensive sociological epistemology to supersede the philosophical one. He is simply restating his position that the problem of truth is ultimately the sociological question of the historically shaped conditions under which normative beliefs are founded, in which he envisages the confirmation of all truth claims ‘only in the changed social conditions they themselves help to bring about’ (Bauman 2001a: 160). It is likely that Bauman’s neglect of the issue of the autonomy of philosophy’s area of competence is partly accounted for by his early immersion in this branch of learning in Warsaw after World War II. A central theme in this chapter is how this phase in the development of Poland profoundly shaped Bauman’s sociological outlook, in which there remain significant Marxian traces. For Bauman, the issue of the status of philosophy would pale into insignificance against the political importance of philosophers in Poland and in the other Eastern European communist countries before 1989. They were in the forefront of revisionism and criticism of

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these regimes, the most famous in the Polish context being Bauman’s former colleague and fellow exile Leszek Kołakowski. When Bauman is writing as a philosopher he is fluent, confident, well versed, knowledgeable and clearly very sure of what he is doing and why, such that he never questions its status. Many of Bauman’s more theoretical writings (too numerous to cite) are couched entirely in philosophical language, frequently using transcendental arguments (for example, Bauman 1993: 62–81; see critique in Kilminster 2010), metaphysical concepts, appeals to reason and argument, epoché, subject and object, being-in-the-world, totality, life-world and many other concepts and philosophical ways of thinking quite uncritically as a matter of course. It seems that to question the cognitive value or intellectual credentials of philosophy would be for him simply unthinkable. In other words, the autonomy and authority of philosophy is an absolute which he is not prepared to relativise. In the contemporary context seriously to question what should be the appropriate relationship between philosophy and sociology would probably seem to Bauman to be an indulgent and petty part of the self-serving, professional rivalries within academic institutions. It would appear to be of little consequence measured against the urgency of exposing global society’s blatant injustices in wealth and privilege. Hence, the agonised debates between philosophers and sociologists on this issue in Weimar Germany, for example, have passed him by completely (see Frisby 1992: 198ff; Kilminster 2007: 18–36; Kilminster and Wouters 1995; Baehr 2002). The power of the philosophy establishment to impose its categories onto disciplines of lower rank, such as sociology, and sociologists’ automatic deference towards philosophers, has remained undetected by Bauman’s normally sharp eye for the presence of power in social life more generally. Bauman fails to see this disciplinary relationship for what it is because he works with an adapted version of the traditional Marxian distinction between class struggle and class rivalry. In his book Freedom, Bauman argues that consumerism involves the ‘symbolic rivalry’ of people in a ‘special reserve where free individuals may operate unconstrained [sic] and without damaging the basic network of power relations’ (Bauman 1988: 60–1). But these apparently ‘free’ individuals are at the same time intertwined with the network of power relations (economic in this case) which he imagines is just a backdrop to their revels on the stage of consumer pleasures. Be that as it may, from this point of view Bauman is fated to misread as rivalry the balance of power between the philosophy and sociology establishments (Elias 1982/ 2009; Kilminster 1998, chapter 1). I will now turn to the crucial bifurcation of European sociology in the 1840s, when the problem of partisanship in social science first began to surface widely in the consciousness of the early pioneers.

Sociology’s two tracks and sociological psychology A long-term perspective confirms the obvious – that Zygmunt Bauman’s work is firmly embedded in the 20th-century continuation of what I call Track I in the development of sociology at an important turning point in the 1840s that

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I have named the ‘dawn of detachment’ (Kilminster 2014). This track is the highly politicised, intransigently partisan strand inaugurated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as a synthesis of Hegelian thought, communism, socialism and political economy and taking the ‘standpoint of the proletariat’ as it later became known. (Track II is the relatively more detached strand, which follows.) Out of Track I has come the Marxian approach that informs a morally and ideologically committed sociological inquiry of an avowedly ‘critical’ kind, which continues to pervade the discipline in many guises, including in the work of Bauman (Kilminster 2011, 2013a). The tenor of virtually all of Bauman’s immense output – particularly obvious in his recent writings – confirms it as an example of what I have termed ‘overcritique’, a one-sided form of melodramatic, total social criticism which developed in the late 20th century out of the Critical Theory branch of Western Marxism as the long-delayed socialist revolution failed again and again to materialise (Kilminster 1979/2014, 2013a). All of the pioneers in both tracks understood the ‘social’, ‘society’ or ‘socius’ as Adam Smith called it (Salomon 1963: 206–13) as a distinct level of reality in its own right within the socio-natural complex. This was termed later by Émile Durkheim as a reality sui generis and was subsequently more precisely named as the social ‘level of integration’ by Norbert Elias (1978/2012: 42–3, 100–1). It contained autonomous extra-individual phenomena upon which the new specialists could apply their empirical research skills. The point is that the recognition of this level gave the sociologists an independent ‘object’, to use the philosophers’ term, to which they could claim authority to investigate empirically. As the 19th century unfolded and philosophy began to become increasingly institutionalised, the philosophers in reaction began to redefine their area of expertise as non-empirical reflection of various kinds, including on the sciences (Kilminster 1998: 2–26). Both sociology pathways continue until the present day as relatively autonomous traditions, with some crossovers, common ground and politicised hybrids. Track II, the more detached, non-partisan path, developed initially as political economy in the late 18th century. The social level of integration had first been experienced and systematised in its economic mode (Kilminster 1998, chapter 1, 2013b: 44–52). The development of this strand was later significantly shaped by the social tensions before and after the 1848 revolutions. Its consolidation was considerably augmented by the precocious Hegelian political economist Lorenz von Stein, who anticipated Marx’s historical, materialist conception of class struggles several years before him (Singelmann and Singelmann 1986: 440ff). The development of sociology in this phase was exemplified by Henri Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, Victor Considerant and others. It continued into the 19th and 20th centuries in various national traditions with Herbert Spencer, Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Karl Mannheim, Norbert Elias, Talcott Parsons and many others. Writers on this track have taken seriously the challenge of suspending political partisanship and have built on political economy. It is a sociological commonplace that this broad tradition has focused in particular on the role of non-economic

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factors in the social process and, hence, the differentiation of the sources of social power. As well those foci, Track II has inaugurated the development of a systematic ‘sociological psychology’ (Weber, Mannheim, Elias, Erich Fromm, Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills). In stark contrast, the lack of a developed social-psychology in Bauman’s work is striking. In his English language writings under his sole authorship, at any rate, he has not shown any sustained interest in building bridges between sociology and psychology, nor psychoanalysis or any other psychodynamic approach. He works with a ‘black box’ view of individuals, which is all he needs to draw attention to the connection between ‘private troubles and public issues’ (Mills 1959/2000: 11–12) which is his central concern as a social critic. In the spirit of this undertaking there has been promising recent empirical research, building on Elias, which has explained sociologically a shift in the internal balance of id-, ego- and super-ego functions within the psyche over recent decades and traced their behavioural and intellectual consequences (see, for example, Kilminster 1998: 163–5, 2004; Wouters 1998). This work is a fertile untapped resource which shows a shift in that balance more towards the ego and away from the super-ego dominated personality of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Evidence suggests that this process has eventuated in the more flexible and reflexive ‘third nature’ personality of contemporary people who have easier controlled access to previously heavily repressed emotions (Wouters 1998). This work could illuminate sociological analyses of consumerism, particularly that of Bauman, by providing a more nuanced, relational interpretation. It would take into account the real attitudes of consumers towards contemporary consumerism than is possible with Bauman’s one-dimensional approach, which is marred by a thinly concealed disdain for the activity itself. In trying to explain this psycho-dynamic hiatus in Bauman’s oeuvre it is important to realise that Marx and Engels and many of the early writers in what became the orthodox Marxist tradition in which Bauman was initially schooled (for example, Karl Kautsky and Vladimir Lenin) were all, in their scientific presuppositions, effectively pre-Freud. This meant that they were not predisposed to explain sociologically, as part of a unified research programme, the ways in which changing social forces shape shifts in people’s psychic makeup on both the conscious and unconscious levels, even if those thinkers were probably aware of the problematic. Later, in the 1930s, Marxist writers such as Fromm and Theodor W. Adorno did begin to move in the direction of systematically attempting to fuse social science with psychoanalysis. It is surprising that as a humanist Bauman has shown no interest in that venture. Predictably, then, Bauman’s recent indictments of consumerism, popular culture and communitarianism (Bauman 1997, 2002) are not based on an inquiry constructed with the psychosocial, integrative intent of Fromm, Adorno or, in a different fashion, Norbert Elias. Rather, his evaluation is informed largely by a Marxian-socialist political critique of liberal

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individualism, which is an abiding focus in Bauman’s writings (for example, Bauman 1976a: 42–8). He is dismissive of contemporary experiments with individual expressivity, self-identity and neotribalism, seeing them as ersatz liberalistic egoism (Bauman 1997: 79–82). They are found wanting, judged against the dialectically ‘true’, solidaristic individualism, achievable only in a socialist society, in which the totality of individual life has been incorporated at the societal level into a community of equal people (Bauman 1976a: 43). We can surmise that, for Bauman, set against the emancipatory potential of that abstract possibility as the goal of sociological effort, the idea of contributing towards an empirically based sociological psychology would be seen simply as a distraction. (I will expand on the important role of dialectics in Bauman’s thought in a later section.) An important upshot of this discussion is that in Bauman’s work, unlike that of some members of the Frankfurt School or, in a different way, that of Elias (see Bogner 1987), psychoanalysis as a human science is systematically absent. In Thinking Sociologically (Bauman 1990a: 101–2) Bauman subsumes psychoanalysis into his comprehensive indictment of commodification and consumerism in a capitalist society. Bauman reduces the therapeutic encounter between analyst and analysand to a business transaction in which the patient ‘buys an illusion of being loved’. Professional analysts dupe patients into mistaking the ‘as-if ’ conduct of the analyst for an expression of real love, which drives patients over the line of the strictly business-like impersonal terms of the encounter, sometimes provoking inappropriate behaviour. All therapies are for Bauman ‘a love substitute’. With no mention at all of countertransference, he asserts that the psychoanalytic exercise is ‘plagued with the so-called [sic] transference’ (Bauman 1990a: 100–1, all italics in original). In Bauman’s interpretation there is no appreciation of the analyst’s rigorous training, the nature of the analytic presence, the analytic re-experiencing of past relationships or the elaborate structure of supervision and ethics in the profession. Bauman’s interpretation of psychoanalysis is a travesty and appears to be based on hearsay. It is impossible to take it seriously. The absence of a credible understanding of this field in Bauman’s work is to the detriment of a comprehensive, humanistic understanding of people, which his perspective otherwise seems to demand. His strategy of searing overcritique blinds him to the nuances of Sigmund Freud’s seminal breakthrough (see Bollas 1999: 63). Having no systematic conception of the unconscious Bauman’s work lacks a fully relational understanding of people ‘in the round’. This deficiency is confirmed by his one-sided denigration of the therapeutic bond just mentioned, his failure to acknowledge both the habitus and real attitudes of the consumer, as well as the sufferings of relatively more powerful groups. Several schools of psychoanalysis since Freud (notably the Object Relations School, Group Analysis and Ego Psychology) are compatible with sociological analysis. Even Freud himself can be read sociologically, notably his metapsychology as well as his conception of the Oedipal constellation. Many concepts from these later schools lend themselves to being synthesised

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with sociology to provide systematic sociological insights into affective bonding, something missing from Bauman’s work as an organised focus. In a word, Bauman fatally fails to take psychoanalysis seriously as a fundamental human science, thus cutting himself off from a source of profound insights into human beings, their emotions and their social relations (see Bollas 1987, 1999; Craib 2001; Rustin 1991).

Marxism and partisanship Bauman’s cryptic comment that at a certain point he effected an ‘honourable discharge’ from Marxism (Bauman quoted in Bunting 2003: 22) as a way out of orthodox Marxism was probably intended to convey both a respect for its more ennobling historical expressions as well as its socialist ethical core which, in an adapted and philosophically reinforced form via the ideas of Emmanuel Lévinas, he retains. As he remarked, ‘I never became anti-Marxist as most did. I learnt a lot from Karl Marx and I’m grateful’ (Bauman quoted in Bunting 2003: 22). In his lecture ‘The Importance of Being a Marxist’ Bauman refers to the ‘breath-taking project of Marx’ (Bauman 1987: 4). A transition occurred in Bauman’s work when he came to realise, in Memories of Class (1982) several years before the collapse of communism, that it was no longer possible to justify Marx’s ‘identity between the working class and the problem of injustice’ (Bauman quoted in Kilminster and Varcoe 1992: 206). The traditional Marxist ‘standpoint of the proletariat’ had been transformed by Bauman into the standpoint of the less powerful or disadvantaged generally, but with no loss of passionate commitment and fervent hope. In the same lecture he assigns to the diffuse ranks of the deprived and outcasts a historical role akin to that once famously attributed to them by Herbert Marcuse in the late 1960s. Bauman declares: ‘[T]he undifferentiated mass of sufferers cast out by the dissolving industrial society waits to be forged, through struggle, into a new power strong enough to focus upon itself the redemptive aspirations of our times’ (Bauman 1987: 8). As he always insists, Bauman sees himself as outside conventional academia, beleaguered in an ‘alienated society’, its injustices concealed by routines, repetition and consumption, buttressed by common-sense knowledge, injustices which it is his vocation to expose. Making people aware of their alienation is evidently an uphill task, though. Talking about how the positivist mind reduces the individual’s ‘multi-faceted relation to his world’ to a cognitive category, he impatiently adds, ‘to his alienated world, I must constantly repeat’ (Bauman 1973b: 165). One important strand in Bauman’s worldview is the vision of an unalienated society of ‘true’ freedom as a utopian goal. This principle enables him – he suggests – to rise above the conventional academic dilemma of a choice between ideological commitment and ideological neutrality or so-called ‘value-freedom’, as he puts it. Bauman is very close to his teacher Julian Hochfeld’s view that the ‘true choice [is] between the conscious ideological involvement which is difficult

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and requires courage … and the bureaucratic ethos in science or the chaotic and almost thoughtless adaptation to professional-bureaucratic patterns of research’ (Bauman quoted in Adamek 1984: 206). More than forty years later Bauman had not forgotten his teacher: ‘There is no choice between “engaged” and “neutral” ways of doing sociology. A non-committal sociology is an impossibility’ (Bauman 2000: 216). The burden of my analysis in this chapter is to argue against the politicised way in which this ‘choice’ has been framed. It is posed as a coercive, evaluative and fallacious either/or one, designed to persuade the reader towards a consciously ideological kind of sociology of a specific kind, wrongly implying that there is no acceptable moral alternative. Bauman’s fervent partisanship leads him again and again into political overstatements in relation to many of the basic issues in sociological debates and the research of individual sociologists. For example, his approach to the venerable issue of positivism in the social sciences is typical (Bauman 1973b: 161–9). He does not stress the logical or empirical shortcomings of positivism, nor the applicability to all sciences of its idealised model of a true science as one pursuing empirical laws, which has been based on classical physics, but focuses solely on its apparent political and moral implications. Furthermore, Auguste Comte’s historical and differentiating theory of sciences is wrongly subsumed into the idealised model, thus suppressing completely his seminal, developmental breakthrough (for an alternative view, see Heilbron 1995: 200–1). Bauman nails his colours to the mast: ‘[P]ositivism is the self-awareness of the alienated society’ (Bauman 1973b: 163), which immediately suggests it is supposedly hand in glove with a less than satisfactory status quo that needs to be different. That is the conclusion also of his withering philosophical critique of ethnomethodology (Bauman 1973a). His argument is that since this paradigm adopts in practice the minimalist positivist model of science (nominalism, phenomenalism, value neutrality and unity of scientific method – four basic features derived from Kołakowski 1972), it is therefore politically apologetic (Bauman 1973a: 22). There is no consideration of the epistemological implications of Harold Garfinkel’s concepts of reflexivity and indexicality raised by writers such as Paul Attewell (1974) nor of the importance of Garfinkel’s perception, as an empirical research topic, of the ways in which people develop a sense of a social structure existing beyond their personal experience (Kilminster 1998: 122–3). Bauman is not interested in pursuing these kinds of questions. Once he has pigeonholed ethnomethodology as positivistic and thus an example of the sociology of ‘unfreedom’, he can abandon it and move on to another paradigm or writer and apply the same criterion. For Bauman, following Antonio Gramsci, the social structure which we inhabit and continuously create and recreate has an important cultural aspect. This perspective is basic to Bauman’s anti-positivism. Social phenomena are not simply an object ‘out there’. Various cultural items and codes continuously shape its structure, which is inseparable from them. This process simultaneously generates and maintains orderliness (Bauman 1972: 310–1)

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through human praxis. Variants of this notion inform diverse anti-orthodox Marxisms (Kilminster 1979/2014) including Bauman’s, reaffirming that people can in principle themselves refashion into a new arrangement the human world that they themselves have made. Under certain conditions, a view of the world can reshape the structure into a new range of possibilities. By trying to bring this about, Bauman argues that cultural sociologists can potentially actually help to create social reality instead of simply describing it. This inviting argument is an activistic version of the traditional Marxian search for the components of a revolutionary situation to inform political tactics, but now severed from the party ideology and expressed in cultural and semiotic language. However, there are weighty problems here, which the putative fusion of culture and structure in the model does not solve. It is not a discriminating enough model of social and scientific change, which occur on different levels and at different rates. What can people change? What cannot be changed? What should be changed? What should not be changed? Who decides? What about unintended consequences? What would remain the same after the reshaping of the state of things? Like many writers whose sociological theory of society contains significant neo-Marxian traces, Bauman recoils from these important issues, probably for fear of being identified with conservatism, reformism or a generalised complicity in the unjust and alienated society. This would seem to be the implications of Bauman’s rejection of the ‘reformatory within conservative’ attitude in sociology (Bauman 1976b: 23). Another contentious issue is his frequent description of human society as ‘artificial’, meaning ‘not natural, not created independently of human activity’ (Bauman 1972: 315) and ‘essentially pliable’ (Bauman 2001a: 151). It is ‘substituted for the natural one’ (Bauman 1972: 315). If this were true, it would suggest the fantasy of a virtually unlimited capacity for humans to construct and reconstruct the social world as they please, unhindered by their biological existence. Bauman interposes society as an ‘artificial’ milieu between man and nature, but man is inconceivable outside society or as severed from biological nature, as evolutionary biology (another human science) tells us. A long-term view suggests that society was made possible by prior evolutionary preconditions and the shape of society partly reflects our biological needs for survival, which have compelled collective human cooperation, the structures of which have been passed down to us and adapted over millennia (Elias 1991/2011). ‘Nature’ is as human-made a category as ‘society’. But we would never consider that the natural sciences were sciences of something artificial. In a word, Bauman’s critical-cultural approach misrepresents the nature of sciences and the social sciences in particular, solely in order to facilitate a misleading, value-laden contrast between ‘Us’ the critical theorists (on the side of freedom) and ‘Them’ the traditional theorists (on the side of unfreedom). This is essentially a political judgement, strongly and dramatically affirmed in Bauman’s writings as part of his indictment of the ‘Durksonian’ sociological programme (Bauman 1976b, chapter 1).3 This Manichean contrast came

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partly from opposition to officialdom in Poland during the 1950s and 1960s, with the official historical materialism being identified as positivism par excellence. It was reinforced in a similar form by the Frankfurt School, the work of whom has a strong affinity with Bauman’s sociology. For them, ‘traditional theory’ was synonymous with positivism, against which the emancipatory ‘critical theory’ was decisively opposed (Horkheimer 1937/ 1972: 210–1; Adorno 1976). This politicised interpretation of the nature of sociology in Bauman’s writings found a ready audience in the United Kingdom amongst younger sociologists because the industrial and generational conflicts of the late 1960s–1970s and the Cold War generated conditions favouring such a strong polarisation of social and political thought (Kilminster and Varcoe 1996; Kilminster 1998: 155–62). I would argue, on the contrary, that no science is ‘value-free’ but rather there are different types of evaluations institutionally embedded in them. The hallmark of all sciences is not the pursuit of empirical laws à la physics, but the level of relative detachment its organised practitioners are able to achieve from heteronomous evaluations extraneous to the research enterprise as such, in their inquiries into the structures and processes of their particular integrative level within the socio-natural complex (Elias 1987/2007: 72–3; Kilminster 2004, 2011, 2013b). Sociologists should adopt only the mindset or attitude of physicists towards the physical world, not a formal model of science based on their methods and the explanatory forms they employ. As Michael Gane (1992: 3) has rightly pointed out, Durkheim’s Rules of Sociological Method, wrongly written off as positivistic in the sense discussed above, was essentially a plea for a form of relative detachment. The relatively detached stance enables the pursuit of autonomous evaluations to do with fact orientation and the inherent order of what is being investigated, not short-term personal or social problems of the time. Furthermore, the pursuit of relative detachment in sociology carries no moral opprobrium. Bauman’s thinly concealed disapproval of many aspects of contemporary society is also reflected in his sweeping polemical judgements about the discipline he otherwise professes: ‘The orthodox consensus of sociology has been found guilty of aiding and abetting the all-too-often unwholesome practices of the nation-state’ (Bauman 1997: 82). ‘Sociology has a long and distinguished record of sycophancy’ (Bauman 1997: 81), and communitarianism ‘stands charged of complicity in the unprepossessing effects of the present fashions in identity-building’ (Bauman 1997: 82). The problem is that the erroneous association of sociology with ‘unfreedom’ and all these other severely negative associations which Bauman tabulates can needlessly dishearten and disturb younger and budding sociologists in their efforts to be systematic and relatively detached in their empirical-theoretical inquiries – already a challenging enough task in itself (Kilminster 2004). Based on a false premise, Bauman is apparently consciously trying to generate in the minds of sociologists the needless guilt of complicity with domination and, furthermore, that he thinks that generating such guilt is a good thing.

