With every death, a world is disappearing. Zygmunt Bauman More Quotes by Zygmunt Bauman More Quotes From Zygmunt Bauman 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 inequalityrisingtrends When opting out from partnership is so easy, every minor disagreement is perceived as a major catastrophe and irreparable disaster. Zygmunt Bauman partnershipdisastereasy After many years of thinking, reading and writing and looking, I came to believe that there are two basic, essential values which are indispensable for humane, decent, dignified life: one is freedom, and the other is security. Zygmunt Bauman readingwritingbelieve All the skills which I have acquired during my sociological life allow me to diagnose and explain what is going on, but not to predict what will happen. Zygmunt Bauman sociologicalskillshappens Our consumer-oriented economy wouldn't survive without economic growth. The whole mechanism depends on invention and insinuation of novelties, arousing new wants, seduction and temptation. This is the problem we face - much more than recapitalizing the banks. The question is: Is that kind of economy sustainable? Zygmunt Bauman growthtemptationfaces Our bad luck is that our writing is linear, while we think circularly. Zygmunt Bauman luckwritingthinking The problem of insufficient security was, until quite recently, a matter of a minority; now it is becoming very quickly a majority matter. That is a major change. Zygmunt Bauman majorityminoritiesmatter The more security we have, the less freedom there is; more freedom means less security. You can hardly enough of both at the same time. Zygmunt Bauman securityenoughmean The Bible unites its interpreters as a shared focus of attention, but it does not demand consensus. On the contrary, it invites and prods us to make responsible choices, to take responsibility for the choices that we have made... It was always like that, and our holy scripture grows over the centuries, gets thicker and thicker, with more texts around, which need/have to be looked into, referred to, considered. Zygmunt Bauman focuschoicesresponsibility Indeed, I did not truly "belong" to any school, order, intellectual camaraderie or clique; I did not apply for admission to any of them, let alone did much to deserve an invitation; nor would I be listed by any of them - at least listed unqualifiedly - as "one of us". Zygmunt Bauman intellectualorderschool The descent of Israel from the morally towering position of a 'light for the nations' to the lowest of the low and one of the last relics of bygone shameful times of merciless imperialism, conquest, exploitation is on the cards. Zygmunt Bauman lastslightisrael Where we hope to land (and where we do land, though only for a fleeting moment, enough for tired wings to catch the wind anew) is a 'there' which we thought of little and knew of even less. Zygmunt Bauman tiredlandwind If Christ would have left Christian ethics codified on the table, then he wouldn't produce moral beings choosing between good and evil, but conformists fulfilling orders. I think the same can be said about the Bible. Zygmunt Bauman christianorderthinking As to describing me as an outsider throughout, and an outsider through and through - I have no reason to disagree. Zygmunt Bauman describe-meoutsidersreason People do not choose a government that will bring the market within their control; instead, the market in every way conditions governments to bring the people within its control. Zygmunt Bauman governmentpeopleway Attempts to tame the wayward and domesticate the riotous, to make the unknowable predictable and enchain the free-roaming - all such things sound the death knell to love. Eros won't outlast duality. As far as love is concerned, possession, power, fusion and disenchantment are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Zygmunt Bauman four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypseroaminglove-is I suspect that one of capitalism's crucial assets derives from the fact that the imagination of economists, including its critics, lags well behind its own inventiveness, the arbitrariness of its undertaking and the ruthlessness of the way in which it proceeds. Zygmunt Bauman ruthlessnesslagimagination What is assumed to be the materialisation of the inner truth of the self is in fact an idealisation of the material - objectified - traces of consumer choices. Zygmunt Bauman choicesselffacts Marcus Aurelius appoints personal character and conscience the ultimate refuge of happiness-seekers: the only place where dreams of happiness, doomed to die childless and intestate anywhere else, are not bound to be frustrated. Zygmunt Bauman frustrateddreamcharacter "Community" came to be seen as a chat-group: you switch on as long as your pleasure lasts, then push another button and switch off. Very easy to go in and out, join and leave. Zygmunt Bauman buttonscommunitylong
