In a consumer society, people wallow in things, fascinating, enjoyable things. If you define your value by the things you acquire and surround yourself with, being excluded is humiliating. Zygmunt Bauman More Quotes by Zygmunt Bauman More Quotes From Zygmunt Bauman There are other ways of finding satisfaction, recipes for human happiness, enjoyment, dignified and meaningful, gratifying life, than increased consumption that increases production. Zygmunt Bauman recipesmeaningfulway Security without freedom means slavery. Zygmunt Bauman securityslaverymean The task for sociology is to come to the help of the individual. We have to be in service of freedom. It is something we have lost sight of. Zygmunt Bauman taskssighthelping Why do I write books? Why do I think? Why should I be passionate? Because things could be different, they could be made better. Zygmunt Bauman writingbookthinking This awful concept of underclass is really horrifying. You're not lower class, you are excluded - outside. Zygmunt Bauman excludedawfulclass Freedom without security portends chaos, perpetual anxiety and fear. Security without freedom means slavery. So, each on its own is awful; only together they make for a good life. But, a big "but": being both necessary, complementing each other, they are nevertheless virtually incompatible. Zygmunt Bauman good-lifeanxietymean Madness is no madness when shared. Zygmunt Bauman madnessinsanity Ideally, nothing should be embraced by a consumer firmly, nothing should command a commitment till death do us part, no needs should be seen as fully satisfied, no desires considered ultimate. There ought to be a proviso 'until further notice' attached to any oath of loyalty and any commitment. It is but the volatility, the in-built temporality of all engagements that truly counts; it counts more than the commitment itself, which is anyway not allowed to outlast the time necessary for consuming the object of desire (or, rather, the time sufficient for the desirability of that object to wane). Zygmunt Bauman loyaltydesirecommitment We are already and will remain all in the same boat. Zygmunt Bauman boat In "solid modernity" difference was tolerated as a temporary irritant only, expected to disappear tomorrow, when "those aliens" will become like us. "Living with strangers" was therefore not something to last and did not call for developing appropriate arts and skills. Now, however, it looks like that diasporic context of our living will not go away - it will be there forever, so learning how to live with strangers day in, day out without abandoning my own strangeness is high on the agenda. Zygmunt Bauman differencesskillsart As far as love is concerned, possession, power, fusion and disenchantment are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Zygmunt Bauman four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypsefusionlove-is We have found ourselves in the period of "interregnum": the old works no more, the new is not yet born. But the awareness that without it being born we are all marked for demise, is already much alive, as is the awareness that the hard nut we must urgently crack is not the presence of "too many poor", but "too many rich". Zygmunt Bauman cracksdemisenuts I did not and do not think of the solidity-liquidity conundrum as a dichotomy; I view those two conditions as a couple locked, inseparably, in a dialectical bond. Zygmunt Bauman coupleviewsthinking In our world of rampant individualisation, relationships are mixed blessings. They vacillate between a sweet dream and a nightmare, and there is no telling when one turns into the other. Zygmunt Bauman blessingdreamsweet For the first time in living memory, the whole class of graduates faces a future of crushing debt, and a high probability, almost the certainty, of ad hoc, temporary, insecure and part-time work and unpaid 'trainee' pseudo-jobs deceitfully rebranded as 'practices' - all considerably below the skills they have acquired and eons below the level of their expectations. Zygmunt Bauman crushjobsmemories Relationships, like cars, should undergo regular services to make sure they are still roadworthy. Zygmunt Bauman carstillsshould Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burnt-out human dreams and charred hopes. Zygmunt Bauman phoenixashesdream Capitalism proceeds through creative destruction. What is created is capitalism in a 'new and improved' form - and what is destroyed is self-sustaining capacity, livelihood and dignity of its innumerable and multiplied 'host organisms' into which all of us are drawn/seduced one way or another. Zygmunt Bauman creativeselfway The carrying power of a bridge is not the average strength of the pillars, but the strength of the weakest pillar. I have always believed that you do not measure the health of a society by GNP but by the condition of its worst off. Zygmunt Bauman pillarsbridgesaverage What has been cut apart cannot be glued back together. Abandon all hope of totality, future as well as past, you who enter the world of fluid modernity. Zygmunt Bauman cuttingtogetherpast