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From Marx to modernity The dualism of two Marxisms (‘open’/humanistic versus ‘official’/orthodox) was born of political accommodation (see Tester 2002: 60). Amongst liberal-minded, humanistic intellectuals in the context of Poland prior to 1989 when their country was still ruled over by the Russian communists, there was really only one democratic and humane choice – ‘open Marxism’ – but one that automatically came with the ‘dissident’ or ‘revisionist’ label (see Kołakowski 1971). As Stefan Morawski, one of Bauman’s colleagues at the time, has said of the late 1960s in the University of Warsaw: ‘We were re-born to be regular dissidents’ (Morawski 1998: 32). However, ‘open’ Marxism is still Marxism. In my view, contra Hochfeld and Bauman, the true choice is between either a consciously ideological neo-Marxian ‘critical’ sociology or the sociology of knowledge, which I believe is synonymous with sociology as such. The latter discipline, properly construed, provides a vehicle by way of which the one-sidedness, one-dimensional and politicised approach of writers such as Bauman can be corrected. At the same time, the systematic and evaluative issues posed in the characteristic Track I fashion are moved on to another level altogether, which is the point of departure for this chapter and upon which I have elaborated at length elsewhere (Kilminster 1998, 2014). In his pursuit of a politically committed sociology of a specific kind Bauman’s writings are shaped by a conventional conception of ‘modernity’ (Bauman 2001c: 163–72). This high-level and contested abstraction carries a great deal of descriptive and quasi-explanatory weight in Bauman’s work, complementing and often supplanting his focus on capitalism. The broad-brush presentation of various loosely defined manifestations of ‘modernity’ enables Bauman to avoid any hint of ‘economic determinism’, an anathema to the revisionists because of its conception of historical necessity and association with the official historical materialism. He formulates a generalised sequence of varieties of ‘modernity’ (late modernity, postmodernity, heavy and liquid modernity, etc.). But their temporal boundaries and the motor of change taking us from one to the next are left in ambiguity. This tableau avoids even an adapted form of the traditional Marxian conception of specific stages in the development of the forces and relations of production (ancient, Asiatic, feudal, bourgeois, socialist, communist), each arising from the previous stage through its own internal dynamic. Of course, it is well known that Marx’s model of base and superstructure through which these phases were expressed contained dualistic and metaphysical hangovers, including ‘being/consciousness’, ‘pre-history’, form (relations) and content (forces) of production, ‘existence/essence’ and ‘contradictions’. But at least Marx’s model, for all its flaws, embodied a constructive conception of stages as having both a character of their own as well as a mechanism whereby each phase developed into another. It could be a useful point of departure for theoretical adaptations. ‘Relations of production’, for example, is a conception amenable to long-term empirical research into power differentials in the

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economic realm. Apparently in reaction to any whiff of historical necessity, Bauman does not appear to have made any attempt to embrace or to develop a theory of social development at all, nor to posit any proposition as to the way in which demonstrable structured change occurs on a number of levels and in part-processes. Implicitly, Bauman appears to have adopted what Karl Wittfogel called ‘developmental agnosticism’ (quoted by Goudsblom 1989: 24). The abstract and static concept of ‘modernity’ in Bauman suffices because it is well suited for social, political and moral critique and for keeping to the fore Bauman’s focus on culture and the open door to literary tropes. It comprises a suggestive but highly generalised characterisation of modern societies around such features as rationality, historicity, dynamism and fragmentariness. In his enthusiasm Bauman has occasionally even personified modernity as an entity with plans and intentions. He talks of modernity ‘coming of age’ and ‘consciously abandoning what … it was unconsciously doing’ (Bauman 1990b: 23). Clearly, though, modernity is not a social-structural concept, so does not lend itself to the theoretical task of delineating, in cross-fertilisation with empirical evidence, sociogenetic and psychogenetic structured changes. There is only the loosest suggestion of periods, epochs or a sequential order. As Johan Goudsblom (1989: 16–17) once said, ‘all chronological sequence tells us is that one thing came after the other; a succession of phases has the advantage of suggesting other relationships as well, and it therefore offers the possibility of an explanation’. In a word, it seems that Bauman has thrown out the developmental baby with the orthodox Marxist bathwater. A long time ago, Karl Mannheim drew attention to the fallacy of equating inevitable progression towards a utopian outcome with any concept of structured change in a specific direction: ‘We need not apply teleological hypotheses to history to realise the structured character of change’ (Mannheim 1933/1956: 72).

Bauman and dialectics The quantum leap in Zygmunt Bauman’s prodigious output of books and articles since 1989 is nothing short of an academic phenomenon. He sometimes jokes in interviews that his workrate increased because retirement freed him from the burdens of university administration. But this quip has to be taken cum grano salis. This extraordinary outpouring was undoubtedly stimulated by the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union, under the yoke of which he and many others in the Eastern bloc had so grievously suffered. As everyone knows, this momentous event led to the independence of these countries, including Poland; the reunification of Germany, the country that had perpetrated the Holocaust in Bauman’s own homeland; and the end of the Cold War. For Bauman, as an exiled, revisionist, Jewish, socialist Pole living in the United Kingdom, whose wife Janina Bauman had survived the Warsaw Ghetto, these recent historic events must have been of visceral significance.

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From these geo-political realignments there emerged a new European and global formation of nations. Bauman was one of the first observers of the end of communism to see that it had produced a condition of ‘liminality’ in Eastern Europe (Bauman cited in Horváth 1998: 341). In this new, exhilarating but topsy-turvy world, postmodernism (with which Bauman flirted for a while) flourished as time-honoured political allegiances were being rethought. It was a situation in which old ways of doing things were in doubt. As Hamlet cursed: ‘The time is out of joint; O curs’d spite/That ever I was born to set it right!’ Marxism-Leninism, already discredited by the Polish and other Eastern European revisionists, including Bauman (Kołakowski 1978: 462–6, 1975/2012: 111–14), finally collapsed. The hopes for a revitalised, ethical socialism developing in the fledgling democracies which emerged from the ruins of communism were dashed by the sudden and unregulated free-market reforms in those countries and in Russia. At the same time, economic individualism, privatisation and other free-market reforms swept the board across Europe and Russia. After this watershed, Bauman’s works became increasingly philosophical, rhetorical and ominous, gradually morphing into tragic pessimism, for which he has often been criticised (Bunting 2003; Davis 2011). What disappeared from Bauman’s work were the measured and professional books and articles of his early period in the United Kingdom in which his moral-political impulse was present but subdued. Since the 1990s his works have taken on a different register, leaning increasingly towards social philosophy (his original discipline) and away from sociology, sensu stricto. To be sure, these later works do contain a sociological understanding of certain kinds of power differentials. But very much to the fore are sustained rhetoric, suggestive metaphors and stylistic switches between literary, philosophical and sociological idioms, which draw the well-read reader into his moral worldview. He is rightly admired as a considerable stylist in a language not his native tongue. The range of literary, philosophical, sociological and Biblical quotations, allusions and references in his works is truly remarkable. Bauman has always revelled in ambivalence, liminality, ‘betwixt-and-between’ phenomena, mutually defining dualisms, ‘sliminess’, conceptual tensions and interdependent oppositions. Davis has referred to his ‘will-to-dualism’ (Davis 2008: 103–7). It is this ‘dialectical’ feature which partly makes his work arresting and suggestive, but at the same time elusive. The bleak social landscape painted by Bauman, which has jarred for many readers, and the vexed question of his careless attitude towards empirical evidence, make sense once it is realised that he is an exponent of ‘dialectics’, which involves relentless social critique through negation. Dialectics lies deep in Bauman’s philosophical thought, although it is not always obvious. This form of thinking is synonymous with much of the Track I tradition, although Bauman’s nuanced dialectical formulations are a far cry from the mechanical formulae of historical materialism and ‘diamat’ associated with Soviet Marxism. Dialectical thought usually exposes hidden interests and powers and violates conventional rules of explanation, driven forward often by a vision of

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perfection or utopia pervading the sorrowful present as a potential, awaiting realisation. Georg Lukács could assert, without hesitation or irony, that the ‘developing tendencies of history constitute a higher reality than the empirical “facts”’ (Lukács 1923/1971: 181). For dialectics, this level is regarded as fundamentally ‘more true’ and ‘more ethical’ than the empirical reality. As Leon Rappoport (1984: 104) has pointed out, critical theorists such as Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse (and Bauman too, I think) ‘were delighted to curse the darkness while obstinately refusing to light any empiricist candles’. Robert Heilbroner got to the nub of the contrast between ‘rational-empiricist’ social science and dialectics: To use the language of discursive thought (that is, the language built on empirical generalizations and logic) is to use a language that rules out the very ambiguities, Janus-like meanings, and metaphorical referents that are the raisons d’être for a dialectical view. Dialectics seeks to tap levels of awareness that defy the syntaxes of common sense and logic. To present dialectics as a set of generalizations derived from empirical observations, or as an exercise in logic, is to betray the very purpose for which dialectics exists. (Heilbroner quoted in Rappoport 1984: 104) Bauman is fluent in both idioms and even experiments with fusing them, but dialectics is his theoretical preference. Metaphors, rhetorical dexterity and literary tropes are bread and butter to the dialectician. The centrality of this form of thinking is at one with Bauman’s self-image as an outsider to the institutional sociological establishment. This much he shares with Marx himself, who in the afterword to the second German edition of Capital affirmed his commitment to the idea of history as a dialectic. Such a dialectic was ‘the scandal and abomination of bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors’ (Marx 1873/ 1970: 20) who took the existing state of affairs as a positive, fixed datum, ignoring both its contradictory genesis and its negating tendency. Responding to the charge of excessive pessimism in his writings, Bauman implied that there is a dialectical way beyond the two alternatives of optimism and pessimism. He left the truth of the matter to active fulfilment in the real world: ‘[T]he left places itself in the third camp: that of hope’ (Bauman quoted in Davis 2011). The appeal to hope, which is a recurring theme in Bauman’s writings, fits well with his dialectics. Norman O. Brown saw the connection: ‘Dialectics rather than dualism is the metaphysic of hope rather than despair’ (Brown 1968: 82). From the point of view of style, dialectics shapes Bauman’s prose into elliptical formulations, which can come across as elusive, inconclusive, almost unclassifiable and for those reasons oddly appealing. Dialectical formulations do have an arresting and inscrutable aura. F. H. Bradley once declared that ‘What may be, if it also must be, assuredly is’ (Bradley 1893/2011: 199, italics in original). Bauman persuades intuitively through oblique, enigmatic diction which works on the reader’s emotions, even though he does not include

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emotions or the unconscious systematically into his theory of society. Aloof from all but the most unsystematic empirical evidence, Bauman relies on various other devices, including the use of mythical archetypes, which has also been noted by Ali Rattansi (2014: 909; see also Horváth 1998). These stock characters are the stuff of folk tales, fables, epics and myths. The main ones Bauman uses for people or groups will be known to all his readers: vagabonds, nomads, outlaws, wastrels, outcasts, gamekeepers, gardeners, hunters, parvenus, strangers, pariahs, flâneurs and pilgrims. These types are traditional trades, crafts or archaic figures from ancient narratives. When we encounter mythical figures we feel we have always known them. Already pregnant with meanings, they work well for Bauman as a way to disrupt complacency. As categories they have not emerged organically from the relationships or groups to which Bauman assigns them. They are consciously and evaluatively applied, often in pairs such as tourists/vagabonds or settler/ nomad, to insinuate enigmatically what is morally wrong in modern society across a variety of empirical instances, whilst sidestepping concrete political referents (see Tester 2002: 60–2). Bauman exploits the archaic, folksy aura of these proverbial types to try to mobilise guilt and feelings of responsibility on the part of those innocently benefiting from advantages or freedoms in contemporary society. Unconscious images are channelled by the archetypes to make the reader believe that they have perceived something iniquitous previously hidden in what they have hitherto taken for granted: that is, the presence of the domination of the powerful at the expense of the disinherited. Coupled with his prominent underdog’s perspective, this feature goes a long way towards explaining the appeal of his writings as a ‘means of orientation’ (Elias 1987/2007: 163–8; Benthem van den Bergh 1986) for people concerned about social disadvantage and exclusion in a rapidly globalising world and looking for someone or some power to blame. Bauman’s idiosyncratic recent writings have been interpreted as trying to blur the distinction between science and art by incorporating various literary devices into his sociological reflections (Davis 2013; Jacobsen 2013; Wolff 2013). This recent literary, poetic tendency in Bauman’s writings is tailored to the rapidly changing, apparently chaotic, mutating world of contemporary global consumerism as he sees it. The reasoning seems to be that poetry and novels are already closer to human feelings by definition, so are potentially well suited to reach a wider range of people on an emotional level in order to awaken them to their moral obligations towards others. As I have argued, the reason for Bauman moving in this direction is largely pragmatic, as a shift to another means to continue his long-standing moral-political aims in another key, as sociology’s capacity to fulfil those critical aims has begun to wane in recent years.

Conclusion: the quicksands of ambivalence This chapter has brought a long-term perspective to bear on the sociology of Zygmunt Bauman. My aim has been to establish the nature of his work

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through studying its sociogenesis. A preliminary tracing of Bauman’s biography reveals the source and character of the backbone of Marxian theoretical assumptions in his work, which is not always visible through the hail of rhetoric and erudition so characteristic of his writings. It is the theoretical inertia of the Marxian tradition itself, as adapted to 20th-century European social, institutional and intellectual developments, that poses the problems he tries to solve and the parameters of their solution. Bauman’s fate has been to move from one kind of Marxism to another, from philosophy to sociology and back, to structuralism and semiotics, to literary tropes, archetypes and rhetoric – this way and that, testing various theoretical options and moving on again, as he himself admitted (in Kilminster and Varcoe 1992: 207). It is as though for Bauman, to paraphrase Silvia Plath, ‘the quicksands of ambivalence/is [his] life’s whole nemesis’. Bauman does not overtly commit himself to sociology as a discipline of cooperative, coordinated research that can develop cumulative knowledge of the human condition both for future generations as well as practical, policy considerations. It is the Marxian traces in Bauman’s work which shape the damning and sometimes mocking character of his discussions of the work of other sociologists whose work he usually disqualifies as sociologies of ‘unfreedom’ claiming society as the ‘best of all possible worlds’ (see note 2). Another obvious Marxian trace is Bauman’s self-image as an outsider in academic establishments. Yet, he has capitulated completely to the power of the philosophy establishment and uncritically absorbed the entire ethos and conceptual vocabulary of ‘continental philosophy’ in particular. He goes his own way, as a practitioner of dialectics distrustful of conventional politics and social science, looking towards a far more radical and fundamental social change, in the name of which contemporary society is relentlessly criticised and found wanting in every single respect. This is ‘overcritique’ (Kilminster 2013a). Bauman’s work has been stripped of sole identification with the proletariat, the conception of the historical inevitability of socialism and the notion of the party as the revolutionary catalyst. But one can say of his work what Lorenz von Stein said of Friedrich Engels’s The Condition of the Working Class in England 1844: it is ‘grandiose in its one-sidedness’ (von Stein quoted in Mengelberg 1964: 31). Unlike the work of Émile Durkheim, which he dismisses, Bauman’s partisan perspective is not balanced enough to concede the humane acknowledgement of the sufferings and afflictions of relatively more powerful groups with whom the less powerful are intertwined (Gane 1992: 8). One problem with overcritique is that by the force of its hyperbole the relatively more powerful or advantaged tend to be demonised and dehumanised. Relatedly, I also drew attention to the fact that Bauman has gained no systematic inspiration from psychoanalysis, his knowledge of which is highly deficient. He embarks upon an ambitious, sweeping critique of contemporary social conditions without a developed sociological and relational conception of the unconscious nor of affective bonding. Thus his conception of individual and society is essentially one-dimensional.

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Multiple political overstatements lead Bauman, with his cultural perspective, to misconstrue the structured character of society and its relation to non-human nature. He projects into humans a vaunting capacity totally to construct and reconstruct their social world as they please, or at least he minimises the limits. Bauman exaggerates the unstructured, mutating nature of a consumptionled society, even though he must be aware of, but chooses to ignore or diminish, the more durable aspects of society. An obvious preliminary list would include the enduring realities of language, tradition, customs, rituals, organisations, institutions, benign compulsions of human networks, far-flung interdependency chains, long-term patterns of human survival, generational processes, behavioural codes and human affective bonding. One does not have to be a conservative to recognise the reality of these enduring patterns as aspects of all social arrangements. This kind of knowledge has a crucial role to play in assessing what can and cannot be changed in society. Bauman also exaggerates the declining influence of nation-states and the loss of certainty in modern societies as a result. Hans Joas (2000: 8–9) has cited survey evidence of people’s value certainty to falsify Bauman’s judgement of the end of all certainty and the spread of value doubt in Western societies. Bauman would be suspicious of this finding because it limits his conviction of the total crisis of belief that he is trying to convince us exists. More broadly, the claim to truth of Bauman’s essentially transcendental social diagnosis will not be affected by falsifying evidence of this kind or the reality of counter-trends or the relative durability of institutions. He is reluctant to cede the existence of anything positive, fulfilling or life-affirming in the social world of the present. Even though traditionally the acceptance of the ‘progressive’ or ‘civilising’ social developments of the bourgeois era is basic to the dialectical perspective, something of which Bauman must be aware. However, his diagnosis still knowingly and adamantly paints an exaggerated, solely bleak and sombre picture of society. Faced with this puzzling stance, one can only ask with T. S. Eliot: ‘But to what purpose/Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose leaves/I do not know’ (Burnt Norton). In summary: Zygmunt Bauman’s position is the polar opposite of the ‘Durksonian’ perspective he so mercilessly attacked for its apparent societyjustifying character and incapacity to mount a critique of it (Bauman 1976b: 16). His stance is totally society-condemning and is incapable of mustering any praise for it. It not only contributes to gloom and pessimism but also evokes and reproduces, through a kind of contagion, exactly the bad things it relentlessly denounces. This feedback loop provides Bauman with the permanent vocation of unrelenting total critique, which then comes to form the very meaning of his life. His efforts are persistently unavailing though, because of the unrealisable model of a socialist utopia, derived from Gracchus Babeuf, which he pursues as a critical standard (Bauman 1976a: 44–6). This utopian vision proposes the incorporation of people’s whole lives concretely into authentic, Gemeinschaft-like relations integrated across the nation-state level as a whole. But it is clear that this vision cannot be

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accomplished because of the scale and character of the two differing levels of social integration involved: community and society. Furthermore, the developing complexities of European and global interdependencies in the contemporary period are tending to integrate people into even larger social units which only compound the impossibility of the aims. It is a strange mission that pursues the inherently unachievable in the full knowledge of its infeasibility. Bauman’s programme puts us on a critical treadmill, the dismal consequences of which Durkheim warned a long time ago in Suicide: ‘To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness’ (Durkheim 1897/1970: 248). Without careful specification of what can, cannot and should not, be changed in society, the driving force of Bauman’s social criticism – the guiding principle that society can always be ‘other than it is’ – peters out in its own vacuity.

Notes 1 It is worth pointing out that both as a doctoral student and colleague of Bauman’s at the University of Leeds in the 1970s and 1980s I was fortunate to have participated in the stimulating intellectual milieu which he created and sustained (see Kilminster and Varcoe 1996). I learned a great deal from Zygmunt, even though I moved away from his ‘critical’ approach towards the sociology of knowledge. I am very grateful for comments on an earlier draft of this chapter from Tim Bickerstaffe, Mark Davis, Stephen Mennell, Phil Sutton, Terry Wassall and Cas Wouters. 2 On the role of unspoken trauma in Bauman see Flanagan (2013:57–8). The enduring tensions and struggles Bauman’s intellectual life were finely evoked in Edwin Muir’s The Wheel: ‘How can I here remake what there made me/And makes and remakes me still?/Set a new mark?/Circumvent history?’ 3 In his vigorous criticisms of various prominent sociologists (Talcott Parsons, Émile Durkheim, Karl Mannheim, etc.) for their supposed part in perpetuating the ‘sociology of unfreedom’, Bauman unfortunately sometimes lapses into caricature and even ridicule. Just to mention two examples: firstly, Karl Mannheim’s pathbreaking contributions to epistemology and to the study of ideologies, the richness of his empirical research programme as well as his life’s dedication to the sociological vocation as an ultimate human obligation, are reduced by Bauman to Mannheim’s alleged belief that ‘history will hatch a special breed of eggheads enjoying a marginal position particularly propitious to the search for truth’ (Bauman 1978: 49). Bauman adds that Mannheim’s work is ‘articulated in too universal terms to make true understanding conceivable for matter-of-fact hoi polloi ’ (Bauman 1978: 110). Bauman is seemingly oblivious to the fact that this remark is also entirely applicable to his own sweeping and highly erudite publications. Secondly, Parsons’s formulation of the ‘Hobbesian question’, known also as the problem of order or the sources of integration in social systems, is mocked in the following way: ‘[H]ow to induce, force or indoctrinate human beings blessed … with … free will, to be normatively guided – and to routinely follow an orderly, predictable course of action; how to make people do voluntarily and gladly what they must and/or are compelled to do. Sociology was then, so to speak, a science and technology of unfreedom’ (Bauman et al. 2014: 97–8 italics in original). For a more balanced and charitable view of Mannheim, see Kettler et al. (1984); and for Parsons, see Münch (1987).

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Kilminster, Richard (1998): The Sociological Revolution: From the Enlightenment to the Global Age. London: Routledge. Kilminster, Richard (2004): ‘From Distance to Detachment: Knowledge and SelfKnowledge in Elias’s Theory of Involvement and Detachment’, in Stephen Loyal and Steven Quilley (eds): Norbert Elias: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 25–41. Kilminster, Richard (2007): Norbert Elias: Post-Philosophical Sociology. London: Routledge. Kilminster, Richard (2010): ‘Transcendentalism and Identity’, in Ronald Lee Jackson (ed.): The Encyclopedia of Identity, Volume II. London: Sage Publications, pp. 838–841. Kilminster, Richard (2011): ‘Norbert Elias’s Post-Philosophical Sociology: From “Critique” to Relative Detachment’, in Stephen Mennell and Norman Gabriel (eds): Norbert Elias and Figurational Research: Processual Thinking in Sociology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 91–116. Kilminster, Richard (2013a): ‘Critique and Overcritique in Sociology’. Human Figurations: Long-Term Perspectives on the Human Condition, 2(2). Kilminster, Richard (2013b): ‘Modernizing’, in Steve Matthewman, Catherine Lane West-Newman and Bruce Curtis (eds): Being Sociological. Basingstoke: Palgrave/ Macmillan, pp. 46–61. Kilminster, Richard (2014): ‘The Dawn of Detachment: Norbert Elias and Sociology’s Two Tracks’. Journal of the History of the Human Sciences, 27(3): 96–115. Kilminster, Richard and Ian Varcoe (1992): ‘Sociology, Postmodernity and Exile: An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman’, in Zygmunt Bauman: Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge, pp. 205–228. Kilminster, Richard and Ian Varcoe (1996): ‘Introduction: Intellectual Migration and Sociological Insight’, in Culture, Modernity and Revolution: Essays in Honour of Zygmunt Bauman. London: Routledge. Kilminster, Richard and Cas Wouters (1995): ‘From Philosophy to Sociology: Elias and the Neo-Kantians: A Response to Benjo Maso’. Theory, Culture and Society, 12(3): 81–120. Kołakowski, Leszek (1971): Marxism and Beyond. London: Paladin. Kołakowski, Leszek (1972): Positivist Philosophy: From Hume to the Vienna Circle. London: Penguin Books. Kołakowski, Leszek (1975/2012): ‘The Marxist Roots of Stalinism’, in Is God Happy? Selected Essays. London: Penguin Books, pp. 92–114. Kołakowski, Leszek (1978): Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution, Volume 3: The Breakdown. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lukács, Georg (1923/1971): History and Class Consciousness. London: Merlin Press. Mannheim, Karl (1933/1956): ‘Towards the Sociology of the Mind: An Introduction’, in Essays on the Sociology of Culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 15–89. Marx, Karl (1873/1970): Afterword to the Second German Edition of Capital. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Mengelberg, Kaethe (1964): ‘Introduction’ to Lorenz von Stein: The History of the Social Movement in France, 1789–1850. Totowa, NJ: Bedminster Press. Mills, C. Wright (1959/2000): The Sociological Imagination (with a new Afterword by Todd Gitlin). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morawski, Stefan (1998): ‘Bauman’s Ways of Seeing the World’. Theory, Culture and Society, 15(1): 29–38.

