We already have - thanks to technology, development, skills, the efficiency of our work - enough resources to satisfy all human needs. But we don't have enough resources, and we are unlikely ever to have, to satisfy human greed. Zygmunt Bauman More Quotes by Zygmunt Bauman More Quotes From Zygmunt Bauman In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest. Zygmunt Bauman tools justice attention Partnerships are increasingly seen through the prism of promises and expectations, and as a kind of product for consumers: satisfaction on the spot, and if not fully satisfied, return the product to the shop or replace it with a new and improved one! You don't, after all, stick to your car, or computer, or iPod, when better ones appear. Zygmunt Bauman ipods car expectations Being condemned by fate to perpetual togetherness, we better make that shared fate into our shared, consciously and gladly embraced, destiny. Zygmunt Bauman togetherness fate destiny If there is something to permit the distinction between "solid" and "liquid" phases of modernity (that is, arranging them in an order of succession), it is the change in both the manifest and latent purpose behind the effort. Zygmunt Bauman liquid effort order I suspect that the peer-review system carries a good part of blame for the fact that something like sixty percent or more of journal articles are never quoted (which means leaving no trace on our joint scholarly pursuits), and (in my reception at any rate) the "learned journals" (with a few miraculous exceptions that entail, prominently, TCS) ooze monumental boredom. Zygmunt Bauman boredom leaving mean Alas, you don't need monsters for monstrous deeds to be accomplished. Zygmunt Bauman deeds monsters needs An ideal and flawless freedom, "complete freedom", enabling without disabling, is I believe an oxymoron in metaphysics as much as it is an unreachable goal in social life. Zygmunt Bauman enabling goal believe In a nutshell: if freedom visualised by the Enlightenment and demanded/promised by Marx was made to the measure of the ideal producer; the market-promoted freedom is designed with the ideal consumer in mind; neither of the two is "more genuine" than the other. Zygmunt Bauman enlightenment mind two Once upon a time there were the Pampas in Argentina, that people could treat as "empty lands" and where they could run away from their problems from problem-ridden homes. That eventuality is no longer available. Zygmunt Bauman land home running There are, by the most conservative counting, two grave and deeply regrettable collateral victims of the peer-review gruesome stratagem: one is the daring of thought (wished-washed to the lowest common denominator), and the other is the individuality, as well as the responsibility, of editors (those seeking shelter behind the anonymity of "peers", but in fact dissolved in it, in many cases without a trace). Zygmunt Bauman editors responsibility two The art of walking on quicksand is still beyond me. What I learned is only how difficult this art is to master and how hard people need to struggle to learn it. Zygmunt Bauman struggle people art You cannot have a cake and eat it too. Either you eat it, or you have it. Zygmunt Bauman cake In the last thirty years we have gained enormous amount of freedom (everywhere, except perhaps in places like Burma or North Korea), but we lost quite a large amount of security. Because of all sorts of reasons, because of globalization which stripped the nation state of a large part of its sovereignty away, because of the dismantling of the so-called welfare state. As a result, people feel simultaneously much freer and much more insecure. Zygmunt Bauman insecure korea years Ingeniously, capitalism discovered that the economy may be moved not by satisfying existing needs, but by creating new ones. Zygmunt Bauman creating may needs Man is in his short sojourn on earth equal to God in His eternity. Zygmunt Bauman eternity earth men Freedom without security portends chaos, perpetual anxiety and fear. Zygmunt Bauman perpetual chaos anxiety The proof of my Jewishness is that iniquities done by Israel pain me much more than iniquities perpetrated by any other country. Zygmunt Bauman pain israel country If you look back on the history of the 20th century, the 19th century or even to the ancien régime of the 18th, you will see that first people rebelled against the order of the things because of lack of liberty, and demanded more freedom. And when they got more freedom, they got frightened, and they desired more security for a change. After a while, they started complaining, although more secure, they also become more dependent and rule-bound. Zygmunt Bauman liberty order people Happiness needs one-upmanship. Zygmunt Bauman needs We have a reversal of a longstanding trend, from rising inequality across nations and constant or declining inequality within nations, to declining inequality across nations and rising inequality within them. Zygmunt Bauman inequality rising trends
