The passage from ‘solid’ to ‘liquid’
modernity has created a new and unprecedented setting for
individual life pursuits, confronting individuals with a series of
challenges never before encountered. Social forms and institutions
no longer have enough time to solidify and cannot serve as frames
of reference for human actions and long-term life plans, so
individuals have to find other ways to organise their lives. They
have to splice together an unending series of short-term projects
and episodes that don’t add up to the kind of sequence to
which concepts like ‘career’ and ‘progress’
could meaningfully be applied. Such fragmented lives require
individuals to be flexible and adaptable – to be constantly
ready and willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandon
commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue
opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid
modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the
likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under
conditions of endemic uncertainty.
Zygmunt Bauman’s brilliant writings on liquid modernity
have altered the way we think about the contemporary world. In this
short book he explores the sources of the endemic uncertainty which
shapes our lives today and, in so doing, he provides the reader
with a brief and accessible introduction to his highly original
account, developed at greater length in his previous books, of life
in our liquid modern times.
Table of Content
Introduction: Bravely into the Hotbed of Uncertainties 1
1 Liquid Modern Life and its Fears 5
2 Humanity on the Move 27
3 State, Democracy and the Management of Fears 55
4 Out of Touch Together 71
5 Utopia in the Age of Uncertainty 94
Notes 111
About the author
Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Universities of Leeds and Warsaw.
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