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Münch, Richard (1987): Theory of Action: Towards a New Synthesis Going beyond Parsons. London: Routledge. Rappoport, Leon (1984): ‘Dialectical Analysis and Psychosocial Epistemology’, in Kenneth J. Gergen and Mary M. Gergen (eds): Historical Social Psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 103–124. Rattansi, Ali (2014): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: An Adorno for “Liquid Modern” Times?’ Sociological Review, 62(4): 908–917. Rustin, Michael (1991): The Good Society and the Inner World: Psychoanalysis, Politics and Culture. London: Verso. Salomon, Albert (1963): ‘Adam Smith as Sociologist’, in In Praise of Enlightenment. Cleveland: Meridian Books. Singelmann, Joachim and Peter Singelmann (1986): ‘Lorenz von Stein and the Paradigmatic Bifurcation of Social Theory in the Nineteenth Century’. British Journal of Sociology, 37(3): 431–452. Tester, Keith (2002): ‘Paths in Zygmunt Bauman’s Social Thought’. Thesis Eleven, 70: 55–71. Wolff, Janet (2013): ‘The Question of Sociological Poetics: Metaphors, Models and Theory’, in Mark Davis (ed.): Liquid Sociology: Metaphor in Zygmunt Bauman’s Analysis of Modernity. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 176–190. Wouters, Cas (1998): ‘How Strange Our Feelings of Superiority and Inferiority to Ourselves?’ Theory, Culture and Society, 15(1): 131–150.

10 Keeping other options alive Zygmunt Bauman, hermeneutics and sociological alternatives Matt Dawson

Introduction This chapter seeks to go ‘beyond’ Zygmunt Bauman by advancing his view of the overall purpose and role of sociology. In particular, I will discuss the connections he draws between the vocation of sociology, his sociological hermeneutics method and the legislator and interpreters roles. By pursuing these connections Bauman has given us a particular and well-elaborated view of what sociology is and should be (Bauman et al. 2014); one which I hope to push in new directions.1 Reflecting on this vision of sociology Bauman once wrote that: By doing its job – re-presenting human condition as the product of human actions – sociology was and is to me a critique of extant social reality. Sociology is meant to expose the relatively of what is, to open the possibility of alternative social arrangements and ways of life, to militate against the TINA (‘There Is No Alternative’) ideologies and life philosophies. As an interpretation of human experience laying bare its invisible, hidden or covered-up links, the mission of sociology, as I understood it all along, was to keep other options alive. (Bauman 2008a: 238) This is undoubtedly a bold mission statement for sociology but one which I will suggest is consistent with Bauman’s method of sociological hermeneutics with its focus on conversation aimed at communal understanding (Bauman 1978). Nevertheless, such a view poses a potential problem. Namely, while Bauman perceives of sociology as ‘keeping other options alive’ he very rarely offers any ideas of what such other options, as I term them ‘sociological alternatives’ (Dawson 2016), might be. Furthermore, this unwillingness to discuss alternatives can be seen as due to Bauman’s embracing of the interpreter rather than legislative role for intellectuals (Bauman 1987). So, we might see this as a quandary; Bauman’s method – sociological hermeneutics – is concerned with what could be whereas his conception of what intellectuals are for – the interpretative role – closes down the possibility of discussing alternatives.

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This chapter is concerned with precisely this quandary and, by attempting to solve it, hopes to take the sociological hermeneutics method beyond Bauman’s conception. In what follows I will outline Bauman’s sociological hermeneutics perspective before turning to his distinction between legislators and interpreters. From there I will discuss how this influences Bauman’s discussion of alternatives. My argument will be that this initial quandary is in fact easily surmountable; it is intellectually consistent to adopt both the sociological hermeneutics method and interpreter role, while still discussing sociological alternatives. To argue this I will refer to the work of Ruth Levitas who sees the utopian vision as an inevitable, though long denied, element of sociological thinking. Levitas’s work complements Bauman’s description of sociological hermeneutics in three ways. Firstly, by placing utopianism as part of sociological practice it more fully allows us to relativise the present. Secondly, by recognising that utopias are not simply intellectual led but rather are part of human praxis they can be seen as part of the conversational sociology encouraged by sociological hermeneutics. Finally, Levitas’s work provides a qualification to the idea of liquid modernity being a time dismissive of utopias. Therefore, supplementing Bauman with Levitas helps us expand the scope of sociological hermeneutics by providing space for utopian ideals of what could be as part of, rather than distinct from, the critical discussion of what is.

Sociological hermeneutics For an intellectual career often seen as defined by distinct periods – the ‘Warsaw’ and ‘Leeds’ work, structuralism and after structuralism, postmodernity and then liquid modernity, Marxist and post-Marxist and so on – there is a remarkable level of consistency to the method Bauman utilises for his sociological outlook. This is sociological hermeneutics, central to which are two claims concerning the mission of sociology. Firstly, sociology embodies a hermeneutical approach in seeking to understand meaning by ‘rendering the obscure plain, the unclear clear’ (Bauman 1978: 7). Secondly, this search for meaning in the social world is not a task solely for sociologists. The use of phrases such as ‘he does not like it’ or ‘I think she means’ indicate daily attempts to understand meaning, and the attempts to gain consensus, used by actors (Bauman 1978: 213). Consequently, this perspective questions sociologists hoping to establish truth (in the form of laws concerning what verifiably ‘happens’) and consensus purely within the subject. The ‘hermeneutical challenge’ instead forces the question of understanding to be orientated away from a discussion internal to science concerning improving conceptions of universal laws – which are the illusions of social scientists rather than a reflection of scientific understanding where such ‘laws’ are correctly treated as mere statistical probabilities (Bauman 1978: 209) – and towards the ‘hermeneutic circle’ in which: Understanding means going in circles: rather than a unilinear progress towards better and less vulnerable knowledge, it consists of an endless

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Therefore, sociologists are confronted with a particular task. Since actors are knowledgeable subjects the focus of the sociological attempt at consensus and truth stretches ‘beyond the boundaries of sociology proper’ by bringing such knowledgeable actors into the conversation (Bauman 1978: 246). In so doing, the success of a sociologist is defined not by adherence to internal disciplinary laws2 but rather ‘can only be measured by the degree to which the opposition between consensus and truth is gradually reduced, and the problem of understanding as an activity distinct from communal life gradually disappears’ (Bauman 1978: 246). While, in one of the few actual breaks in Bauman’s intellectual career, Hermeneutics and Social Science took inspiration from Habermas and the attempt to achieve the pure communication act as a potential measurement of such success (Bauman 1978: 239–44), the principles of the sociological hermeneutics approach remain throughout Bauman’s sociology, even after Habermas was abandoned.3 He is always critical of sociology which renders actors as ‘dumb’ by seeing them as not conscious of the meaning of their actions and thereby creating a ‘unilateral break in communication’ between actors and the ‘expert’ sociologist (Bauman 2011a: 163–4). Instead he advocates the conception of sociology as a conversation with communal understanding, practised most prominently in his co-authored ‘conversation’ texts (Dawson 2015). Enacting sociological hermeneutics requires that the sociologist reads ‘the observed behavioural tendencies against the conditions under which actors find themselves obliged to go about their life-tasks’ which ‘can be seen as the sediments of the search for adequacy’ and meaning on the part of actors (Bauman and Gane 2004: 23). These tendencies – the way we orientate towards consumption, our responses to uncertainty and so on – need to be conceived of as choices made ‘in response to the challenges of the socially shaped situation and where one has been placed in it’ (Bauman et al. 2014: 50–1). Conversation can then proceed concerning the value of these claims. Understanding Bauman’s work via the sociological hermeneutics method then helps answer one of the criticisms offered against it, that he generalises the impacts of liquid modernity and perceives all as succumbing to its demands (Elliott 2007; Ray 2007). Instead Bauman’s concepts are attempts at ‘spotting the universal in the particular’ (Bauman 1978: 218) by highlighting the pressures upon individuals to act and the strategies they adopt in response. To expand on this, it is worth quoting Bauman at length: Sociological hermeneutics demands that the continuous and changing aspects of life strategies alike be traced back to the social figurations they

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serve … In all or most interpretations – those exercises in comprehension, in ‘making sense’ – the interpreted phenomena may be ascribed more system-like cohesiveness than they in fact demonstrate. What is in real life an agonizingly confused, contradictory and often incoherent state of affairs, may be portrayed as endowed with simple and regular features … And yet [the concepts discussed by Bauman] had to be offered ‘identities’ to separate them and distinguish from their alternatives, and hence little could be done to prevent them from appearing more self-contained and complete than they have ever been or can be … We do not live, after all, once in a pre-modern, once in a modern, once in postmodern world. All three ‘worlds’ are but abstract idealizations of mutually incoherent aspects of the single life-process which we all try our best to make as coherent as we can manage. (Bauman 1992a: 11) Therefore, to speak of ‘liquid modernity’, ‘consumer society’, ‘tourists and vagabonds’, ‘individualization’ or any of the other concepts Bauman utilises, is not to speak of exact universally applicable empirical descriptions of how people must and will act but rather to speak of the pressures under which they have to live and the strategies they may or may not utilise to respond to these. In his discussion of the consumer society, Bauman refers to these as ideal types which, following Weber, are ‘adequate at the level of meaning’ and are ‘meant to be “thought with” and serve as instruments to “see with”’ (Bauman 2007a: 24). Reflecting the sociological hermeneutics method, using ideal types means that ‘the sight of human practices becomes more comprehensive and clearer to the analyst’ while ‘opening up, it is hoped, the causes and the motives of their actions to the actors themselves’ (Bauman 2007a: 24). Consequently, the method of sociological hermeneutics puts a particular requirement on the sociologist. To use the example of consumerism, the goal of sociology is to understand the wider social forces and pressures which may encourage a certain orientation to, and embracing of, the universal human action of consumption as the liquid-modern form of ‘consumerism’. In doing so, as in Bauman’s work, we can turn to forms of capitalist accumulation, the functions of nation-states, changing class formations and technological advances. But, we should also be aware that the consumerist strategy – of being the ‘perfect consumer’ – even if widely adopted, is a strategy which can or cannot be ‘chosen’. In being sociologists, we should then recognise that this question of ‘choice’ has structural elements – we need to have the ability to pay for our consumerism – as well as moral elements, as in Bauman’s discussion of ‘The Choice’ between the morality of Friedrich Nietzsche and Emmanuel Lévinas opened up by a society in which we relate to others through the consumer choices we make (Bauman 2008b). Indeed, it has been suggested (Wallace 2015) that choice is the central concept in Bauman’s work since it is integral to his interest in questions of morality as:

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Consequently, sociological hermeneutics, through engaging in conversation with actors’ attempts to gain meaning in their responses to social figurations, opens up further questions of how we should live together and the moral responsibilities that come with sociality. These questions then feed back into the hermeneutic circle and aid our communal understanding. At this point, we are returning to our opening point of sociology ‘keeping other options alive’ which, as I have indicated, has a basis in the sociological hermeneutics method. To further explore this I will now turn to the relation of this method to Bauman’s work on legislators and interpreters.

Sociological hermeneutics and the legislator/interpreter distinction While Bauman’s work on the legislator/interpreter distinction is widely commented upon what has been somewhat overlooked is how Legislators and Interpreters, seemingly a book concerning modernity, postmodernity4 and the role of intellectuals, also has strong affinities to his method, with the interpreter the model of the sociological hermeneutics approach. My claim is that this link, while prima facie intellectually justified, in its implementation can lead to an unjustified narrowing of the scope of the sociological vision. Bauman argues the ‘legislator’ role sees the intellectual tasked with ‘making authoritative statements which arbitrate in controversies of opinion’. Such a role is ‘legitimised by superior (objective) knowledge to which intellectuals have a better access then the non-intellectual part of society’ (Bauman 1987: 4). This relies upon three assumptions. Firstly, the presence of a ‘gardening state’ in which the state ‘usurped the right to set apart the “useful” and the “useless” plants, to select a final model of harmony that made some plants useful and others useless, and to propagate such plants as useful while exterminating the useless ones’ (Bauman 1992b: 178–9). The legislator role required an agent to enact these authoritative statements; a nation-state concerned with creating the good society and extinguishing all ‘potential pools against its own rule’ (Bauman 1987: 50) was the perfect body to do so. Secondly, the modern urge for order, expressed by the garden state, had to be linked to particular groups. Here we have the birth of ‘the masses’ as a danger to this new civilisation (Carey 1992). These masses were seen by intellectuals as ‘needing the light of knowledge to cope with their life tasks’ and awaiting it from the newly intellectual fortified nation-state (Bauman

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1987: 38). Such knowledge came in a structured form, while ‘enlightenment was something the rulers needed; their subjects were in need of training, orientated towards discipline’ (Bauman 1987: 80). This also had a sociological function – the decline of aristocracy required a new elite to rule, whose justification becomes their ‘educated’ status, a process most prominently experienced in France (Bauman 1987: 32). In turn, education becomes the mechanism in which the masses, driven by pre-modern passions, were to be made into obedient subjects; they were the recipients of the ‘project’ of culture (Bauman 2011b), guided by the reason of the legislators: Having been stripped of the shoddy vestments of tradition, people will have been reduced to the pure, pristine state of the ‘man as such’, exemplars of the human species. They will then share just one attribute: the infinite capacity to be acted upon, shaped, perfected. Having been bared of old and shabby clothes, they will be ready to be clothed again. This time the dress will be carefully selected, meticulously designed, and cut to the measure of common interest, as prescribed by Reason … Those who will have to wear the dress in the end are neither capable of, nor likely to be willing, to make the right choice. The human species know of no limits to its power of perfection. (Bauman 1987: 68) Therefore, the gardening state charges itself with making the good society, but the ability to determine a ‘good society’ is claimed by the intellectuals.5 While these two factors fortified the power of the nation-state the third part of the legislator role could clash with it. Eventually, rather than seeking to be the counsellors of those passing legislation, intellectuals sought to become the legislators themselves. For Bauman, Napoleon’s attack on the ‘ideologists’ seeking to make laws purely on intellectual, rather than ‘sacred’ grounds was an example of when the power grab of the intellectuals was thwarted (Bauman 1987: 104–5), while the October Revolution was an example of its success (Bauman 1976). Importantly for this chapter, the legislator role fundamentally clashes with the sociological hermeneutics method since objects of sociological investigation – dismissed as the ‘masses’ – are not considered subjects. Consequently, intellectual enquiry is not defined by a hermeneutical circle and the quest for collective understanding, but rather by applying universal laws to groups. But, what is also significant is how Bauman links this directly to questions of the ‘good society’; legislators are partly defined by attempting to create the ‘good society’. This is missing in the interpreter role. To be an interpreter is to be tasked with ‘translating statements’ of knowledge generated in one intellectual community into another (Bauman 1987: 5). Rather than seeking to make universal statements which apply to nations, and their masses, interpreters are interested in developing, and translating between, ‘communities’. These can be intellectual communities or other groups but

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one’s community shares certain assumptions which then have to be translated into others. For example, the language used by poststructuralist philosophers would need to be ‘translated’ into more everyday forms of language to interact with lay audiences. It is the fact lay audiences could be interacted with which indicates a change in postmodernity. The entry of other adjudicators of value, most prominently the market, into areas of production, and the unwillingness of the state to act as anything beyond ‘an instrument of re-commodification’ (Bauman 1987: 188) for such market relations removes both the instrument and the ideology behind the intellectual push for legislative power. Furthermore, the radical intellectual hope in the agency of the universal class fades, not due to the end of poverty and class itself (Bauman 1987: 186–7) but rather, with the opening of further questions of justice in the ‘field of organisation and administration of social life’ along with the decreased critique of ‘the field of the market and the distribution of social surplus’, political questions relating solely to class shrink (Bauman 1982: 197). Consequently, in an argument with echoes of Luc Boltanski’s discussion concerning the shift from the ‘social’ to ‘artistic’ critique post-1968 (Boltanski 2002), the communities seeking political redress expand beyond those related to class (Bauman 1982). As a result, the goals of the intellectuals, and particularly sociologists, shift. The value of sociology is no longer seen in its ability to aid the legislating functions of governments, but in the extent to which it aids communal understanding. This involves a move away from conceiving of actors as ‘dumb’ and towards the awareness of the objects of sociological analysis as, somewhat uniquely compared to other intellectual fields, knowing subjects (Bauman 2011a: 160–72). Such knowing subjects are also part of Bauman’s form of structuration theory (Bauman and Haugaard 2008: 115) whereby ‘being structured and being capable of structuring seem to be the twin-kernels of human way of life’ (Bauman 1973: 39). Therefore, knowledgeable actors have a role in social reproduction and transformation. Significantly for our discussion, Bauman links these factors directly to an argument for sociology as conversational: Physics or chemistry, which are influential, make impact on reality by their results rather than by their conversation. Our field is more conversational … Sociology has to be readable. Unless sociology addresses the experience of ordinary people, it’s useless. I don’t see the point in doing it. Of course, you can get a PhD out of it, you can get a chair out of it, but that’s all. It would remain a completely esoteric activity. If you do physics in such a way, it is OK, because you have these results, you make machinery. Look at this beautiful TV set. I have no idea what is inside, I never had a look behind the screen. I just push the buttons, and it is OK. But there is no sociological equivalent of this. You can’t supply people with sociological equivalents of this wonderful machinery, to push buttons. They are buttons themselves. They have to push themselves. The

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only way is to engage in a conversation, to discuss things, to interpret. Not to legislate, but to interpret. (Bauman and Welzer 2002: 110) Both the legislator and the interpreter imagine sociology as serving ‘the common people’, now the form of that service changes, away from serving ‘by proxy’ via the gardening state and towards allowing individuals ‘to make use of the freedom they have and to acquire the freedom they are told they have but have not’ (Bauman and Beilharz 2001: 342).6 Therefore, key elements of the interpreter role are shared with the method of sociological hermeneutics. As we have seen, a goal of hermeneutics, for Bauman, is the discovery of the universal in the particular; sociology embraces this as part of its vocation and contribution to the quest for communal understanding. Within this the interpreter has a role in social transformation by translating sociological knowledge of the universal into the particular experience of structured and structuring everyday actors. Consequently, to be aware of the universal conditions which shape our particular life-world is to be assured of their contingent form, and the possibility of other forms. In short, ‘understanding is the pastime of gods’ in which the interpreter begins the conversation aimed at mutual understanding and questions the nature of our current ossified reality (Bauman 1978: 33). While they help highlight the relativity of what is and, therefore, help keep other options alive, interpreters lack the mechanism or the ideology for legislating into being their ideals. This leaves the question of how they relate to sociological alternatives. Below I will explore how Bauman deals with this in his work. However, in Legislators and Interpreters, he sees a contradiction in what we expect of intellectuals since: ‘We are angry when a scholar, having thoroughly and cogently criticised the shortcomings of our condition, fails to end up with a prescription for improving it. But if he or she does come up with such a prescription, we meet it incredulously and deride it as another utopia’ (Bauman 1987: 194). This is a critique which Bauman has faced in his own work and below I will suggest Bauman could be seen as too ready to accept this view – and its claim that we live in an anti-utopian time – rather than, as Ruth Levitas does, seeking to challenge it.

Bauman’s sociological alternatives One criticism offered of Bauman’s work, especially during his ‘liquid-modern’ period, has been his unwillingness to offer alternatives to a state which he, seemingly, sees as problematic (Christodoulisis 2007; Carleheden 2008). Indeed, for Mark Davis, it is this which makes his sociology ‘a rather pessimistic worldview’ (Davis 2008: 109), since there seems no salvation from the repression of contemporary society. While, as indicated above, the lack of alternatives could be a fair comment to make of Bauman’s sociology – though to what extent it counts as a ‘criticism’ in light of his sociological

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hermeneutics will be discussed below – it would be incorrect to say there are no alternatives at all in Bauman’s work. Indeed, there are also writers who accuse Bauman of being too normative and overly invested in a conception of socialism that it is not clear people want (Campbell and Till 2010). However, the position of Tom Campbell and Chris Till seems a critique too far since Bauman’s normative claims are not those of a socialist propagandist but are predominantly expressed simply as vague wishes, as in the desirability of ‘the “moralization of politics”, attainable through the dismantling of the most awesome monopolies of coercive power and through democratic control over the rest of the socially available resources of action’ (Bauman 1990: 35) or that ‘the resurgence of the essential core of the socialist “active utopia” – the principle of collective responsibility and collective insurance against misery and ill fortune – would be indispensable, though this time on a global scale, with humanity as a whole as its object’ (Bauman and Rovirosa-Madrazo 2010: 69). However, there are two alternatives which are more clearly spelled out. The first of these is the basic income. A popular sociological alternative (Dawson 2016: 173–8), Bauman advocates this since, by detaching income from dependence on paid work, it removes ‘the awesome fly of insecurity from the sweet ointment of freedom’ (Bauman 1999: 188). Indeed, Ian Orton (2005) has argued that by making the question of the basic income not one of desirability, but rather whether the political will and means are available under capitalism, Bauman helps to ‘radicalise’ the debate. The second alternative is his increasingly frequent calls for a return to the principles of the ‘social state’ in which, contrary to the policing of the poor by the contemporary welfare state, risks and concerns are pooled collectively (Bauman and RovirosaMadrazo 2010: 34–44).7 However, these rather brief suggestions cannot be equated to clear, thought-out alternatives or visions of the good society, rather they are snatched glimpses of things that could be seen as desirable. As I have indicated above, it seems initially possible to justify the brevity of such discussions as consistent with Bauman’s interpretive sociological hermeneutics. After all, the interpreter gives up a claim of universal privileged knowledge concerning the needs of humanity in favour of a dialogue towards mutual understanding in which there is no division between experts and nonexperts. To then expect alternatives from the interpreter is to posit they have such privileged knowledge and the means of enacting such ideas. It could be suggested this is not the beginning, but the end of a conversation. However, my contention is that such a link is flawed. To critique and relativise what is – a key goal of sociological hermeneutics and the interpreter role – cannot exist independently of highlighting what else could, and perhaps even should, exist. Furthermore, this is not a privileged role open to the intellectual but rather is an inevitable part of human praxis in which the interpreter is effectively the intellectual form. Therefore, not only is Bauman’s reluctance to develop alternatives not automatically theoretically consistent but also does not allow him to fully realise his vision of sociology. To discuss this further, I will turn to the question of utopianism and the work of Ruth Levitas.

