Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

"Liquid Times" offers a brilliant series of thoughts about postmodern life by master philosopher/sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. This accessible book succinctly introduces the reader to Mr. Bauman's theories about the passage from the "solid" phase of welfare statism to the "liquid" phase of neoliberalism which have rightly earned the author international acclaim and recognition, particularly among activists in the anti-globalization movement. In this highly rewarding book, Mr. Bauman shares some of his knowledge gained from over eighty years of high-level scholarship and diverse life experiences, rewarding the reader with a number of unique, compelling and penetrating insights into our postmodern condition.

Mr. Bauman contends that as multinational corporations have wrested economic power from state control, individuals have born the cost of change: the evisceration of the social safety net compels individuals to sink or swim. Mr. Bauman describes how urban elites have become disconnected from the working class, residing in tightly-controlled enclaves of security while the masses have been left behind to fend for themselves in slums or crime-ridden shantytowns. As globalization depletes resources and produces prodigious amounts of human waste, the author believes that refugee camps represent only the most severe manifestation of the permanency of transience, as unwanted populations are forever stranded in a 'nowhereville' of non-citizenship.

Indeed, Mr. Bauman asserts that the state finds newfound legitimacy in law enforcement and militarization. While the reality of increasing economic insecurity has compelled many individuals to assuage their anxieties by increasing discipline over mind, body and physical environment, the state incarcerates those who are unable to adopt and attacks others who might threaten us. In this manner, the state serves the interests of the powerful by protecting property rights; meanwhile, the social rights that are most needed by the poor are almost never seriously considered.

In the final chapter, Mr. Bauman discusses how consumerism offers individuals the illusory utopia of the endless pursuit of self-realization. Mr. Bauman contrasts the "hunter" who lives within this fantasy with the "gardener" who attempts to cultivate a more humane and sustainable world for all. Discovering that the utopian concept is today most often seized upon by marketers than by idealists, the author brilliantly connects the seduction of the market economy with public passivity and a general lack of outrage within the industrialized nations for what the advent of corporate rule has come to mean for most of the world's people.

I give this masterwork the highest possible recommendation.

This book is a quick exploration of the main causes/symptoms that make our present lives uncertain and full of fears. Fragmentation, instability, lack of structure, absence of universal projects, and individual responsibility as the only venue for our social and global problems are the main characteristics of our new reality. As a consequence, we live in fear. Politics and advertising exploit this weakness, fueling a vicious cycle from which we try--seldom successfully--to escape: the more we fear, the more we are subject to feel unstable and the more we suspect anything and anyone who might present a risk to our individual situation. We fear because we know we are not in control anymore. Consequently, we reject and protect ourselves from strangers, migrants, or the unemployed, who represent not only the disturbing presences of the uncanny, but also a symbolic abyss that opens in front of us. We react by limiting their access to our social and urban space, by withdrawing into individual isolation, and by consuming readily disposable products and symbols. Zygmunt Bauman does not believe that this is a long-term solution. The author does not elaborate on clear alternatives to this situation except when at the beginning of the book (p. 26) he mentions, almost in passing, the need to seek a planetary solution to our democracies.

The book is divided in 5 sections ("Introduction: Bravely into the Hotbed of Uncertainties," "Liquid Modern Life and its Fears," "Humanity on the Move," "State, Democracy and the Management of Fears," "Out of Touch Together," and "Utopia in the Age of Uncertainty"). I find the last section the least interesting because of its vagueness. Although the writing is engaging, not all the quotes are fully documented; for instance, many times the author's name will be included but not the work and the page numbers.

Zygmunt Bauman is a Polish-born sociologist in the Marxist tradition mostly known for his thoroughgoing critiques of consumerism, modernity, and cultural memory (especially the Holocaust). His "liquid" books, including "Liquid Modernity" (2000), "Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds" (2003), "Liquid Life" (2005), "Liquid Fear" (2006), and the book presently considered, "Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty" (2006), for the most part seem to be shorter books whose aim is to adumbrate the arguments Bauman has made over the course of his career.

The focus of "Liquid Times" is a meta-critique of globalization and all of the problems it presents, from rootlessness to the ubiquity of the security sate, with Bauman's central thesis being that the consequences of globalization have seriously hindered attempts at international justice. The goal of globalization - to eradicate any trade barriers and therefore create "markets without frontiers" - results in the transition from a world where people are subject to the laws and protections of their home countries to one in which radical fear and lack of security are reified and the "fading of human bonds and the wilting of solidarity" reigns. This lack of security results in fear and a perceived lack of control, which in turn perpetuates and shores up the conspicuous shift toward national security that we have experienced in advanced liberal democracies. And so the pernicious cycle goes. In his comparison of cities, the globally located ones (that are able to participate in the fully integrated sphere of globalization) and locally located cities ones (those that aren't), Bauman says that the job of the city has changed from protecting its inhabitants from outsiders to housing ghettoized populations of peripatetic transnationals and strangers, the "dumping ground for globally conceived and gestated problems."

Our new liquid times have also brought about an unprecedented number of refugees, both political and economic. Wars, which Bauman thinks are essentially local attempts to solve global problems, become intractable. The result is an "excess of humanity" - humanity as waste product - completely and utterly divested of property, personal identity, or even a state that will recognize their existence.

Bauman suggests that democracy has ironically become an elitist affair, where the rich protect their interests and the poor continue to suffer from a lack of social safety nets and supportive governmental networks. He is also not terribly optimistic about the chances of gaining a pre-globalized utopia, a word which Thomas More first darkly noted could mean, homophonically, either "paradise" or "nowhere." While it is still a paradise for some, our world has become too liquid to be anything but the latter for most of us. In the end, Bauman offers in every analysis of globalization the ultimate paradox of modernity: a permanent life shot through with impermanency.

As I pointed out before, at least according to the back of the book, Bauman has taken the time to further detail his analyses in other books. However, from what I read here, I am not sure how many of his arguments are original. Books on globalization with themes of alienation and disenfranchisement are not unpopular in the field of sociology. However, Bauman's wry wit definitely has me interested in reading more of his work, which I plan on reviewing in the future.