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Bauman, Levitas and utopianism There have been claims concerning how Bauman can be considered a utopian thinker, most significantly by Michael Hviid Jacobsen (Jacobsen 2003, 2006) as well as from Mike Featherstone (2010) and Mark Davis (2008). As these writings have correctly suggested, echoing my comments above, Bauman’s work can be seen as utopian since it opens up possibilities of alternative ways of being. However, all these writers point out that Bauman is a particular type of utopian, as Jacobsen puts it, Bauman ‘is an example of what I would term “open-ended utopias”’ rather than the ‘hermetically “close-ended utopias”’ favoured by the legislative intellectuals of solid modernity (Jacobsen 2003: 37). This links to the way in which, for Keith Tester, given Bauman’s belief in sociology as a ‘practice of possibility’, it would be critical of any human formation as an ossified reality which is one of many human possibilities (Tester 2004: 24). As we have seen, Bauman’s sociology is one which recognises the centrality of human choice for social formation and therefore has an inevitable element of utopianism but these utopias remain ‘in the realm of the possible’ rather than the ossified, compromised form of social reality (Bauman 1976: 36). Therefore, it seems to think of Bauman as a utopian returns us to the same argument outlined above and, as an ‘open-ended utopian’, his ideas are not to be seen as ‘authoritative exclamations or as iron-cages without other available options’ (Jacobsen 2003: 20). Rather, his utopian approach concerns ‘suggestions about alternative realities and he does not venture into telling incontrovertible truth but instead points out that there are many truths depending on one’s point of vantage or the eye of the beholder’ (Jacobsen 2003: 20–1). This not only chimes with an interpreter role but also moves the focus away from the problematic forms of utopias as states of human perfection in solid modernity (Bauman 1976). It could also be seen to fit the conditions of liquid modernity in which the geographically bounded agency to enact ideas of the good life has declined; as utopias with no topos (Bauman 2003). Therefore, since liquid modernity is a not a time of solid-modern closed utopias, a liquid-modern sociology can only make limited use of open-ended utopianism. The outlining of alternatives does not seem to fit such criteria. It can be suggested the above views of Bauman’s utopianism rely upon a particular definition; the utopianism of what Lucy Sargisson terms the ‘dangerous fools’ of solid modernity seeking to implement a vision of a perfect society (Sargisson 2012: 243). It is such ‘fools’ who Bauman wishes to distance himself from while maintaining the focus on the broad and universal human potentialities found within utopianism and which echo his structuration views in Culture as Praxis (Bauman 1973; Dawson 2012). Furthermore, it sees the value and potentiality of utopias as a topic outside of sociological method; utopianism becomes primarily a topic for sociologists, not a topic and an approach. A different view of utopianism, and its link to sociology, is provided by Ruth Levitas. The starting point of Levitas’s view of utopianism is her definition of it as ‘the expression of the desire for a better way of living’. Such a definition

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moves the focus away from the utopian as an end state, perfect or not, and towards one concerning desire for a different state. This also means that utopia is ‘braided through human culture’ (Levitas 2013: xii). As Levitas suggests, in a view partly inspired by Ernst Bloch – also an influence on Bauman (Jacobsen 2003: 17) – utopianism is a result of the hope for a better world in the ‘not yet’ finished conception of human culture (Levitas 2007). This suggests two elements of utopianism which are of value for sociology. Firstly, utopianism is not the preserve of intellectuals or political actors but rather something everyday actors engage in. While Levitas disagrees with Bloch that utopianism is a universal ‘impulse’ she does see the desire, and hope, of utopianism present whenever ‘a gap between needs and available or potential satisfactions is experienced, and in the extent to which there are cultural hypotheses about the potential closure of this gap, as well as in the nature of these hypotheses’ (Levitas 1990: 211). While not a universal impulse, these are widespread conditions; we all ‘look for the blue’ in recognising elements of our life which we wish we could change for the better (Levitas 2007). The next step then requires us to conceive of a world in which these negative elements are removed. This involves what Levitas terms ‘the imaginary reconstruction of society’ (Levitas 2013). This process indicates the second element, utopias begin with the world as it is; our desire for a better way of living emerges from our dissatisfaction with the current one and leads to an imaginary world compared to our own. While, as will be discussed below, it is possible for utopian ideas to exist as ‘compensation’ for the current order and to justify what is they can operate as critique and suggest hope for a different world (Levitas 2007). Consequently, while the forms of utopia change in different historical conjunctures – from more to less readily realisable, for example (Levitas 1979) – they will always exist in some form. It is here we find the link to sociology, since utopianism begins with a critique of the world as it is Levitas claims that utopian writing embodies elements of sociological analysis. For example, William Morris’s (1890/2004) News from Nowhere, with its Marxist-inspired depiction of a new socialist England,8 relies upon critiques of alienation, the determining role of capital, class and urban space to the extent that: ‘Morris’s demonstration of the connectedness of work, art, social relations, space and human happiness is also sociological. His holistic approach, and especially the connection between individual biography and history, is the very essence of the sociological imagination’ (Levitas 2013: 80). What is therefore valuable in writers like Morris and other utopians is that their critique is united with a vision of a possible future; they are not simply visions of the good society found in the closed utopias of solid modernity but sociological critiques which make use of alternatives. Levitas (2013: 103–26) argues utopias have increasingly moved away from the blueprint of a perfect world towards one of process towards a different, perhaps not perfect, alternative as found, for example, in feminist utopian literature (Sargisson 1996). Nevertheless, this is still a possible future, not simply the suggestion there could be lots of different possible futures (the ‘open-ended’

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form), nor the image of one truly perfect future to which we should strive (the ‘close-ended’). Therefore, the value of utopianism is that it ‘disrupts the taken-for-granted nature of the present. It creates a space in which the reader may, temporarily, experience an alternative configuration of needs, wants and satisfactions’ found in this possible future and the resulting imaginary reconstruction of society (Levitas 2013: 4). As an example, for Levitas (2001), discussing the basic income as an alternative not only allows us to discuss income security but to conceive of a society in which work is no longer our prime source of activity and the demands of capitalism come into question. It allows us to understand the social figurations of the present and suggests a different formation. In short, utopian ideas complement the critical function sociology increasingly seeks to justify itself by. This link between sociology and utopia goes further since Levitas argues that in making use of sociological analysis to discuss alternatives ‘utopia foregrounds what sociology represses’, but it is also the case that ‘sociology foregrounds what utopia backgrounds’ (Levitas 2013: 84). In emphasising the critique of the present sociology has a different focus to utopian literature but this critique relies upon the possibility of an alternative. As Levitas puts it: ‘Most sociologists who work in fields of social inequality – economic inequality, class, gender, ethnicity – are driven by a critical conviction that these inequalities are damaging and wrong. Somewhere underpinning this is an implicit idea of a good society in which such inequalities are absent’ (Levitas 2010: 538). The very possibility of a ‘critical’ sociology relies upon the conditions which produce factors such as economic inequality, racism and patriarchy being seen as socially formed and therefore susceptible to change, and alternatives, rather than inevitable elements of human existence. Therefore, a ‘warm [utopian] stream runs underground’ within sociology given its reliance on the possibility of alternative social formations as a starting point of critique (Levitas 2013: 101). The problem for Levitas has been that sociology has rejected this perspective. While to speak of a sociologist as ‘“uncritical” is a criticism verging on the insulting’ to call them ‘“utopian” remained a derogatory term’ (Levitas 2013: 99, 95). This rejection of the utopian began with Marx and Friedrich Engels’s advocacy of ‘scientific’ against ‘utopian’ socialism, but reaches its pinnacle in the early institutional battles to present sociology as a ‘legitimate’ academic discipline (Levitas 2010). How does this relate to Bauman? While both are clearly concerned with ‘keeping other options alive’ it is significant that while Levitas shares much of Bauman’s analysis concerning the above claim of ‘utopia with no topos’ given the shift in the form of utopias away from the gardening state form (Levitas 2003), she is critical of his tendency to equate utopias with this ‘blueprint’ vision (Levitas 2013: 106–7). This indicates the two key differences between Bauman and Levitas on utopianism. Firstly, as I will expand on further in the next section, Levitas does not accept the claim that utopianism is less present

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in liquid modernity. It has changed its form with the decline of the connection of the garden state and legislative intellectuals with their ‘blueprint’ utopias, but a change of form is not a decline. Secondly, Levitas sees utopianism as something inherent within sociology, rather than solely an object of study; to be critical is to be utopian. This then leads to four significant suggestions concerning the practice of sociological alternatives. Firstly, it suggests the desire to ‘keep other options alive’ and demonstrate the relativity of what exists is best achieved by suggesting an alternative formation. This helps disrupt the taken for granted and, at least in the imagination, helps us experience something different. Secondly, adapting a distinction from Russell Jacoby (2005), these alternatives are not automatically the visions of a perfect society suggested in ‘blueprint’ utopias, but are also more advanced than the ‘iconoclastic’ utopias which Bauman interprets as concerned primarily to ‘deconstruct, demystify and ultimately to debunk the dominant life values of the time’ while ‘the alternative to the present remains sketchy’ (Bauman and Rovirosa-Madrazo 2010: 51). The ‘utopias as process’ advocated by Levitas exist between these two possible forms; they deconstruct while also considering the desirability of a possible alternative. Thirdly, it suggests that sociological critique of social realities, such as inequality, implies some conception of an alternative world in which such problems do not exist. Finally, that to make this critique effective and achieve the goal of ‘keeping other options alive’ some conception of alternatives should be present. Therefore, Levitas’s conception of ‘sociology as utopia’ pushes the method of sociological hermeneutics towards a greater consideration of alternatives. These complement the quest for mutual understanding and the relativising of the present. Given these four suggestions, below I will consider what role sociological alternatives, as these utopian visions emerging from the sociological perspective, could play for those following the precepts of Bauman’s sociological hermeneutics.

Sociological hermeneutics alternatives As we have seen above, Bauman’s conception of sociological hermeneutics requires a link to the interpreter role and the insistence upon sociology engaging in conversation with its concepts and claims offered as the starting point in this conversation. We have also seen how this shaped the way Bauman presents his concepts as ideal types9 seeking to highlight the social pressures which individuals navigate and raising moral questions of human togetherness. We have also seen how this is distinct from the legislator role with its emphasis on the privileged intellectual (both by knowledge and position) who can provide universal laws to govern the lives of the ‘dumb’ objects of sociological investigation. My contention is that, with the assistance of Levitas’s advocacy of the utopian elements of sociology, we should follow through the precepts of the

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interpreter role to their conclusion. If we, correctly, assert that the objects of sociological analysis are also subjects rather than the raw clay of the legislator then we should acknowledge alternatives offered by the sociologist are, equally to the concepts they provide, ‘a standing invitation to comment, to argue, to modify, to contradict or to oppose’ (Bauman 2008a: 236). Therefore, if our goal is to ‘keep other options alive’ discussion of other options does not close down the conversation but rather opens it up. Once entering into conversation such an alternative may be rejected but even this begins a process of consensus building – ‘okay, if not that, what else could work?’ – pursued ‘in a communal negotiation whose scale extends beyond the boundaries of professional sociology proper’ (Bauman 1978: 246). Consequently, to be reticent on alternatives is neither entirely faithful to the interpreter role, nor automatically a more effective way of doing the sociology advocated by Bauman. This also leads us to a refinement we can make concerning Bauman’s view on utopias in liquid modernity. I have already highlighted Bauman’s claim concerning the reluctance of the nation-state to create the ‘good society’ and the resulting lack of agency; this is captured in his idea of ‘utopia with no topos’. However, as I have also indicated, Bauman suggests that increasingly ours is a time hostile to utopia, dismissed as fanciful opposition to the existing system (Bauman 1992b: 53). But, as Levitas encourages us to remember, while the form of utopia may change the utopian desire does not automatically operate as critique, it can operate as compensation for the current order. Utopian ideals do not automatically go against hegemonic ideals; they may seek to extend them. Indeed, neoliberalism contains its own utopia concerning what the world should look like and how people should act (Levitas 1986) and this is expressed via governmental policies – this latest cut will insure greater ‘fairness’ by reducing the amount hardworking taxpayers are forced to spend on the lazy faulty consumers, raising tuition fees will assure a market in education increasing the satisfaction of student consumers with sovereign demands. Meanwhile, meritocracy – an idea coined in a dystopian novel written by a sociologist (Young 1961) – continues to be used as a utopian ideal and ‘primarily a way of legitimising the position of winners in an unequal society’ (Levitas 2001: 459). Behind these claims is a utopian ideal of the good society towards which we are expected to move, the neoliberal utopia. In short, the time of the TINA Syndrome (‘There Is No Alternative’) has only been possible because it relies upon one dominant utopia of what the world should look like, the neoliberal one. The neoliberal TINA ‘was the biggest and most odious lie of the late twentieth century’ (Bauman 2007b: 73) but it has only become so big and odious through its expression by dominant actors suggesting not just its inevitability but its attractiveness. We are living in a time of utopianism, the problem is there’s one utopia which has achieved hegemonic status. Therefore, as Levitas highlights, the reticence of sociologists not to offer alternatives ‘cedes the ground to others, chiefly engineers, global capitalists, and evolutionary psychologists. Our very silences shape utopias’ (Levitas 2010: 546). As Bauman argues, it should be the role of the interpreters,

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‘aimed at disclosing the possibility of living together differently, with less misery or no misery: the possibility daily withheld, overlooked or unbelieved’ (Bauman 2000: 215) to challenge the philosophy of TINA. Levitas’s contribution is to suggest this can be best achieved by highlighting particular possible alternatives to the current order. These relativise the present and, in doing so, aid our conversation concerning how we should live together. This is the value of sociological alternatives and their link to the method of sociological hermeneutics.

Conclusion: on H. G. Wells, Bauman and Levitas As we have seen above, Ruth Levitas’s (2013: 91) conception of ‘sociology as utopia’ complements Zygmunt Bauman’s method of sociological hermeneutics and, contrary to Bauman’s reticence to offer alternatives and claims that we do not live in a time of utopia, highlights the inevitability and desirability of utopianism in sociology while awakening us to the way in which we do live in a time of (neoliberal) utopianism. My purpose in this chapter has not been to dismiss the method of sociological hermeneutics as outlined by Bauman. Instead, befitting the goal of this volume as going ‘beyond’ Bauman, I have attempted to imagine how it could be advanced and pushed in new directions, with Levitas’s work allowing us to see further potentialities for Bauman’s method and critique his view on the contemporary weakness of utopias. In doing so, while highlighting similarities between the two theorists I have argued that Levitas pushes sociological hermeneutics into new and valuable normative territory. If the reader will forgive the pun, I have attempted to provide an alternative conception of sociological hermeneutics; one in which sociological alternatives play a central role. The common link between the main protagonists in my argument has not been mentioned yet, his name is H. G. Wells. Levitas’s advocacy of utopia as a method for sociology has partly been built upon Wells’s argument that ‘the creation of Utopias – and the exhaustive criticism – is the proper and distinctive method of sociology’ (Wells 1907: 367). For Levitas (2010), partly due to institutional battles concerning sociology in the United Kingdom, Wells’s utopian vision of sociology was sidelined in favour of the ‘scientific’ understanding. Not only does this story of sociology match Bauman’s claims for the ‘challenge’ of hermeneutics to a sociology which sought to emulate the natural sciences (Bauman 1978), it leads us to his own thoughts on Wells. The last chapter of the 2012 book This Is Not a Diary sees Bauman turn to Wells’s position in 1930s Britain. During this period, Wells became ‘dislocated’ from the zeitgeist of his time as he sought ‘to salvage the “we can do it” selfconfidence of the Enlightenment, Modernity and Enlightened Modernity against the Zeitgeist of imminent catastrophe, a second fall and the ultimate Apocalypse’ (Bauman 2012: 197). This meant that while Wells continued to write on broadly the same themes as previously, he became more out of step with the time, creating his dislocation. This story leads Bauman to reflect:

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The sense of ‘being dislocated’, when I think about it, has accompanied me for as long as I can remember: a sense of being out of place and out of time; and most certainly, that sense of distance separating me from ‘men of affairs’ – a physical as much as spiritual distance, of their choice as much as my own. (Bauman 2012: 196) Bauman’s dislocation took a different form to that of Wells. While he notes his own biography of exile he argues it reflects something more fundamental: My variety of dislocation, on the other hand, expressed itself in resisting the happy-go-lucky Zeitgeist of the brave new world, the self-contented, stand-offish and insensitive world, a world believing in no alternative to itself, glad to live on borrowed time, and so prone to mistake the second fall for a second coming and to present that it ‘can do it’, while doing all it could to avoid doing what yearned and cried out to be done in order to save and redeem its targeted victims and collateral casualties. In a nutshell, Wells struggled, against all odds, to save our self-confidence. What I was trying to do was to save our self-criticism. (Bauman 2012: 197) This desire to save our self-criticism, to aid the development of the questioning ‘autonomous society’ which, ipso facto, requires ‘autonomous individuals’ (Bauman 2000: 212–13) is, I would suggest, Zygmunt Bauman’s greatest gift to sociology and finds expression in his sociological hermeneutics. Our duty as recipients of the gift is to continue the self-criticism and consider what role sociological alternatives have in advancing sociological hermeneutics.

Notes 1 This chapter builds upon claims originally made in Dawson (2013: 179–85). 2 Hence the claim of Jacobsen and Tester (2006) that, following the distinction offered by C. Wright Mills, Bauman is poor at ‘doing sociology’ in the sense of following the commandments of the discipline but excellent at ‘being a sociologist’ by using sociological hermeneutics to illuminate social life. 3 Bauman’s rejection of Jürgen Habermas is significant from a position of sociological hermeneutics given the emphasis, indicated below, on the inability of his work to be used by lay actors: ‘I wonder whether non-philosophers, non-sociologists could take a book of Habermas? I think it would be a waste of time. Habermas’ world is very complex, very complete, a world of ideas. It is a world populated by concepts, not by people. Not by living acting people. It is sort of theoretical fetishism … It’s a different world, a very interesting world, but separate from the real world’ (Bauman and Welzer 2002: 111). 4 Both of these, reflecting the above, are offered as ‘ideal types’ and not automatically continuous stages (Bauman 1987: 3). 5 In this light, Bauman discusses how Marx’s thesis 11, now taken as a statement of Marxist radicalism, was simply a ‘belated restatement of the routine Enlightenment understanding of philosophy’ and ‘hardly original’ (Bauman 1987: 100, 101).

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6 While the alliance of the legislator and garden state is frequently linked to Bauman’s work on the Holocaust or state socialism, he is making a much wider point. The post-war gardening welfare states equally relied on intellectuals as legislators and ‘masses’ who were to be remade and educated into civilisation (Bauman 2011a: 160–72). It was this that left Alvin W. Gouldner (1968) so critical of the ready connection sociologists adopted between their work and the welfare state and which can be seen in the way in which welfare-state regimes shaped the sociology of countries such as Sweden (Larsson and Magdalenic´ 2015) and Denmark (Kropp 2015). 7 It could be argued, as I have elsewhere (Dawson 2012), that there is a further alternative in Bauman’s work found in the link he draws between morality as a form of rebellion and towards a more democratic way of being for the other (Bauman 2008b). However, this is an alternative we can read from Bauman’s work, rather than one he explicitly offers. 8 It is worth noting that Bauman, reflecting the view of William Morris as a mere utopian, speaks of his having socialism ‘in his heart rather than in his head’ expressed in the ‘ephemeral and unrealistic’ Socialist League (Bauman 1972: 215, 184). 9 Given the argument of this chapter, it is significant that, when introducing the concept of ideal type, Max Weber argues that since it ‘cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality [then] it is a utopia’ (Weber 1949: 90).

References Bauman, Zygmunt (1972): Between Class and Elite: The Evolution of the British Labour Movement, a Sociological Study. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1973): Culture as Praxis. London: Sage Publications. Bauman, Zygmunt (1976): Socialism: The Active Utopia. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1978): Hermeneutics and Social Science. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1982): Memories of Class: The Pre-History and After-Life of Class. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1987): Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Post-Modernity and Intellectuals. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1990): ‘Effacing the Face: On the Social Management of Moral Proximity’. Theory, Culture and Society, 7(1): 5–38. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992a): Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992b): Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1999): In Search of Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2000): Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2003): ‘Utopia with No Topos’. History of the Human Sciences, 16(1): 11–25. Bauman, Zygmunt (2007a): Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2007b): ‘Britain after Blair, or Thatcherism Consolidated’, in Gerry Hassan (ed.): After Blair: Politics after the New Labour Decade. London: Lawrence and Wishart, pp. 60–74. Bauman, Zygmunt (2008a): ‘Bauman on Bauman: Pro Domo Sua’, in Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Poul Poder (eds): The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman: Challenges and Critique. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 231–240. Bauman, Zygmunt (2008b): The Art of Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2011a): Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Bauman, Zygmunt (2011b): Culture in a Liquid Modern World. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2012): This Is Not a Diary. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Peter Beilharz (2001): ‘The Journey Never Ends: Zygmunt Bauman Talks with Peter Beilharz’, in Peter Beilharz (ed.): The Bauman Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 334–344. Bauman, Zygmunt and Nicholas Gane (2004): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: Liquid Sociality’, in Nicholas Gane (ed.): The Future of Social Theory. London: Continuum, pp. 17–46. Bauman, Zygmunt and Mark Haugaard (2008): ‘Liquid Modernity and Power: A Dialogue with Zygmunt Bauman’. Journal of Power Studies, 1(2): 111–130. Bauman, Zygmunt and Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo (2010): Living on Borrowed Time. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Harald Welzer (2002): ‘On the Rationality of Evil: An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman’. Thesis Eleven, 70: 100–112. Bauman, Zygmunt, Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester (2014): What Use Is Sociology? Cambridge: Polity Press. Boltanski, Luc (2002): ‘The Left after May 1968 and the Longing for Total Revolution’. Thesis Eleven, 69: 1–20. Campbell, Tom and Chris Till (2010): ‘Resistance towards Ethics’, in Mark Davis and Keith Tester (eds): Bauman’s Challenge: Sociological Issues for the 21st Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 172–188. Carey, John (1992): The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880–1939. London: Faber and Faber. Carleheden, Mikael (2008): ‘Bauman on Politics: Stillborn Democracy’, in Michal Hviid Jacobsen and Poul Poder (eds): The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman: Challenges and Critique. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 175–192. Christodoulisis, Emilios (2007): ‘The Politics of Liquid Modernity: Polanyi and Bauman on Commodification and Fluidity’, in Jirˇí Pribán (ed.): Liquid Society and Its Laws. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 101–113. Davis, Mark (2008): Freedom and Consumerism: A Critique of Zygmunt Bauman’s Sociology. Aldershot: Ashgate. Dawson, Matt (2012): ‘Optimism and Agency in the Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman’. European Journal of Social Theory, 15(4): 555–570. Dawson, Matt (2013): Late Modernity, Individualization and Socialism: An Associational Critique of Neoliberalism. London: Palgrave/Macmillan. Dawson, Matt (2015): ‘Sociology as Conversation: Zygmunt Bauman’s Applied Sociological Hermeneutics’. Sociology, 49(3): 582–587. Dawson, Matt (2016): Social Theory for Alternative Societies. London: Palgrave/ Macmillan. Elliott, Anthony (2007): ‘The Theory of Liquid Modernity: A Critique of Bauman’s Recent Sociology’, in Anthony Elliott (ed.): The Contemporary Bauman. London: Routledge, pp. 46–62. Featherstone, Mark (2010): ‘Event Horizon: Utopia-Dystopia in Bauman’s Thought’, in Mark Davis and Keith Tester (eds): Bauman’s Challenge: Sociological Issues for the 21st Century. London: Palgrave/Macmillan, pp. 127–147. Gouldner, Alvin W. (1968): ‘The Sociologist as Partisan’. American Sociologist, 3(2): 103–116. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2003): ‘Utopianism in the Work of Zygmunt Bauman’. Sociologisk Arbejdspapir, 5, Sociologisk Laboratorium. Aalborg: Aalborg University.

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Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2006): ‘“The Activating Presence”: What Prospect of Utopia in Times of Uncertainty?’ Polish Sociological Review, 3(155): 337–357 Jacobsen, Michael Hviid and Keith Tester (2006): ‘Editor’s Introduction: Being a Sociologist’. Polish Sociological Review, 3(155): 263–266. Jacoby, Russell (2005): Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age. New York: Columbia University Press. Kropp, Kristoffer (2015): A Historical Account of Danish Sociology. London: Palgrave/ Macmillan. Larsson, Anna and Sanja Magdalenic´ (2015): Sociology in Sweden: A History. London: Palgrave/Macmillan. Levitas, Ruth (1979): ‘Sociology and Utopia’. Sociology, 13(1): 19–33. Levitas, Ruth (1986): ‘Competition and Compliance: The Utopias of the New Right’, in Ruth Levitas (ed.): The Ideology of the New Right. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 80–106. Levitas, Ruth (1990): The Concept of Utopia. Oxford: Peter Lang. Levitas, Ruth (2001): ‘Against Work: A Utopian Excursion into Social Policy’. Critical Social Policy, 21(4): 449–465. Levitas, Ruth (2003): ‘The Elusive Idea of Utopia’. History of the Human Sciences, 16(1): 1–10. Levitas, Ruth (2007): ‘Looking for the Blue: The Necessity of Utopia’. Journal of Political Ideologies, 12(3): 286–306. Levitas, Ruth (2010): ‘Back to the Future: Wells, Sociology, Utopia and Method’. Sociological Review, 58(4): 530–547. Levitas, Ruth (2013): Utopia as Method: The Imaginary Reconstruction of Society. London: Palgrave/Macmillan. Morris, William (1890/2004): News from Nowhere and Other Writings. London: Penguin Books. Orton, Ian (2005): Promoting Income Security: Zygmunt Bauman and the Radicalisation of the Basic Income Debate. London: Citizen Income’s Trust. Ray, Larry (2007): ‘From Postmodernity to Liquid Modernity: What’s in a Metaphor?’ in Anthony Elliott (ed.): The Contemporary Bauman. London: Routledge, pp. 63–80. Sargisson, Lucy (1996): Contemporary Feminist Utopianism. London: Routledge. Sargisson, Lucy (2012): Fool’s Gold? Utopianism in the Twenty-First Century. London: Palgrave/Macmillan. Tester, Keith (2004): The Social Thought of Zygmunt Bauman. London: Palgrave/ Macmillan. Wallace, Kendra (2015): The Moral Choice: A Critical Assessment of Zygmunt Bauman’s Moral Argument. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Glasgow. Weber, Max (1949): ‘“Objectivity” in Social Science and Social Policy’, in Methodology of Social Sciences. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, pp. 49–112. Wells, H. G. (1907): ‘The So-Called Science of Sociology’, in Sociological Papers, 3, 1906. London: Macmillan, pp. 357–369. Young, Michael (1961): The Rise of the Meritocracy. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

11 Paradoxes and ambivalences of liquid modernity Zygmunt Bauman and the peculiar solidity of liquidity Michael Hviid Jacobsen Introduction 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

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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 particularly 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

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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: There [seems], indeed, to be no end to the drama in which the meaning and the reality, the subjective and the objective, the free and the determined, merge continuously to mould our present into our future. Such – contradictory and mischievously elusive to all clear-cut unilateral descriptions – is the shape of the human world (so I learned), my metier – sociology – is about … [T]he lesson I learned was, I think, congenial to the collective experience from which sociology in its modern form emerged. It was born of the painful realization of the vexing discrepancy between the ends people read into their actions and the consequences these actions bring about; between anticipations and results; ideals and reality; the ‘ought’ and the ‘is’. (Bauman 1972: 187) As Bauman has since then continuously insisted, our world needs an iconoclastic sociological perspective in order to pave the way for a critical understanding of the world and for the possibility of acting on the many inherent paradoxes and ambivalences of society in order to bridge the yawning and widening chasm between ‘inspired, noble and lofty ideals’ and the ‘merciless logic’ of a ‘stubborn reality’, between the ‘is’ and the ‘ought’, or the

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gap between what ‘is’ and what ‘could be’. So ‘there must’, as Bob Dylan once insisted in the lyrics to All Along the Watchtower (1965), ‘be some way out of here’. In the remainder of this chapter, I therefore wish to explore, discuss and critically reflect on central aspects of Bauman’s diagnosis of some of the main paradoxes and ambivalences confronting contemporary liquidmodern society and especially to pry into his main conclusion that our world is decidedly more hostile and inhospitable than ever before to politics, the public realm, the collective, critique, alternatives and utopias and furthermore discuss how this conclusion may possibly relate to his basic idea that the world can indeed always be different from what it currently is.

Modernity: liquefied and diluted? The idea of the liquefaction of modernity – of ‘liquid modernity’ as the new form or rather antimatter of contemporary society – was first coined and unfolded by Bauman in his millennial book Liquid Modernity (2000). In this book, Bauman moved on from many years of preoccupation and association with the idea of ‘postmodernity’ and instead began to develop a more comprehensive theoretical framework of ‘liquid modernity’. According to Bauman, the idea of liquid modernity is to be seen as a sort of root metaphor for a society in which the time-honoured, tried and tested moulds that previously held things securely together are now rapidly disintegrating or are progressively dismantled and thus can no longer keep their content stable or solid for any substantial period of time. Everything – relationships, power structures, identities, communities, moralities, ideologies, etc. – begin to leak from their previously firm moulds and flow freely without any apparent ability to or interest in forcing them back into their previously solid and stable containers. Liquid modernity ‘melts the solids’ and thus characterises a process similar to that deciphered more than 150 years ago by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who insisted that capitalist society ‘profaned the sacred’ and that everything as a result ‘melted into air’ at the threshold of modern society. In Bauman’s writings, ‘liquid modernity’ is a metaphor that only makes analytical sense if contrasted with another important metaphor: that of ‘solid modernity’. In many ways, liquid modernity is an inversion of or diametrical opposition to (the Janus-face of) all the main characteristics of solid modernity – watershed changes noticed already by Hungarian economist Karl Polanyi (1944) in his fascinating description from the mid-20th century, by now many years ago, of the so-called ‘great transformation’ during which ‘gain’ replaced ‘subsistence’ and through which an increasing marketisation of human relationships was established. Whereas the connotations characterising ‘solid modernity’ – although Bauman never dates its duration, solid modernity is an epoch spanning the centuries from the European Enlightenment project up to the latter part of the 20th century – would be something emphasising the stable, heavy, lasting, condensed, systemic and orderly, the notions associated with ‘liquid modernity’ would rather be those of fluidity, lightness, the short

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term, networks, the capillary and fragmentary (Bauman 1999b: 123). So whereas solid modernity was top-heavy, the weight in liquid modernity has decidedly shifted to the bottom – onto the shoulders of the hapless individual. In Liquid Times, a later sequel to Liquid Modernity, Bauman highlights five central features of ‘liquid modernity’ that all point to different landslide developments differentiating the liquid-modern world from its solid-modern predecessor (Bauman 2007a). First, the dissolution of ‘society’ or ‘the social’, which is now increasingly deregulated, privatised and individualised. There is, as Bauman often critically quotes the words of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, ‘no such thing as society’. Everything solid decomposes and disintegrates thus making it impossible for structures and social forms – the very backbone of ‘society’ – to maintain their composition and coherence for any substantial period of time. Society is increasingly besieged on two fronts – by individualisation and globalisation – each in their way tearing society apart (Bauman 2002a). Second, the separation and pending divorce of power from politics, leaving the former without substance, purpose or direction and the latter totally impotent, emasculated and unable to have any real impact. Hence problems remain globally unsolvable because available political solutions remain almost entirely locally embedded. Third, the gradual, relentless and apparently irreversible withdrawal or erosion of any common, collective, statesponsored and state-guaranteed insurance against individual misfortune that was previously available in the era of the solid-modern universal welfare state model prior to the advance of ‘means testing’ methods (Bauman 1998a). With this we also witness the demise of previously popular ideas about the ‘Common Good’ or the ‘Just Society’, which caters for the well-being of all its members and particularly for the weakest. Fourth, the breakdown of any long-term planning, thinking and acting and the subsequent lack of investment in the future. Instead of developing, building, learning and maturing, now the most valuable skills – in the lives of individuals as well as in society at large – are those of forgetting, avoiding binding obligations and responsibilities and constantly staying on the move. Finally, as we shall also see later, the fact that responsibility for one’s own life, its successes and failures, its victories and defeats, its triumphs and misfortunes, now falls back upon the individual who has no one else to blame than himself or herself. Society no longer takes any responsibility – it is now all up to you and you alone. As Bauman states, living in liquid-modern society is like being on board a flight where all the passengers are painfully aware that the pilot – as a metaphor for those in control – has long since evacuated the cockpit and that the plane is set on a crash course (see Bauman 2007a: 1–4). As is obvious from this extensive listing of some of the main characteristics of ‘liquid modernity’, the metaphor primarily focuses on the negative or disruptive aspects of a number of recent social developments and hardly touches upon any positive outcomes or consequences. In this respect, Bauman’s sociological description and diagnosis of liquid modernity is almost onesidedly sombre, pessimistic and dystopian. He even states that liquid-modern

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life is ‘one fit to replace the fears recorded in Orwellian and Huxleyan-style nightmares’ of solid modernity (Bauman 2000: 15). But is ‘society’, as we know it, actually in a process of disappearing? Are the notions of ‘liquidity’ and ‘fluidity’ the most suitable imagery to capture and summarise what is happening right now? Has everything ‘solid’ melted into air? Is the realm of politics really powerless and impotent? Is everybody increasingly left to their own individual destinies and devices? Have we in fact stopped planning for or taking care of the future? Do we no longer care for the well-being of others? In this chapter I want to suggest that it is a conscious part of Bauman’s methodological strategy to use some of the bleakest possible pictures to point to or tease out those yet undiscovered and still available possibilities to create our society anew. Besides these more general developments actualised by liquid modernity, Bauman has also diagnosed a range of more specific yet equally important and mutually dependent features of liquid-modern society relating to politics, the public space, individualisation, critique, utopia and the so-called ‘TINA Syndrome’, which will all in turn be outlined and discussed below.

Politics: powerless and privatised? One of the first and perhaps most prominent casualties of the advent of ‘liquid modernity’ is that of Politics (spelled with a capital P in order to emphasise that we are here talking about emancipatory and collective Politics and not the ‘life-politics’ concerned with self-identity, personal life and selfactualisation). In his 1999 book In Search of Politics, Bauman made it quite clear that the landscape of the political is undergoing some radical changes and that the previous collective agendas of most political ideologies under the influence of liquid-modern individualisation processes increasingly become focused on personal matters instead of that which concerns the larger public. Whatever happened to the political prophets, preachers, missionaries, visionaries and dreamers who contemplated and nurtured ideas about the ‘Good Society’, the ‘Just Society’ or the ‘Great Society’? According to Bauman, they have increasingly evacuated their offices and have been replaced by other more up-to-date and less ideological protagonists. Today, ‘clerics, churchwardens and vergers of the new cult of pleasurable and entertaining sensations will do nicely’ (Bauman 1999a: 104). Politics – which previously was concerned with debating and securing a certain level of livelihood, recognition, influence and human decency for all members of society – now becomes yet another charade that merely caters for individualised consumer demands. Politics is only interesting when something can be gained or obtained from engaging in it. At the same time, according to Bauman, contemporary politics in liberal democracies has been decoupled from sources of power leaving the former altogether impotent and the latter in the claws of capitalist and consumerist interests. We now have global capitalism but not global politics – the capitalist market has overtaken the role of the state in catering for individual and collective dreams, demands and desires and in the process it has successfully elbowed out and

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eradicated any opposition to its own monopoly. In such an increasingly capitalised and depoliticised world nobody seems to trust the politicians to be able to create a better society or to promise a better future. Politics has been reduced merely to a means for providing pockets of consumption for the insatiable inhabitants of liquid modernity (and profitable careers for politicians) as well as a means to promising them a sense of law and order in a world apparently ruled by the triple-headed spectre of unsafety, insecurity and uncertainty (what Bauman terms Unsicherheit). Therefore, the rise of the ‘politics of fear’ – politicians consciously playing on human Unsicherheit by insisting on the presence of ever more imminent dangers, risks and traps – has now replaced the previously positive agenda of ‘emancipatory politics’ aimed at promoting human well-being and social solidarity (Bauman 2006). In solid modernity, the world was populated by planners – today, Bauman claims, nobody seems to be a planner anymore because there are no great plans to conceive let alone to implement, because the tedious task of planning and waiting to implement something in a society increasingly suffering from an ‘impatience syndrome’ seems utterly futile and pointless. As he has recently stated, ‘few minds – if any – are nowadays busy designing the blueprints of a “good society” – that ultimate station on the long road to perfection and that last stand in the war which modernity with all its youthful hubris declared on contingency, accidents, ambiguity, ambivalence, uncertainty’ (Bauman and Bordoni 2014: 60). Modernity has now lost all its ‘youthfulness’ – in liquidmodern society there are no longer any ‘ultimate stations’, ‘long roads’ or ‘last stands’. In such a society, the waiting is to be taken out of the wanting so that immediate and instant satisfaction can be achieved. Delayed gratification is now a thing of the past. Planning for the ‘Great Society’, ‘Just Society’ or ‘Good Society’ seems too elusive and/or too inclusive to attract the attention of politicians and their increasingly picky voter segments. Procrastination – the driving mechanism of solid-modern political ideology and planning – is no longer the name of the game. Now there is neither need nor room for the Puritans of whom Max Weber in his incisive analysis of the rise of the Protestant ethic and the spirit of modern capitalism wrote that they willingly delayed their gratification until a promised afterlife. Today, these Puritans have been replaced by the ‘sensation seekers’ of liquid modernity for whom instant satisfaction (instant coffee, instant sex, instant happiness, instant success and so on) is the only thing that really matters. They are no longer concerned with the emancipatory, collective or long-term effects of political decision making but rather with the immediate outcomes of the ‘life-politics’ of which Anthony Giddens stated that it was ‘concerned with human self-actualization’ (Giddens 1991: 9). However, the problem with ‘life-politics’, according to Bauman, is that it tends to grow from and centre on the individual and his or her intimate life sphere thus having little impact on more substantial social issues such as inequality, injustice or other transindividual topics. Hence ‘life politics’ seems insufficient to provide lasting solutions to the problems confronting contemporary society. In liquid-modern society, politics, like anything else,

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has become short term and unconcerned with the bigger picture. We therefore need ‘movement politics’, in the terminology of Richard Rorty (1995), rather than ‘campaign politics’, long-term hopes for shaping the future instead of short-term investments for immediate profit, comprehensive political plans rather than merely sketchy politics based on individual cases, precautionary prognostications, lucky punches or fearful visions. Bauman disagrees with Rorty that ‘campaign politics’ is more suitable than ‘movement politics’ for the task of radically improving our current human condition. The incrementalism and fragmentary character of the former will not be sufficient to counter contemporary causes of human suffering or to stem the waves of injustice and inequality threatening to tear society and solidarity asunder. In Bauman’s view, besides the shift from ‘Politics’ to ‘life-politics’, the main challenge for contemporary politics is not only that it needs to be reoriented towards a more comprehensive and long-term political agenda in order to counter the exhaustion of political energies – it also needs determination and agency. As he states, ‘the hub of the present-day crisis of political process is not so much the absence of values or confusion caused by their plurality, as the absence of an agency effective enough to legitimate, promote, install and service any set of values or any consistent and cohesive agenda of choices’ (Bauman 1999a: 74). If politics is to be revitalised in an individualised, liquidmodern society, it needs to stress autonomy as well as responsibility. According to Bauman, the art of Politics (again with a capital P) – if this kind of politics is to deserve the label of democratic politics – is simultaneously to dismantle limitations to citizens’ freedom at the same time as it also needs to insist on self-limitation (Bauman 1999a: 4). A truly democratic society in Bauman’s view – here clearly indebted to the potent ideas of Cornelius Castoriadis – is only possible if the unprecedented unlimited freedom of the individual merges with collective aspirations to create a truly autonomous society for all. Such a pessimistic diagnosis of the state of politics in liquid-modern society obviously begets questions. Is the picture Bauman paints correct? Has politics now really been decisively privatised? Has it surrendered its privileged position to change the world and to create a better future to uncontrollable market forces? Have all the links between politics and power in sooth been severed?

The agora: abandoned and dilapidated? One place where the previously proposed merging between autonomous individuals and an autonomous society could in fact take place is on the so-called agora. The agora is known from the ancient Greek city state in which it served as the meaningful gathering place between the oikos (the household) and the ecclesia (the principal political assembly). The agora was thus a space aimed at mediating between the public and the private and hence constituted a forum where the democratic politics of the day could be discussed and solutions to problems were sought out by an engaged citizenry (although this was, in fact, at that time reduced primarily to free-born male

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landowners). As Bauman states, the agora is ‘the birthplace and home ground of an effective agency of collective action and the site where private problems and public issues could meet and engage in dialogue’ (Bauman 2002a: 50). As such, the agora is an ideal-typical site for a participatory democratic deliberation process where – in the words of Jürgen Habermas – the power of the better argument reigns supreme, and where the possibilities for creating the optimal conditions for an autonomous society with autonomous individuals is continuously debated, tried and tested and ultimately decided through open and undistorted dialogue. However, with the coming of liquid modernity, the ancient idea of the agora as a common meeting ground for commercial activity and democratic deliberation increasingly comes under attack. The agora is depopulated and dilapidated. Historically, the agora has been fighting for survival on two fronts for quite some time. First of all, it has been under attack from what Hannah Arendt once termed the ‘totalitarian tendency’ inherent in many of the political ideologies of the so-called ‘solid-modern age’ such as fascist or communist regimes. Through their regimes of terror these ideologies were instrumental in colonising and oppressing the agora making the open and inclusive communication between individuals and society an often deadly monologue dictated by those in power. Today, however, the spectre of totalitarianism, although not entirely eradicated from the face of the earth, no longer poses the greatest threat to the fate of the agora. It is rather the mutually reinforcing processes of individualisation, deregulation and privatisation that now seem to constitute the most imminent danger to the agora and result in the all-out desertion and evacuation of public place. Public place, previously the meeting ground of human diversity and of the confrontation with difference, is today transformed beyond recognition as increasing numbers of people have lost faith in the ability to change society or in society’s ability to change their lives. Deliberation, negotiation and mediation – all parts of the agora as a combined public and private sphere – are now replaced by individualised monologue, which contrary to the state-controlled and state-sponsored monologue of solid modernity is nowadays promoted through privatised utterings, personalised displays and celebrity culture: ‘By a curious reversal, that private sphere which stood out for its right to secrecy has been refined in one fell swoop as a sphere with the right to publicity’ (Bauman 1999a: 64, original emphasis). Today, private concerns have become public property – just take a look at the front covers of the tabloid newspapers, the debates on television talk shows or the messages and pictures made public on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. The self-same concealment of personal information that previously surrounded the private sphere and shrouded its innermost secrets in mystery and confidentiality is in liquid modernity replaced by the apparent urge to reveal even the most intimate of details about life to a ‘public’ composed primarily by acquaintances (one’s ‘Friends’ on Facebook) and by total strangers. The consequence of this privatisation of the public sphere, according to Bauman, is that ‘the “public” has been emptied of its own separate contents; it has been left with no agenda of

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its own – it is now nothing but an agglomeration of private troubles, worries and problems’ (Bauman 1999a: 65). The public, previously a domain reserved for political engagement and a deliberation between private and public interests, is now overcrowded and overburdened with private agendas, slanderous stories, infamous individuals and delicate disclosures. The old agoras have now been turned into playgrounds for narcissistic personalities or theme parks reserved for empty entertainment by enterprising developers. As Bauman states: ‘For the individual, public space is not much more than a giant screen on which private worries are projected without ceasing to be private or acquiring new collective qualities in the course of magnification: public space is where public confession of private secrets and intimacies are made’ (Bauman 2000: 39–40). According to Bauman, alongside this deplorable development we also witness the rapid expansion of so-called ‘non-places’ such as parking lots, motorways, check-through terminals and waiting rooms squeezing out any potential for genuine non-functional interaction. Add to this the spreading of shopping malls intended solely for individualised consumption purposes and not for civil interaction and public participation, an increasing militarisation of the few existing public places making them increasingly restricted access areas heavily monitored by CCTV surveillance cameras and patrolling guards and also the establishment of so-called ‘gated communities’ that exclude through separating the insiders from the outsiders (Bauman 2001a). The same goes for our activity on the world wide web which is today also closely watched and monitored (Bauman and Lyon 2012). All in all, as Bauman insists, what we see in contemporary society is, on the one hand, an emptying of public space and with it the rise of an increasing number of ‘non-places’ and, on the other hand, a militarisation and fortification of public and private places making them either inaccessible or ill-suited for any kind of meaningful human interaction and political engagement. As to the fate of power and politics in a world in which the agora has been privatised and where public place has been emptied of any collective content and shared meaning or has been thoroughly fortified and militarised, Bauman premonitions that it now sails away from the streets, from the marketplace, from assembly halls, from local and national parliaments and instead finds anchorage only in the exterritoriality of invisible yet highly monitored electronic networks. In the process, individuals are being stripped of their citizenship rights and their civic skills as the lives lived in electronic networks are all about escape, avoidance and disengagement – which are all arch adversaries of politics and of responsibility. Although perhaps an idle utopian aspiration, in a revitalised agora, however, what the ancient Greeks called agape – divine love and the unconditional love for other humans – may once again begin to flourish. According to Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, ‘agape as political love means that an unconditional egalitarian love for the Neighbour can serve as the foundation for a new order … [an] urge to realize an egalitarian social order of solidarity’ (Žižek 2011: 430). This is an argument rather similar to Bauman’s own analysis of the unconditionality of moral responsibility for ‘the Other’, who in his or her

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weakness and vulnerability demands our help and compassion (Bauman 1993). However, it seems as if Bauman has altogether dumped this possibility of agape in his description of the current liquid-modern state of the agora. So once again, we need to question the veracity or precision of his observations. Have our public places really collapsed into privatised and sanitised places intended only for consumption purposes or into militarised and fortified zones of mutual suspicion? Are there no longer any gathering points – physical or virtual – in which public engagement and political deliberation may flourish and spread? Is all our participation in public life really as shallow and self-centred as Bauman seems to be suggesting?

Individualisation: insidious and inhumane? Whereas the most accurate and adequate metaphor characterising life in ‘solid modernity’ according to Bauman was perhaps that of a jackboot brutally stepping on a human face – an apt metaphor for the totalitarian tendencies inherent in many of the regimes conducting inhuman atrocities during the great modern age in the name of the Fatherland, the Party, the Führer, the Common Cause or some bizarre ideology or article of faith – the most suitable metaphor for capturing life in ‘liquid modernity’ is that of a trapeze acrobat performing his or her death-defying act high above ground with no safety net below. In The Individualized Society (2001b), Bauman presents an incisive and gloomy diagnosis of present-day individualisation processes and their (in)human and (anti)social consequences. Modernity has from the very onset always been closely associated with the process of individualisation and the casting of members of society as ‘individuals’ (Bauman 2002b: 191). However, whereas previously individual fate was always intimately linked to the ways and means by which society as a whole operated, today this no longer seems to be the case. In liquid modernity, there are no ‘joining forces’, no ‘us’, no ‘standing arm in arm’ – everything in the last instance falls back upon the increasingly isolated and vulnerable individual. As Bauman observes, ‘in our “society of individuals” all the messes into which one can get are assumed to be selfmade and all the hot water into which one can fall is proclaimed to have been boiled by the hapless failures who have fallen into it’ (Bauman 2001b: 9). No sympathy, no solidarity, no shared responsibility, only individual shame, selfrecrimination and guilt. In a liquid-modern society of apparently self-made men and women, there is no more any salvation to be expected from society. It is your mess and your problem, so stop blaming somebody else or society! Divided we stand, and divided we fall. Previously, hardships and defeats were suffered collectively. In liquid-modern society, however, ‘our sufferings divide and isolate: our miseries set us apart, tearing up the delicate tissue of human solidarities’ (Bauman 1999a: 54). In a ‘society of work’ such as solid-modern society, people – even the deadly foes of capitalists and workers – needed each other; in today’s ‘society of consumers’ this is no longer the case. In an individualised society, we learn to leave others alone. Today, evil most often does

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not reveal itself as some sort of extreme act of violence or atrocity – it is rather perpetually evident in and is perpetuated by the very insensitivity towards and lack of interest in the plight of others in everyday settings that is promoted by individualised life strategies (Bauman and Donskis 2013). Not only have misfortune, its causes and its consequences been thoroughly individualised, so too has the search for solutions, prophylaxes or cures. Just as there are ‘no local solutions for global problems’ (Bauman 2002c: 42), so there are also no longer any collective solutions on offer to individual troubles. As Bauman in interview insisted, the main paradox confronting individuals today is that of ‘a progressive collectivization of problems coupled with the privatization of the tools and means for their resolution’ (Bauman et al. 2014: 124; original emphasis). Moreover, Bauman often quotes Ulrich Beck for the intriguing insight that in contemporary society individuals in a heretofore unprecedented fashion now have to ‘seek biographical solutions to systemic or structural contradictions’. The problem, however, is that the biographical solutions sought and tested seldom have any real impact on systemic or structural arrangements and the quixotic individual thus ends up tilting at windmills in an ultimately unwinnable fight: That men and women have no one to blame for their frustrations and troubles does not need to mean now, any more than it did in the past, that they can protect themselves against frustration using their own domestic appliances, or pull themselves out of trouble, Baron Münchhausen style, by their bootstraps. Risks and contradictions go on being socially produced: it is the duty and the necessity to cope with them that are being individualized. (Bauman 2002b: 191) Individualised liquid-modern society recognises only individuals. It is, for all practical intents and purposes, an individualised society as well as truly, in Norbert Elias’s (1991) terms, a society of individuals. According to Bauman, liquid modernity is an all-out assault on anything collective, commonly shared or any kind of connotation that cannot, in the last instance, be reduced to the characteristics pertaining to the individual. Thus, for better or for worse, liquid modernity is more than anything else a thoroughly individualised society. There are, however, great differences between how individualisation is experienced by the individual inhabitants of liquid-modern society. In a liquidmodern world in which we are all destined – by design or by default – to be free and to be a free individual equipped with a freedom of choice, freedom does not come to everybody in the same way. Whereas all may be deemed free individuals de jure, that is formally, on a global scale only a very small proportion of the world’s population is also able to live as free individuals de facto, for real. Bauman has therefore proposed that we metaphorically distinguish between ‘tourists’ and ‘vagabonds’ (and in a later rendition of the same theme between ‘consumers’ and ‘flawed consumers’). In an increasingly

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globalised world where the access to mobility is fast becoming one of the major stratifying factors, the ‘tourists’ who may travel freely to any destination of their own choice are the winners, whereas the ‘vagabonds’ who are perpetually pulled or pushed to stay on the move and who are seldom welcome anywhere are the losers (Bauman 1998b). In such a society, individuals no longer regard their life only as a fate – it is now, at least for the ‘tourists’ of liquid-modern consumer society, a matter of choice. Our life trajectories may no longer be entirely predictable or determined by those of our predecessors. However, for the losers in the global game, the ‘vagabonds’, life more than ever before seems to be a matter of fate rather than of individual choice. Moreover, the individual in liquid-modern society is first and foremost a ‘consumer’ and only secondarily a ‘citizen’ concerned with rights and obligations – or rather only with rights than with obligations. Bauman actually states that we have seen a transformation from one’s ‘producer’ role in society as the primary identity marker to now being the role of ‘consumer’ that is the most important. The consumer has thus fast superseded the producer and the citizen as the celebrated and iconic hero of our times with the aforementioned ‘flawed consumers’ or ‘human weeds’ constituting those who are hopelessly lost and unable to obtain or perform the identity of consumers (Bauman 1998a). Today, to be an individual, to feel like an individual, to behave as an individual and to be regarded and recognised by others as an individual means consuming. We live in a society of consumers who constantly engage in situations and episodes of consumption. Most of the time consumption is a thoroughly individualised pastime, although communities of consumption may be sought out for purposes of avoiding loneliness, optimising consumer experience or creating a – however elusive – sense of togetherness. Everything and every moment is now consumerised and customised to fit the demands and desires of insatiable consumers. Life is lived as separate episodes or events of consumption where even the most intimate dimensions of human life – love, compassion and solidarity – have now also come to be viewed as individualised consumer items, always with a keen eye fixed on their use value or on ‘what is in it for me’, and always neatly fitted with an ‘until further notice’ label (Bauman 2003). In the end, Bauman (2007b) suggests, we seem to consume life itself. The driving forces behind this incessant consumer urge are the notions that ‘desire desires desire’ and that we constantly strive to achieve ‘instant gratification, maximum impact and immediate obsolescence’, which will infinitely keep the consuming experience going. As long as the supply of consumption items keeps running unobstructed and smoothly, there is no need for the individuals of liquid modernity to take any notice of or interest in the well-being or plight of others, let alone in the state of society as such. Moreover, with the gradual dismantling of the universalistic welfare state and the relentless advance – even in countries that invented, advocated and previously pledged allegiance to ideas about universalistic welfare – of a means-tested neoliberal model, the consequences of this process is fast becoming self-perpetuating, particularly for the weakest members of society.

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Widespread feelings of precariousness, vulnerability and endemic fear of falling through the no longer so finely meshed social security net are just some of the unfortunate yet obvious outcomes of this deregulation of collective insurance, the individualisation of misfortune and the accompanying privatisation of fear (Bauman 1998a, 2006). Phew, this is indeed a sinister scenario. But we do need to consider if it actually captures what is really going on. Is ‘individualisation’ necessarily the same as ‘individualism’ – an extreme or sectarian cult devoted to the worshipping of the individual? Have people throughout human history not always, although perhaps in different ways, been both ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’? Does the rise of consumerism automatically mean that people discard their identities as producers and neglect their roles as contributors to society? Is the consumer necessarily a narcissistic, antisocial and insatiable homo lupus always looking for new prey?

Critique: consumerised and disarmed? According to Bauman, the main objective of critical theory – or at least of any kind of theory deserving of that distinguished label – has always been the project of human emancipation (Bauman 1999b: 130). Bauman often quotes Cornelius Castoriadis for stating that the most dangerous situation arises when society stops questioning itself and that this is exactly what has happened to contemporary liquid-modern society. This deadly sin of stopping to question oneself is dangerous because it leads to a situation of stagnation, lack of critical reflection and opposition to the status quo and last but not least to society selfconsciously taking itself for granted (see Jacobsen and Tester 2013). In such a society, the need for critical sociology is greater than ever before. One of the key facets of any kind of critical theory is exactly its incessant inquisitiveness that never stops short of insisting that what ‘is’ or seems to ‘be’ might just as well have been ‘different’. As Bauman once wrote on the very nature of critical theory: Unlike other theories, critical theory will not be, therefore, satisfied with the optimally faithful reproduction of the world ‘as it is’. It will insist upon asking: ‘How has this world come about?’. It will demand that its history be studied, and that in the course of this historical study the forgotten hopes and lost chances of the past be retrieved. It will wish to explore how come that the hopes have been forgotten and the chances lost. It will also refuse to accept that whatever is, is out of necessity; it will suggest instead that the structures be explored which perpetuate what is and by the same token render the alternatives unrealistic. It will assume, in other words, that until the contrary is proved, the reality of some attributes of the world and of utopianism of their alternatives are both conditional on the continuation of some practices which, in principle, can be modified and altered … Critical theory, as it were, relativizes what seems to be absolute, pulverizes the solid contours of reality, transforms

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certainties into a mere game of chance, strips external pressures of their authority and brings them into the reach of human control. (Bauman 1991b: 280–1, 289) Bauman ended his lengthy discussion of the role and capacity of critical theory by stating that ‘critical sociology guards [history’s] possibilities against being prematurely closed; and it strives to reopen such past chance that failed to be noticed or properly worked upon’ (Bauman 1991b: 301–2). Our presentday world is perhaps not particularly well attuned or accommodating to this type of critical thinking. In a hugely ‘accelerated world’ as ours, in which everything preferably needs to happen fast if not even immediately, where there is no room for the long term and where the ‘tyranny of the moment’ reigns supreme (see, e.g. Eriksen 2001; Rosa and Scheuerman 2008), there is no time to stop and think, to immerse oneself in contemplation yet also to conduct in-depth critical investigations of the sort suggested above. Perhaps our world is not altogether inhospitable to critique or critical theorising as such – rather it has made that act of critiquing utterly toothless and useless for the purposes of changing society or pointing towards possible alternatives. Critique is now commonplace, perhaps even ordinary – everybody is allowed to be critical and voice his or her critique or critical opinion at any time or place. Everyone is entitled to be heard – but the problem is also that nobody seems to listen to the millions of voices now communicating and incessantly chatting on television, on the cell phones or on the internet blogs and websites (Jacobsen 2015). In order for critique to be consequential, it needs to be heard and taken seriously – today critical voices overcrowd channels of communication and thus drown out each other. Moreover, this liquid-modern type of critique remains solely at the level of ‘life-politics’ as murmurings about private discontents or personal dissatisfactions from where it is unable to coagulate into collective concerns or have an impact on actually existing social arrangements. Self-critique has thus replaced or squeezed out societal critique, the former signalling a perpetual self-disappointment and self-disaffection that remains however inconsequential at the level of the latter (Bauman 2000: 38; see also Willig 2013). In Bauman’s view, societal critique has been disarmed and disassembled. Furthermore, with the fast widening gap between knowing and doing, between contemplating and acting, between observing and changing, bringing a liquid-modern world under human control – as is one of the main tasks of critical theory – seems to be entirely out of the question. Therefore, in our society unprecedented freedom goes hand in hand with unprecedented impotence. Bauman uses the metaphor of the ‘camping site’ for the contemporary state of critique: The place is open to everyone with their own caravan and money to pay the rent. Guests come and go, none taking much interest in how the site is run, providing they have been allocated a spot big enough to park the caravan, the electric sockets and the water taps are in good order and the

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In such a camping site milieu populated by individual (and individualised) caravan owners, no one takes any interest whatsoever in the ‘Common Good’, because there is nothing to have in common – apart from access to privatised means of keeping up a good, quiet and comfortable life at the camping site. Bauman continues by admitting that ‘while hospitable to the critique after the fashion of the camping site’s hospitability to caravan owners, our society is definitely and resolutely not hospitable to critique in the mode which the founders of the critical school assumed and to which they addressed their theory’ (Bauman 1999b: 122). However, the reason why our world is not hospitable to the kind of critique practised by the founders of critical theory and their intellectual inheritors is not only to be found in the fact that the character of critique has changed but perhaps rather that the very object to be criticised – society – today is very different from when the classical critical theorists first wrote their incisive analyses in the mid-20th century. The society envisioned by the classical critical Frankfurt thinkers such as Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse was that of a gigantic common household with shared norms and rules as well as certain collective rights and obligations (Bauman 1999b: 123). Although this society, as classical critical theorists warned, also contained its own imminent dangers (e.g. of totalitarianism, quantification, homogenising, levelling and the subsequent erosion of the ‘non-identical’), the camping site society of contemporary liquid modernity – with its individualised, compartmentalised and privatised lives – has lost its coordinating core and is now splintered into uncountable and seemingly unconnected fragments. As Bauman thus proposes in what may be termed his ‘reversed colonisation thesis’: The task of critical theory has been reversed. That task used to be the defence of private autonomy from the advancing troops of the ‘public sphere’, smarting under the oppressive rule of the omnipotent impersonal state and its many bureaucratic tentacles or their smaller-scale replicas. The task is now to defend the vanishing public realm, or rather to refurnish and repopulate the public space fast emptying … It is no more true that the ‘public’ is set on colonizing the ‘private’. The opposite is the case: it is the private that colonizes the public sphere. (Bauman 2000: 39) Bauman is here turning Jürgen Habermas’s (1984) classic thesis on the ‘colonization of the life-world by the system’ on its head, as it were, and instead proposes that the main problem today in liquid modernity rather than ‘system colonisation’ is the invasion of the public sphere by private and individualised life pursuits. Today, the main threat no longer seems to be that of

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totalitarianism against which so many of the classical critical theorists warned. So may the call to arms in order to secure individual autonomy, freedom of choice and the right to self-assertion in today’s thoroughly individualised and liquefied society finally be called off? No, insists Bauman – that would indeed be a premature conclusion. Critical theory’s main enemy from the age of solid modernity – the Panoptical notion of ‘Big Brother’ who was constantly watching its subjects and in which the many were monitored by the few – has instead been supplanted by the idea of the ‘Synopticon’ (Norwegian sociologist Thomas Mathiesen’s useful term), in which everybody is now seduced individually by a multitude of media images and consumer items. The ‘private’ is now determined to overtake the ‘public’ thereby, as we saw earlier, emptying and eradicating everything that characterises a real ‘public’ – deliberation, dialogue, negotiation, civility, mutual recognition and so on – of any value, meaning or purpose. In an individualised world, anything that oozes of being ‘public’ is now regarded with ill-concealed suspicion at best or as an obstacle to individual life pursuits at worst. So Bauman is suggesting that critique needs to be redirected from its previous target – the totalitarian tendency in solid modernity – to zoom in on the problems of privatisation and individualisation in liquid modernity. But are totalitarian tendencies of system colonisation truly something of the past or might they still require our continued critical attention? Is it true that the ‘private’ is now increasingly invading and colonising the ‘public’? Is the ‘camping site’ metaphor really an accurate description of contemporary society? And does the one type of critique – the critique aiming at ‘the common household’ versus the one centring on ‘the camping site’ – necessarily exclude the other, or might they, in fact, be interconnected and co-dependent?

Utopia: undermined and distorted? Presumably, humans have always dreamed of and hoped for a different and indeed better world than actually existing empirical reality and therefore utopias and utopianism are an inherent part of all known societies. However, it seems as if utopian ideas – as well as their dystopian counterparts – have particularly attracted attention in the eras of solid and liquid modernity providing imaginative images and in-depth descriptions of how our world could look or end up looking if we do not take proper care of it. More than anything else, Bauman is a utopian thinker (Jacobsen 2004). Ever since some of his earliest books published in English in the 1970s, he has continuously tangled with utopian ideas and sympathies. His most substantial contribution to a sociological analysis of utopia and utopianism is evident in the 1976 book Socialism: The Active Utopia, in which he delineates the following four central characteristics of utopias: (1) ‘By exposing the partiality of current reality, by scanning the field of the possible in which the real occupies merely a tiny plot, utopias pave the way for a critical attitude and a critical activity which alone can transform the present predicament of man’, (2) ‘utopia are those aspects

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of culture … in which the possible extrapolations of the present are explored’, (3) ‘utopias scan the options open to society at the current stage of its history’, and finally (4) ‘utopias do exert enormous influence on the actual course of historical events … they just linger in the public mind as guides for social action, as criteria marking off the good from the evil, and as obstinate reminders of the never-plugged gap between the promise and the reality’ (Bauman 1976: 12–17). As is evident from these four characteristics, utopias may have a huge impact on social reality – as a sort of underlying critical attitude and activity, which scans the field of the heretofore yet undiscovered and unknown possibilities, which explores and challenges the stubbornly self-contained present, and which promises and provides guidance for future action. It has been observed that ‘the social context in which we live is not favourable to utopias’ (Mazlish 2003: 43), how ‘as utopian oases dry up, a desert of banality and bewilderment spreads’ (Habermas 1989: 68) and that we now witness the great historical swansong of utopian thinking and utopian ideas (Jacoby 1999). Bauman, however, would not necessarily agree with such a diagnosis – he would rather suggest that the utopian ideas favoured in today’s society are radically different from most of the utopias of the past. Although all societies need to dream of a better future lying ahead in order not to stagnate, prior to the advent of modernity it is difficult to detect utopianism in the way we conventionally (inspired by modernist thinking) comprehend the term as a human striving to change, shape and improve the world. However, Bauman labels the premodern attempts at constructing and upholding a sense of order in and meaning with the world ‘gamekeeping utopias’. By invoking the metaphor of ‘gamekeeping’, Bauman hints at how humans instead of intending to improve or modernise the world rather regard it as their main task to control it and to secure that the natural or divine order of things is being upheld in the premodern habitat. Gamekeepers thus have no interest in tampering with the ways things are – they see themselves as wardens vicariously guarding and supervising the boundaries between the wilderness and the social and cultural world as it is instituted by God: ‘Gamekeepers’ services rest on the belief that things are at their best when not interfered with; that the world is a divine chain of being in which every creature has its rightful and useful place, even if human abilities are too limited to comprehend the wisdom, harmony and orderliness of God’s design’ (Bauman 2007a: 99). Therefore, the premodern gamekeeping state (or rather the mosaic of aspiring states, principalities and feudal overlords) passively regards the surrounding world as a natural wilderness, concentrated primarily on the task of supervising the porous borders between wilderness and civilisation and upholding the superhumanly designed universe. Modernity, according to Bauman, signalled the intensification of Man’s aspirations to control, cultivate and socialise outer nature as well as human ‘second nature’, and with the declining importance of the church, secularisation and an increasing impact of a natural scientific worldview coupled with the rise of territorial state authority, a new type of utopia began to see the light of

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day. Bauman captures the utopias of solid modernity with the phrase ‘gardening utopias’. With this floradic metaphor he intends to show how a previous belief in leaving the world as it – from God’s hands – is gradually giving way to a much more activist, cultivating and tampering attitude concerned with shaping, organising and orchestrating the world. The modernist utopias were erected and drafted exactly at a time when the world desperately craved and demanded order, when the old order, the ancien regime, was gradually but relentlessly giving way to a new and – it is hoped – improved order: Utopia was to be the fortress of certainty and stability; a kingdom of tranquillity. Instead of confusion – clarity and self-assurance. Instead of the caprices of fate – a steady and consistent, surprise-free sequence of causes and effects. Instead of the labyrinthine muddle of twisted passages and sharp corners – straight, beaten and well-marked tracks. Instead of opacity – transparency. Instead of randomness – a well-entrenched and utterly predictable routine … Utopias were blueprints for the routine hoped to be resurrected. (Bauman 2002a: 229) These modernist utopias were often determined to eradicate everything that did not fit into the perfect picture of the world as seen from their ideological manifestos or architectural drawing boards – as drafted and designed blueprints of what the world, thanks to human ingenuity and perseverance, might become one fine day. As a consequence, the ‘human waste’ (e.g. the Jews or any other ‘ambivalent’ group of people not adorning the perfect picture of the world) was thus either incarcerated and/or annihilated, and all other kinds of ambivalence disturbing the idea of the beautiful garden were regarded with suspicion and seen as a threat to the well-ordered society. Thus, Bauman’s critique of modernist gardening utopias was aimed at their inherently totalitarian tendencies, and he testified how ‘modernity was a long march to prison. It never arrived there (though in some places, like Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany or Mao’s China, it came quite close), albeit not for the lack of trying’ (Bauman 1992a: xvii). With the coming of contemporary liquid modernity, such solid and statesubsidised modernist utopias increasingly become yesterday’s news. Liquid modernity signals individualisation, fragmentation and the dissolution and dissipation of everything parading as solid or long-lasting. In such a world, notions of stability, collectivity and order have a strange odour of outdatedness and redundancy. Instead, people see themselves and are now increasingly interpellated – by the remnants of the state, the market and in their social relations – as ‘hunters’ looking for prey. ‘Gardeners’, who previously substituted the ‘gamekeepers’, now give way to ‘hunters’. Liquid-modern utopia is thus by Bauman characterised as a ‘hunting utopia’ inhabited by hunters who daily – unlike their predecessors in the gardening utopia – are now offered the opportunity of living inside instead of towards utopia. For hunters, utopia is

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not something waiting in the horizon. It is already there for the taking – ‘for the gardeners, utopia was the end of the road; for the hunters it is the road itself ’ (Bauman 2007a: 109). As Bauman admits, ‘a bizarre utopia indeed, measured by orthodox standards … but a utopia all the same, promising the same unattainable prize brandished by all utopias, namely an ultimate and radical solution to human problems past, present and future, and an ultimate and radical cure for the sorrows and pains of the human condition’ (Bauman 2007a: 108). Hunters, either alone or in hunting packs, search for fun, excitement, validation, consumer goods and identity – but, as Bauman states, this search is indeed endless (and thus frustrating) because the satisfaction of fulfilment or consummation is rapidly replaced and even amplified by the constant urge for something new. Moreover, the search is also meaningless, although this is seldom recognised by the hunters themselves, because the objects – such as fashion items – to be pursued lack the very authenticity, purpose and direction which makes it possible to construct a meaningful life from them (Bauman 2011: 30). From Bauman’s ‘historical’ analysis of the various convolutions of utopian ideas it becomes obvious that utopia has not disappeared – rather it has been redefined and reinvented almost beyond recognition if compared to the notions previously associated with utopia and utopianism. With the aforementioned demise of notions of the ‘Great Society’, the ‘Just Society’, the ‘Good Society’ or other notions of common good or collective insurance against individual misfortune, politics and utopianism become drastically individualised and privatised in liquid modernity. Bauman thus writes about ‘the privatization of utopia and the models of the good society, with the models of the “good life” elbowing out, or cut off from, the model of the good society’ (Bauman 1999a: 7). Elsewhere, he notes how ‘imagining the possibility of another way of living together is not a strong point in our world of privatized utopias … Our age is the time of “individual utopias”, of utopias privatized’ (Bauman 1998a: 94, 97). But instead of mourning or regretting this transformation, liquid-modern citizens seem to take pride in the fact that politics, ideology and utopia are now almost done away with, and so, in Bauman’s words, ‘we tend to be proud of what we perhaps should be ashamed of, of living in the “post-ideological” or “post-utopian” age, of not concerning ourselves with any coherent vision of the good society and of having traded off the worry about the public good for the freedom to pursue private satisfactions’ (Bauman 1999a: 8). Bauman is evidently an ‘ambivalent utopian’, because he on the one hand insists that utopia continues to hold the promise for imagining a better world, yet on the other hand utopia also points to the many deadly perversions of utopian ideas that history books hold in abundance (Jacobsen 2016). Contrary to many conventional utopians/dystopians, Bauman as an ambivalent utopian is neither excessively optimistic nor equally pessimistic when describing the social world – he seems more balanced and painfully aware that optimism may lead to blindness and pessimism to dejection and despair. As he stated in his semi-autobiographical book This Is Not a Diary, in a subtle comparison

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between his own work and that of H. G. Wells written at the time when the ‘totalitarian tendency’ had started to show its ugly face (and which may serve as an archetypical example of the exact pessimism Bauman has tried to avoid): In a nutshell, Wells struggled, against all odds, to save our self-confidence. What I was trying to do was to save our self-criticism; against all odds and pretentions to the contrary, to sap, or at least weaken our self-conceit. Wells searched for the silver linings under the darkening clouds; I tried to uncover the dark rocks and dark tides lurking behind the dazzling, yet improvised ad hoc and ephemeral lighthouses. (Bauman 2012: 197) Obviously, Bauman’s analysis of the various historical convulsions of different versions of utopia, as with all the other aspects of his work, raises many questions. Is any kind of utopia or utopian idea not – in principle as well as in practice – prone to turning into a nightmare? If any kind of dream of or hope for a better life or a better world is indeed ‘utopian’, how do we then differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ utopias? If the thoroughly individualised and privatised ‘hunting utopia’ is indeed the most recent cultural and social variant of utopia, how may ‘we’ then hope to re-invent or upturn this utopia if there is no longer any ‘we’?

‘There Is No Alternative’ – or is there? One of the main consequences of the collapse of ‘societal critique’ and the transformation or distortion of ‘utopia’ is that our society has stopped questioning itself – where it comes from, how it got to where it is now, how it may become different from what it currently is and where it is heading. Therefore, one of the main and indeed paradoxical outcomes of the rise of liquid modernity is the fact that society seems utterly immune to change or to self-critique. This situation has made Bauman pronounce the prevalence of the so-called ‘TINA Syndrome’. TINA is unfortunately not the name of some luscious or voluptuous lady – it is the acronym for a condition spelled out as: ‘There Is No Alternative’. Just as Bauman’s previously mentioned statement that in liquid modernity ‘there is no such thing as society’, also the notion that ‘there is no alternative’ was originally coined by Margaret Thatcher. However, whereas Thatcher used the catchy phrase to pronounce that there was no longer any viable alternative to liberalist society and capitalist economics, Bauman is rather suggesting that the world nowadays has altogether forgotten that it can be made and remade in another way by men and women and that people therefore live their lives as if this is indeed the only world possible. The world lived in the shadow of this TINA Syndrome paradoxically ushers in a ‘solid’ age which, although described as ‘liquid’, seems altogether resistant to critique, change and any dialogue about alternatives. As Bauman insists, it is actually because of this fluidity that the world seems so stubbornly

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unmanageable and as solid as ever before. The world has altogether forgotten the art of questioning itself and lost interest in imagining itself different from what it ‘is’. The world succumbing to the TINA Syndrome is therefore a world surprisingly resistant to change and immune to as well as suspicious of suggestions for possible alternatives to or lives lived differently from what contemporary liquid-modern consumer/‘hunting’ society deems worthy, interesting or desirable. Such a world is thoroughly self-confident and self-contained – indeed impervious even to doubt itself – that it beyond any reasonable doubt is the best of all possible worlds. As Bauman once observed: ‘Our form of life’ has once and for all proved both its viability and its superiority over any other real or imaginable form, our mixture of individual freedom and consumer market has emerged as the necessary and sufficient, truly universal principle of social organization, there will be no more traumatic turns in history, indeed no history to speak of. For “our way of life” the world has become a safe place. (Bauman 1992a: 175) However, such an apparently ‘safe place’ ushered in by the dominance of the TINA Syndrome is not only a tedious place but also a downright dangerous place because it threatens to ossify and turn into an immutable entity existing beyond human intervention or control. Indeed, a world as reified and solidified as any ever before in human history. Thus, Bauman – in recent collaboration with Leonidas Donskis – has proclaimed that TINA is the very incarnation of liquid-modern evil (Bauman and Donskis 2016). The prevalence of the TINA Syndrome not only questions the viability of any possible alternatives to the present – how is it possible to change things for the better – it also raises the problem of agency – who is going to change the world. The paradox is that with our heretofore unprecedented freedom of choice, our increasingly individualised lives, our ‘camping site critique’ and our increasingly popular ‘life politics’ comes also increased impotence and lack of engagement and investment in changes: ‘We believe too that, were we able to make a change, it would be futile, even unreasonable, to put our heads together to think of a different world from the one there is and to flex our muscles to bring it about if we consider it better than the one we are in’ (Bauman 1999a: 1). In a world dominated by the TINA Syndrome, people are both blind to alternatives and unaware of possible paths to alternatives and thus live their lives wearing blinkers, being unable to see that the world can indeed be different from what it already is. It is a world of defeatism, despondence, disinterestedness and indeed a deadly limitation of mind. The people populating such a world suffering from the TINA Syndrome are equivalent to what C. Wright Mills (1959) once characterised as ‘cheerful robots’ who go about their daily business without any consideration for anything but their immediate personal concerns and who neither criticise nor feel able to change the present state of affairs. As Bauman thus observed, ‘dangers lurk on [two] sides. The world

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without an alternative needs self-criticism as a condition of survival and decency. But it does not make the life of criticism easy’ (Bauman 1992a: 185–6). Therefore, because the world of the TINA Syndrome lacks critical reflection, it is a static and stagnant world incapable of imagining itself different or better. In fact, the exact opposite of the ideological myth of the TINA Syndrome proclaiming an undisguised satisfaction with the present state of affairs is utopia and utopianism – the belief that the world can indeed be different from what it already is. So whereas a world ruled by the TINA Syndrome refuses any talk about a different state of affairs, multiple realities, different paths lying ahead or an alternative future awaiting in the horizon, ‘utopia, on the other hand, is manifestly and self-consciously stripped of the right to demand obedience; and particularly a blank-cheque, unquestioning obedience. Utopia aims at setting imagination in motion, inspiring thought and prompting speech. Unlike TINA … utopia cannot but be an invitation to dialogue’ (Bauman 2002b: 183–4). Utopia – at least in some of its many incarnations – provides the alternatives deemed dubious, impossible or ineffective by TINA, thereby restoring the open debate and unrestricted dialogue so important to any truly autonomous, democratic and pluralistic society. As Bauman has reminded us, if an optimist is someone who believes that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist is someone who suspects that the optimist may be right, the utopian instead places himself or herself in the third camp: that of hope. By its refusal to pre-empt the possible shape of the ‘Good Society’, utopianism cannot but question, listen and seek alternatives to that which currently seems to be or parades as the only reality possible. According to Bauman, however, there is always an alternative. As he once stated, ‘each moment of human history is, to a greater or lesser degree, an open-ended situation; a situation which is not entirely determined by the structure of its own past, and from which more than one string of events may follow’ (Bauman 1976: 10). If this is indeed the case – and now we are getting to the crux of the matter – then how come the ‘TINA Syndrome’ is so successful in closing down any opposition or sense of alternative? If there really are no alternatives in the offing, if all other options are completely ruled out, is ‘liquid modernity’ then not just as solid as its ‘solid-modern’ predecessor? And if so, is the label of ‘liquid’ modernity then not misleading? And if even utopia, as we saw earlier, has now been transformed beyond recognition into some monstrous ‘hunting game’, how may we then possibly place any hope in the self-same utopia to provide us with outlets from the present state of affairs?

Conclusion: hoping against hope? As this chapter has sought to show by way of some selected insights from Zygmunt Bauman’s amazing sociological universe, ‘liquid modernity’ is haunted by its fair share of inner paradoxes, contradictions, ambivalences, tensions and inner demons just as was the case with its predecessor of socalled ‘solid modernity’. Looking at Bauman’s analysis of liquid modernity, it

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becomes obvious that he is laying bare a long list of paradoxes and ambivalences inherent in our time and age, including those of freedom versus security, critique versus consumerism, individualisation versus a continuous craving for community, self-sufficiency versus increased interdependency, globalisation versus localisation, the desperate search for love and recognition versus a detestation of intimacy and moral responsibility, self-critique versus societal critique, fear versus indifference and so on. This chapter has specifically touched upon some of these paradoxes and ambivalences such as: the paradox of liquefying everything and simultaneously making society thoroughly solid and immune to change, the paradox of making life politics as important as ever and meanwhile making all other more comprehensive forms of political engagement impotent, the paradox of emptying public space of meaningful action and at the same time making it fit only for consumer purposes, the paradox of celebrating the individualisation of life circumstances and life choices at the same time as abandoning the responsibility for life consequences and making the individual solely blameable whenever life problems arise, the paradox of saluting a world of open opportunities and nonetheless narrowing it down to ‘no alternatives’, the paradox of simultaneously making self-critique ubiquitous and societal critique utterly irrelevant, redundant, trivial and toothless, and the paradox of ridiculing and abandoning earlier utopian aspirations of the ‘Good Society’ and simultaneously living every single day inside a ‘hunting’ utopian treadmill. Admittedly, to the naked eye and according to most commonsensical conventions, it does indeed seem paradoxical or downright confusing to suggest that so many features of ‘liquid’ modernity are increasingly becoming ‘solidified’ and immutable to change or opposition – that what is supposed to flow freely is increasingly becoming ossified and frozen. However, as Bauman once explained in an interview on this apparent paradox between ‘liquid’ modernity and its drift towards increasing ‘solidity’ and densification: No contradiction here – I learned it from Claus Offe and Pierre Bourdieu. It is because of fluidity that the world is so stubbornly un-manageable. Offe explained the apparent paradox by pointing to the tools of actions being sorely inadequate to the enormity of the task – hence the forces let loose rebound as intractable necessity (I tried to grasp it in the trope of the ‘frontier-land’). Bourdieu uncharacteristically leaped into psychology pointing out that people deprived of the grasp on the present cannot seriously think of controlling the future. This way or the other, we are invited back to the problem of missing agency. Since we do not know who would be able do it were we aware what was to be done, we are disinclined to waste time designing what is to be done, and the summary result is the intractability of reality being perceived as self-reproducing. The odds appear overwhelming. But the odds are as fluid as the rest, and they keep changing in the course of action. (Bauman quoted in Jacobsen et al. 2007: 269–70)

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Therefore, the peculiar solidity of liquid modernity is perhaps not so surprising or peculiar after all – it stems from and reflects the by now well-established fact that the abandonment of any long-term investments, of any shared social responsibility, of any collective action, of societal critique, of the agora, of alternatives to the present and of the belief in a better society necessarily entails that human intervention in the social world is now drastically reduced thus leading to a thoroughly static and stagnant state of affairs. One may surmise that the presence and myriad of so many paradoxes and inner tensions to some extent may also reflect an inner paradox, inconsistency, tergiversation, confusion or contradiction in the mind of the observer/writer himself – and Bauman’s work no doubt contains its own more than coincidental amount of ambivalences and inconsistencies (see Jacobsen 2016; Nijhoff 1998; Pietsch and Marotta 2009: 188). For example, many years ago – decades before Bauman even coined the phrase of ‘liquid modernity’ – Zdzislawa Walaszek wrote of his work that ‘his image of an individual appears to be a fiction, an identity existing independently of human experience that is inevitably structured by role expectations. His epistemology resembles Marx’s theory that the world is objectified in practical consciousness; with its emphasis on man’s obligation to make his own world’ (Walaszek 1977: 346). True, this may indeed seem paradoxical and inconsequential – that man is free to make and remake his own world but nevertheless confronts a world that appears not only alien but also robust and unchangeable. However, it is important to stress that these ambivalences, inconsistencies or paradoxes are not only the result of the workings of the creative (or perhaps confused) imagination of the observer/writer – they are perhaps more an endemic feature of the world of modernity (solid and liquid) described, analysed and diagnosed: Such ambivalence has often been held against one or another modern theorist, for example, as a symptom of personal confusion or inconsistency, but it now needs to be recognized that modernity is complex and multi-faceted; any insightful analysis, and especially any penetrating evaluation, should recognize and reflect this complexity. It is not a question of personal confusion about an unambiguous phenomenon, but a question of personal insight into a phenomenon which is in many respects ambiguous. (Kim 2003: 109) In Bauman’s work, insistently pointing to the paradoxes, ambivalences and inconsistencies of modernity – solid as well as liquid – should therefore be seen as his attempt to point to creative openings, as imaginative inroads and as interpretative ways of teasing out or breaking open a human world that is never as one-dimensional, never as unambiguous, never as transparent, never as unilinear and never as predictable and controllable as we might hope for or, by the powers that preside over us, are deceivingly tricked into believing. Keith Tester once dubbed this apparently inherent ambivalence

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Bauman’s ‘analytical problem’ – to be solved by ‘political action’ and ‘ethical commitment’ – and stated that a central characteristic of this analytical problem is that ‘where we perceive only necessity there is the chance of possibility’ (Tester 2004: 6). To recapture, this chapter has delineated and discussed Bauman’s contribution to a critical sociological analysis of ‘liquid modernity’. The main focus throughout the chapter has been on Bauman’s critical diagnosis of contemporary liquid-modern society and some of its major ailments and pathologies such as the liquefaction of everything solid, the evaporation of Politics (with a capital P), the abandoning of the agora, the individualisation of all life circumstances and human misfortune, the feeble and toothless character of contemporary social critique, the transformation and distortion of utopia and finally the rise of the ‘Tina Syndrome’. All in all, Bauman paints a rather bleak picture of contemporary liquid-modern society and he seems consistently to be putting on the binoculars with the shattered glass when gazing at and interpreting liquid-modern society. Moreover, which may add to an assessment of his diagnosis as altogether sombre and defeatist, nowhere does he pinpoint, provide or propose any concrete solutions, cures or prophylaxes against the ailments and pathologies of liquid modernity. In this way, his inherently dialectical thinking remains decisively negative and his critique immanent. In refraining from pointing to or suggesting actual changes or concrete courses of action, Bauman, however, is far from alone among contemporary utopians. As Krishan Kumar has observed, ‘there are many calls for the revival of utopian thought at the present time, but they fail to specify … what social and political conditions are likely to favour such a revival’ (Kumar 2006: 169). So perhaps there really is no way out of here? Or perhaps there is rather a somewhat cryptic inner discrepancy between Bauman’s ‘ontological’ description of the state of affairs in liquid-modern society and his more ‘normative’ suggestion that each moment of human history is an open-ended situation from which more than one string of events may follow? Based on my many years of reading and digesting Bauman’s work, I am inclined to support the latter view, as I regard it as an integral part of Bauman’s methodological gimmick that he is determined to paint a bleak and consciously distorted picture in order to animate us – as readers – to think, to act, to take responsibility and to remain critical. So despite the many unmistakably sombre and bleak undertones in much of Bauman’s work on liquid-modern society, on the many occasions I have had the pleasure of meeting him and engaging in in-depth conversations with him over the years, his vision of sociology remains as uncompromisingly optimistic and confident as ever. Moreover, he is not dejected about our world – he still believes something can and should be done. As he continues to claim, it is always possible to start anew. The world is never made once and for all. Einmahl ist Keinmahl. Because society is not fixed once and for all, it desperately continues to crave critical thought – by sociologists as well as laypeople – in order not to ossify completely into its commonsensical,

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habitualised and naturalised ways of thinking and doing. Bauman’s critical sociology thus still, as always, has an important role to perform: to keep a critical eye on society as it appears to us and to provide us with the death knell for all that apparently seems so natural, obvious or inevitable. As Keith Tester once so succinctly pointed out: ‘Within his sociology, Bauman tries to show that the world does not have to be the way it is and that there is an alternative to what presently seems to be so natural, so obvious, so inevitable’ (Tester in Bauman and Tester 2001: 9). If this is indeed true – and we may still be allowed to hope so – then we are in fact not hoping against hope. We are rather hoping because there is still hope. Although many of the critical questions raised in this chapter concerning Bauman’s analysis of liquid modernity remain unanswered, this is perhaps also part and parcel of the way he would prefer it. As he once insisted: ‘I happen to believe that questions are hardly ever wrong; it is the answers that might be so. I also believe, though, that refraining from questioning is the worst answer of all’ (Bauman 1999a: 8). And so, it seems, the last word belongs to Zygmunt Bauman.

Note 1 This chapter is a thoroughly revised and substantially expanded version of a chapter included in a Festschrift published in honour of Professor Margareta Bertilsson from the University of Copenhagen at her retirement (see Jacobsen 2014). It is here published with the kind permission of the Department of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen.

References Bauman, Zygmunt (1972): ‘Culture, Values and Science of Society’. University of Leeds Review, 15(2): 185–203. Bauman, Zygmunt (1976): Socialism: The Active Utopia. London: Hutchinson. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991a): Modernity and Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1991b): ‘Critical Theory’, in Henry Etzkowitz and Ronald Glassman (eds): The Renascence of Critical Theory. Ithaca, NY: F. E. Peacock Publishers, pp. 277–303. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992a): Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt (1992b): Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1993): Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998a): Work, Consumerism and the New Poor. Buckingham: Open University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1998b): Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (1999a): In Search of Politics. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Zygmunt (1999b): ‘Critique: Privatized and Disarmed’. Zeitschrift für Kritische Theorie, 9: 121–131. Bauman, Zygmunt (2000): Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Bauman, Zygmunt (2001a): Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2001b): The Individualized Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2002a): Society under Siege. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2002b): ‘Pierre Bourdieu; or the Dialectics of Vita Contemplativa and Vita Activa’. Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 2(220): 179–193. Bauman, Zygmunt (2002c): ‘Living and Dying in the Planetary Frontier-Land’. Tikkun, 17(2): 33–42. Bauman, Zygmunt (2003): Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2006): Liquid Fear. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2007a): Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2007b): Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2011): Culture in a Liquid Modern World. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt (2012): This Is Not a Diary. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Carlo Bordoni (2014): State of Crisis. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Leonidas Donskis (2013): Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Leonidas Donskis (2016): Liquid Evil: Living with TINA. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and David Lyon (2012): Liquid Surveillance: A Conversation. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt and Keith Tester (2001): Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Zygmunt, Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester (2014): What Use Is Sociology? Cambridge: Polity Press. Elias, Norbert (1991): The Society of Individuals. Oxford: Blackwell. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland (2001): The Tyranny of the Moment. London: Pluto Press. Giddens, Anthony (1991): Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1984): The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1989): The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians’ Debate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2004): ‘From Solid Modern Utopia to Liquid Modern AntiUtopia: Tracing the Utopian Strand in the Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman’. Utopian Studies, 15(1): 63–87. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2014): ‘All that Is Solid Melts into Liquid: Zygmunt Bauman on the Liquid-Modern Challenges to Critique’, in Anders Blok and Peter Gundelach (eds): The Elementary Forms of Sociological Knowledge: Essays in Honor of Margareta Bertilsson. Copenhagen: Sociologisk Institut, pp. 175–195. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2015): ‘Flydende kritik: Zygmunt Bauman om kritikkens forfald i den flydende moderne konsumverden’ [‘Liquid Critique: Zygmunt Bauman on the Decline of Critique in the Liquid-Modern World of Consumerism’], in Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Anders Petersen (eds): Kritik: klassiske og kontemporære sociologiske perspektiver [Critique: Classical and Contemporary Sociological Perspectives]. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag, pp. 181–208.

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Jacobsen, Michael Hviid (2016): ‘Zygmunt Bauman: An Ambivalent Utopian’. Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 70 (277/3): 347–364. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid and Keith Tester (2013): ‘Talking Sociology: An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman on Sociology, Celebrity and Critique’. Thesis Eleven, 114(1): 103–113. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid, Sophia Marshman and Keith Tester (2007): Bauman beyond Postmodernity: Critical Appraisals, Conversations and Annotated Bibliography 1989–2005. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. Jacoby, Russell (1999): The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy. New York: Basic Books. Kim, Kwang-Ki (2003): Order and Agency in Modernity: Talcott Parsons, Erving Goffman, and Harold Garfinkel. New York: State University of New York Press. Korpi, Walter (1990): ‘Om undran inför sociologerna’. Sociologisk Forskning, 3: 2–10. Kumar, Krishan (2006): ‘Ideology and Sociology: Reflections on Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia’. Journal of Political Ideologies, 11(2): 169–181. Mazlish, Bruce (2003): ‘A Tale of Two Enclosures: Self and Society as Settings for Utopia’. Theory, Culture and Society, 20(1): 43–60. Merton, Robert K. (1976): Sociological Ambivalence and Other Essays. New York: Free Press. Mills, Charles Wright (1959): The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Nijhoff, Pieter (1998): ‘The Right to Inconsistency’. Theory, Culture and Society, 15(1): 87–112. Pietsch, Juliet and Vince Marotta (2009): ‘Bauman, Strangerhood and Attitudes towards Immigrants among the Australian Population’. Journal of Sociology, 45(2): 187–200. Polanyi, Karl (1944): The Great Transformation. New York: Rinehart. Prˇibáñ, Jirˇì (2007): ‘Introduction: Theorizing Liquid Modernity and Its Legal Context’, in Jirˇì Prˇibáñ (ed.): Liquid Society and Its Law. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 1–14. Rorty, Richard (1995): ‘Movements and Campaigns’. Dissent, 42(4): 55–60. Rosa, Hartmut and William E. Scheuerman (eds) (2008): High-Speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power and Modernity. Philadelphia, PA: Penn State University Press. Tester, Keith (2004): The Social Thought of Zygmunt Bauman. London: Palgrave/ Macmillan. Walaszek, Zdzislawa (1977): ‘Recent Developments in Polish Sociology’. Annual Review of Sociology, 3: 331–362. Weigert, Andrew J. (1991): Mixed Emotions: Certain Steps toward Understanding Ambivalence. New York: State University of New York Press. Willig, Rasmus (2013): Kritikkens u-vending: en diagnose af forvandlingen fra samfundskritik til selvkritik [The U-Turn of Critique: A Diagnosis of the Transformation from Social Critique to Self-Critique]. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Žižek, Slavoj (2011): Living in the End Times. London: Verso.

Index

Aakvaag, Gunnar C. 182, 192, 196 Acemoglu, Daron 194–5 active utopia 122–6, 137, 232 adiaphoria/adiaphorising effects of social processes 20, 31, 42–7, 54, 60–1, 112 Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund: consumerism and 115–17; critical theory and 107–10, 126–7, 128–9; Holocaust and 110–12, 113–14; human emancipation and 39; individualism and 43; negative dialectics and 122–3; overview of comparison with 107–10; overview of contributions regarding 21–2; on poetry after Holocaust 42; splinter quote from 121; on structure of society 118–19; summary of comparison with 131–2; utopia and 122, 125–6 advertising 77, 78 aesthetic experience 38–9 affective bonding 23, 208, 217 Agamben, Giorgio 94, 99 agape 252–3 age, consumption and 191–2 agency and power 193–4 agentic state 55, 60 agora 154, 250–3 Ahmed, Sara 30, 35–6, 37, 38, 42–3 Aidnik, Martin 22 Aitkenhead, Decca 75–6, 78–9 Alexander, Jeffrey C. 29–30, 38–9, 43 Alone Again (Bauman) 120 ambivalence: Enlightenment and 68–9; paradox of 244 animals, as Other 36 anthropoemic strategy 56 anticipatory consciousness 137, 139 Arendt, Hannah 52, 57, 59, 60–1, 72, 112, 251

Aristotle 101, 121–2 art 123, 125, 137, 145 Art of Life, The (Bauman) 173 Attewell, Paul 209 Authoritarian Personality 113–14 Babeuf, Gracchus 218 Bach, Johann Sebastian 146 Badiou, Alain 101 banality of evil 112 basic income 232 Bauman, Zygmunt: absences/omissions in work of 17, 65–6; biographical information on 13, 165–8; critiques of 12–19; ethical stance of 46; iconoclasm of 2–3; indebtedness to 1; postmodern ethics of 29–43; reputation of 243–4; status of 2; style of 15–17, 214, 215–16; see also individual topics; individual works Beck, Ulrich 81, 121, 254 Becker, Howard S. 18–19 Beethoven, Ludwig von 146 Beilharz, Peter 7, 131 ‘being for the Other’ 30–2, 36, 40, 47–8, 52–3, 61, 120, 149–50 Benhabib, Seyla 56, 58 Bentham, Jeremy 97 Benzer, Matthias 114 Bernasconi, Robert 40 Bernstein, Jay M. 123 Best, Shaun 20, 70 Bhambra, Gurminder 81 Blackshaw, Tony 7, 47 Bloch, Ernst 22, 124, 137–8, 139–41, 157–8, 234 body, morality and 36–8, 43 Boltanski, Luc 230

Index Bourdieu, Pierre: agency and power in 193–4; on Bauman on ethics 16; Connell on 81; on consumer society/ consumption 189–90, 196–7; critique of 66; on fluidity 266; on modernity 184–7; Norway and 182–3; overview of contributions regarding 22–3; on structure of society 195–6 Bradley, F. H. 215 Brofoss, Erik 191 Brown, Norman O. 215 Browning, Christopher 72, 73 Buber, Martin 31, 48–9 Burawoy, Michael 127 Butler, Judith 30, 41–2 Calvino, Italo 124 Campbell, Tom 232 Camus, Albert 153 capital: power and 193; types of 185–6 capitalism 77, 125, 141, 153–6, 166, 167–8, 177–8, 248; see also consumerism/consumer society; money ‘caravan site’ society 129 caress 37, 53, 54, 62, 63 Carleheden, Mikael 69 Castoriadis, Cornelius 250, 256 categorical imperative 34, 48–9, 61 Chavs (Jones) 79 China 68, 164, 165 choice 58, 227–8 Christ 98 class: Bourdieu and 185; consumerism and 79; Enlightenment and 68 climate change 164–5 cognitive spacing 55 Cohen, G. A. 100–1 Collateral Damage (Bauman) 153 Collins, Randall 184 commodification 75 commodities: fetishisation of 39; women as 77–8 commodity racism 77 communicative truth, as criterion 14 Communist Party Manifesto, The (Marx and Engels) 150 communitarians 32–3, 52 Comte, Auguste 89, 209 concrete utopia 139–40, 143–4, 156, 157 Condition of the Working Class in England 1844, The (Engels) 217 conflict tradition 184 Connected Sociologies (Bhambra) 81

273

Connell, Raewyn 66, 81 consciousness, anticipatory 137, 139 consumerism/consumer society: age and 191–2; Bauman versus Bourdieu on 189–90; definition of 188; freedom and 204; gender and 74–80, 190–1; individualisation and 255–6; in liquid modernity 58–60, 61, 115–17; Norway as 182–3, 188–9; overview of contributions regarding 22–3; psychoanalysis and 207–8; sociological hermeneutics applied to 227–8; transition to 183–4 Consuming Life (Bauman) 75–6 ‘conversational turn’ 12 counter-priesthood 87–9, 102–3 Cowling, Maurice 89 critical theory 107, 126–30, 202–3, 210–11, 256–9 critique 12–15, 18–19, 126 cruelty 54, 112 cultural capital 185, 193 ‘Cultural Criticism and Society’ (Adorno) 127 cultural pessimists 32 culture: Bauman’s conception of 48, 49–51; in liquid modernity 58–9, 60–1; nature and 91–2, 97, 100, 102; ordering and 144; origins of concept of 67, 68; Other and 55–6, 57–8; tragedy of 99 ‘Culture and Administration’ (Adorno) 131 Culture as Praxis (Bauman) 49, 131, 233 ‘culture industry’ thesis 115–17 Dahl, Henrik 189 Davis, Mark 65, 182, 214, 231, 233 Davis, Murray S. 5, 15 Dawson, Matt 23 De Mysteriis (St. Ambrose) 98 decline sociology, moving beyond 32–5 dedifferentiation 192 dehumanisation 111, 112 democracy 154–5, 156, 176–7, 194–6 democratic paradigm 60 Denzin, Norman K. 6 department stores 76 determinism 141, 142 Dialectic of Enlightenment (Adorno and Horkheimer) 110–11, 112, 113, 115, 125 dialectical materialism 144 dialectics 214–16

274

Index

discipline 183 dislocation 238–9 Distinction (Bourdieu) 185, 186, 189–90 Donskis, Leonidas 61, 264 Døving, Runar 190 Durkheim, Émile 29, 30, 39, 148, 205, 211, 217, 219 economic capital 185, 193 economy 155–6 Eichmann, Vera 73 Elias, Norbert 113, 205, 206, 207, 254 Eliot, T. S. 218 elite 21, 228–9, 231; see also intellectuals/ intellectual elite embodiment 30 emotions: morality and 34, 35, 37, 41, 43; sociology of 30; suffering and 41 Engels, Friedrich 150, 205, 217, 235, 246 Enlightenment: Adorno and 110–15; Bauman’s commitment to principles of 170; Bauman’s interpretation of 66–9, 87; mysteries of being and 93; overview of contributions regarding 21, 22; utopia and 138, 144; values of 177; women and 67–8 Erichsen, Casper 70 Essay on Liberation, An (Bauman) 61 ethics: Other and 51–8see also postmodern ethics ethnomethodology 209 Eucharistic transformation 98–9 Eurocentrism 80–1 Europe: An Unfinished Adventure (Bauman) 174 European Union 167–8, 174–5, 176, 178 Evans, Richard 71 evil, banality of 112 experimentation 95–100 Ezzy, Douglas 20 faitiche 96–7, 99, 100 Featherstone, Mike 233 field, concept of 185–6 flawed consumers 79–80 floated responsibility 60 Foucault, Michel 51, 66–8, 109, 183 Frankfurt School 86, 88, 107, 110, 145, 211 freedom 34, 89–91, 118–19, 120–1, 141, 183–4, 208, 257 Freedom (Bauman) 204 Freud, Sigmund 138, 139, 207 Freyenhagen, Fabian 118

Friedrich, Robert W. 19 Fukuyama, Francis 182 gamekeeping 260 Gane, Michael 211 Gane, Nicholas 154 ‘gardening state’ 113, 228–9, 261 Garfinkel, Harold 209 Gellner, Ernest 22, 163–4, 165–8, 175–8 gender: class and 79; consumerism/ consumer society and 74–80, 190–1; Holocaust and 72–4; in Norway 195–6; overview of contributions regarding 21; sociology and 80, 81 Giddens, Anthony 81, 249 gift-giving 116 Gillis, Marin 39–40 globalisation 43, 136, 184, 186, 247 Globalization: The Human Consequences (Bauman) 172 Goldhagen, Daniel 73 Goudsblom, Johan 213 Gramsci, Antonio 201, 209 Gray, John 136 Groys, Boris 101 Haar, Michel 39–40 Habermas, Jürgen 6, 19, 91–2, 129–30, 196, 226, 251, 258 habitus 185, 193, 195–6 Hansen, Claus D. 21–2 hatred 61 Haynes, Stephen 73 Hegel, G. W. F. 8, 90, 122, 124, 138, 145 Heidegger, Martin 93 Heilbroner, Robert 215 hermeneutic circle 225–6 Hermeneutics and Social Science (Bauman) 6, 12–13, 226 Hitler, Adolf 71 Hitler’s Black Victims (Lusane) 71 Hitler’s Furies (Lower) 73 Hochfeld, Julian 208–9 Holocaust: Adorno and 110–15; Bauman and 112–15; critiques of Bauman’s ideas on 14, 15; gender and 72–4; implications of 119; morality and 33; overview of contributions regarding 21 Hookway, Nicholas 20 hope 137–41, 147, 158, 215, 265, 269 Horkheimer, Max 110–17, 126, 128–9, 202–3 Houellebecq, Michel 31 humanistic perspective 4–5

Index human rights 56, 144 ‘hunting utopia’ 8, 152, 261–2, 263, 266 I and Thou (Buber) 48 iconic consciousness 30, 38–9, 43 iconoclasm 2–3 identity thinking 111, 123, 124 I–It 48, 49 imperialism 21, 70–2, 76–7 In Search of Politics (Bauman) 66, 78–9, 154, 172, 248 inclusive political institutions 194–5 India 165 individualisation 184, 190, 247, 251, 253–6, 259 individualism 189, 206–7 Individualized Society, The (Bauman) 253 inequality 100–2 infinite responsibility 20, 29–30, 42 instrumental rationality 148 intellectuals/intellectual elite 67, 86–7, 91–5, 100, 104; see also elite interpretation, role of 6 interpreter role 224–5, 228–31, 232, 233, 236–8 Intimations of Postmodernity (Bauman) 66 Irigaray, Luce 30, 35, 36–8, 42–3 Islamic states 165, 168–9, 176–7, 178 isolation 184 I–Thou relationship 31, 48 Jacobsen, Michael Hviid 21–2, 23–4, 46, 47, 233 Jacoby, Russell 138, 236 Jameson, Frederic 117 Joas, Hans 114, 218 Jones, Owen 79 justice 86, 101, 103–4 Kant, Immanuel 34, 46, 48–9, 50, 69, 90, 138 Kantorowicz, Ernst 98 Kellner, Douglas 139 Kilminster, Richard 23 kingdom of ends 49, 50 Korpi, Walter 243 Kumar, Krishan 136, 268 Lash, Scott 189 Latour, Bruno 93, 96, 97 Lebensunwertes Leben 113 Lee, Alfred McClung 5 legislator role 224, 228–31, 236

275

Legislators and Interpreters (Bauman) 66, 67–8, 70, 147, 228, 231 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 138 Lepenies, Wolf 136 Lévinas, Emmanuel 20, 29–30, 35–40, 42–3, 46–8, 63, 109, 149–50 Levitas, Ruth 23, 145, 225, 233–6, 237–8 Life in Fragments (Bauman) 46, 51, 66, 121 life politics 59, 248, 249–50 liminality 214 Liquid Fear (Bauman) 153 Liquid Life (Bauman) 117, 131 liquid modernity: consumer society and 58–60, 61; critique and 14, 256–9; culture and 58–9; description of 31, 47, 116–17, 171–4, 244, 246–8; individualisation and 253–6; overview of contributions regarding 22, 23–4; paradoxes of 244–5, 265–8; politics and 248–50; public space and 250–3; refugees and 168–9; TINA Syndrome and 263–5; transition to 183–4; utopia and 150–6, 233, 235–6, 237, 261–3; see also modernity Liquid Modernity (Bauman) 11, 116–17, 172, 246 Liquid Times (Bauman) 247 liquidity, postmodernism vs. 29 Lower, Wendy 73 Lukács, Georg 111, 122, 215 Lusane, Clarence 71 Macintyre, Alasdair 91 Macmurray, John 52 Mann, Michael 74, 81 Mannheim, Karl 213 Marcuse, Herbert 61, 208 Marshman, Sophia 47 Marx, Karl: Bloch and 138, 140–1; on colonialism 80; ‘dawn of detachment’ and 205; dialectics and 215; on fetishisation of commodities 39; on Feuerbach 150; human emancipation and 39; individualism and 43; justice and 86–7; model of social development and 212–13; on modernity 246; partisanship and 208–11; utopia and 201, 235 May, Karl 71 McClintock, Anne 77 Memories of Class (Bauman) 185, 208 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 144 Milbank, John 21

276

Index

Milgram, Stanley 15, 113 Mill, John Stuart 69, 89, 91 Miller, Daniel 183, 188, 190, 191, 195 Mills, C. Wright 9, 264 mimesis 123 Minima Moralia (Adorno) 118, 121–2 modernity: critiques of Bauman’s ideas on 14, 212–13; Gellner on 175–7; Holocaust and 112–13; three approaches to 169–75; two agendas of 164–5; see also liquid modernity Modernity and Ambivalence (Bauman) 66, 68, 113, 147 Modernity and the Holocaust (Bauman) 11, 33, 65, 66, 69–70, 72, 112–13, 116, 119, 147 money 100, 101, 173 moral autonomy 33–4 moral decline sociology 32–5 moral insensitivity 54 moral responsibility, overview of contributions regarding 20 morality: solid modernity and 51–2; source of 34–5; as utopia 147–50 Morawski, Stefan 212 Morris, William 234 Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies (Bauman) 1 music 145–7, 158 Musil, Robert 124 Namibia 70–1 natural law 144 nature 91–2, 97, 98–9, 100, 102 Neeson, Liam 120 negative dialectics 122–3, 125–6 Negative Dialectics (Adorno) 122–3 News from Nowhere (Morris) 234 Nijhoff, Pieter 16 Nilsen, Rune Åkvik 22–3 9/11 40–2 Noddings, Nel 38 ‘non-places’ 252 Norway: basic facts on 187–8; consumer society and 182–3, 188–9; egalitarianism in 193–4; modernisation and 194–6; pluralism in 196; societal structure of 192–3 NRK 188 Offe, Claus 266 Olusoga, David 70 Ordinary Men (Browning) 73 Orientalism (Said) 68

Origins of Totalitarianism, The (Arendt) 72 Orton, Ian 232 Other: Butler on 30; emotional and embodied 36–8; ethics and 51–8; generalised 46–7, 56–7; infinite responsibility for 20, 30, 42; morality and 34; moral responsibility and 52–4, 252–3; particularising 35–6; postmodern ethics and 30–1; responsibility for 150; traumatising 39–40; voice of 47, 62–3 overcritique 205, 217 paradoxes 244–5 Parsons, Talcott 70 pessimism 182, 215, 218, 231, 247–8, 268 philosophes 87, 89 philosophy 203–4, 205, 217 Plato 86–7, 92–3, 137 Polanyi, Karl 89, 246 politics 247, 248–50; see also life politics Porter, Roy 67 positivism 89, 209, 211 Possibility of an Island (Houellebecq) 31 postmodern ethics: caress and 53; description of 31–2; introduction to 29–30; Other and 30–1 Postmodern Ethics (Bauman) 11, 46, 47, 66, 120–1, 149 postmodern moral sociology 20 postmodern sociology 119–20 postmodernity 119–22 power: agency and 193–4; democracy and 194–6; politics and 247 precarious self 40–2 Principle of Hope, The (Bloch) 137, 146, 158 principle of immanence 111 progress 151 psychoanalysis 206–8, 217 public space 58–62, 250–3 Putnam, Robert 194 Rabin, Paul 87, 94 race and racism: consumerism and 77, 79–80; Enlightenment and 67–8; Nazi period and 70–2; overview of contributions regarding 21 Rappoport, Leon 215 rationalisation, theory of 111 Rattansi, Ali 21, 132, 216 Rawls, John 100 Reading the Riots 80

Index ‘Real-Possible’ 139 reflexive modernisation 195, 196 relational morality, introduction to 29 religion, organised 32–3 Reserve Battalion 101 73 Rethinking Modernity (Bhambra) 81 reversed colonisation thesis 258 Ricœur, Paul 6 ritual 95–100, 102, 103 Robinson, James 194–5 Rorty, Richard 250 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 87, 88 ‘rule of nobody’ 52, 60 Rules of Sociological Method (Durkheim) 211 Rumsfeld, Donald 41 Ruskin, John 95 Said, Edward 68 Sandel, Michael 91 Sargisson, Lucy 233 Schindler’s List 120 Schopenhauer, Arthur 146 security, freedom and 34 self, Other and 39–40 self-critique 257 self-founding morality 63 Self-Help (Smiles) 173 ‘self-plagiarising’ 13 Selfridge, Gordon 77 Sennett, Richard 91, 108 sexual difference, Other and 36, 37 sexuality 51 Simmel, Georg 8, 99, 173 Skarpenes, Ove 193–4 Skeggs, Beverley 79 slavery, Enlightenment and 69 Smiles, Samuel 173 Smith, Dennis 7, 8, 22, 109, 126 Smith, Helmut 70 social capital 194 social fragmentation 167 social integration 189 Socialism: The Active Utopia (Bauman) 11, 124, 137, 140, 143, 148, 153, 155–6, 157–8, 259–60 social justice 87 social spacing 55–6 ‘social state’ 232 socialism 140–5, 155–6 societal critique 257, 263 society: architecture of solid 192–3; structure of 210, 218 sociological alternatives 224, 231–2, 236–8

277

sociological dialectics 8–9 sociological hermeneutics 6–7, 23, 224–31, 236–8 sociological imagination 9 sociological indignation 9–11 sociological poetics 7–8, 16 sociological psychology 206–7 sociology: Bauman’s conception of 202–3, 224; bifurcation of 204–8; as conversational 230–1; Eurocentrism and 80–1; philosophy and 203–4; role of 128, 225–6; utopianism and 235–6 Sociology of Theodor Adorno, The (Benzer) 114 solid modernity 51–2 Sorel, Georges 202 Southern Theory (Connell) 81 Soviet Union, collapse of 213 Spirit of Utopia, The (Bauman) 145–6, 158 St. Ambrose 98 Stein, Lorenz von 205, 217 Stoetzler, Marcel 15 Stoltenberg, Jens 191 Streeck, Wolfgang 154–5, 156 structuration theory 230 suffering 30, 41–2, 153 Suicide (Durkheim) 219 surplus repression 142–3 symbolic violence 186, 193 ‘Synopticon’ 259 system integration 189 Taylor, Charles 95 Tester, Keith 7, 10, 24, 46, 61–2, 233, 267–8, 269 Thatcher, Margaret 247, 263 Thinking Sociologically (Bauman) 207 This Is Not a Diary (Bauman) 238, 262–3 Till, Chris 232 TINA Syndrome 3, 4, 153, 186, 224, 237–8, 263–5 Tocqueville, Alexis de 173–4 totalitarianism 251, 259 Towards a Critical Sociology (Bauman) 11 Tracy, Destutt de 89 tragedy of culture 99 trust 62, 188, 192, 193, 197 uncertainty, endemic 170–1 Unsicherheit 249 urban living 165 utopia: active 122–6, 137, 232; Adorno and 108; Bauman and 142–5, 157–8,

278

Index

201, 218–19, 233; Bauman’s conception of 10; Bloch and 137–8, 139–41, 157–8; characteristics of 259–60; concrete 139–40, 143–4, 156, 157; critical theory and 128; demise of 136; hunting 8, 152, 263, 266; Levitas and 225, 233–6, 237–8; in liquid modernity 150–6, 261–3; modernist 261; morality as 147–50; music as 145–7; overview of contributions regarding 22, 23; TINA Syndrome and 265 Vindication of the Rights of Women, A (Wollstonecraft) 69 violence, symbolic 186, 193 Voltaire 68, 69

Walaszek, Zdzislawa 267 Wallerstein, Immanuel 81 Ware, Vron 77 Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts (Bauman) 153 Weber, Max 2–3, 62, 80–1, 111, 148, 227, 249 Wells, H. G. 238–9, 263 Wittfogel, Karl 213 Wollstonecraft, Mary 69 women: commodification of 77–8; Enlightenment and 67–8; see also gender Work, Consumerism and the New Poor (Bauman) 66 Žižek, Slavoj 252