Baumans Concepts of Solid and Liquid Modernity - Essay Example

Bauman’s Concepts of Solid and Liquid Modernity Introduction: Bauman the modern and living theorist in sociology entered to this world inPoland and made relocations few times in his life. After the diverse experience of life in different countries he made important contribution to the sociology by presenting theories and books. He was a born Jew and experienced communism when he was in Russia. He was Marxist till the anti-Semitism activities of the Poland which later on expelled Jews population from Poland including him. He has also experienced military in fighting against the Nazi’s Forces in USSR and earned honor and recognition there that is he was promoted to the rank of Major. But due to his father’s contact with Israel he was dishonorably expelled from the army. The books written and the theories presented by him was after this era when after his completion of master degree he became lecturer in universities Warsaw, Tel Aviv and Leeds. He made awful contribution to the subject of sociology by presenting theories of modernity. He presented theory of post modernity which later on he called as liquid modernity differentiating it from the older times which he called solid modernity. Bauman’s work covers both the classical and modern aspects of the sociology. His broad range of work covers rationalization of classical/older era and making contribution to the modern era in the form of modernity theories. He enables us to understand the contemporary issues of the modern era and provided solution to this by presenting modernity theories thereby enabling us to stay in line/live the modern social life successfully. Among his well-known books and articles he provided to society during his career the unforgettable one was “Modernity and the Holocaust”. This was the book which became the cause of his fame in the world of sociology and named him in the book of the modern theorists. In this book he explained his views regarding holocaust and reasons for its happening. As he was affected in person from the holocaust and that is why his views was criticized by some other theorists and accused these as biased. But despite of these criticism he made a fruit full contribution towards understanding of contemporary issues of the society and by providing solutions for these issues. The society owes to him for these efforts and will not forget his contribution whenever they will be in danger to decide about the circumstances like Holocaust (Bauman, Z. (1989). Bauman says in his famous book “Modernity and the Holocaust” that the main reason for occurrence of Holocaust was the modern civilization He accused the solid Bureaucracy as the main reason for the mass murder of Jews by Nazis in Europe. He further said that without this such mass murder of a group was not even thinkable without the modern civilization and its quests (Bauman, Z. (1989). Bauman considers the current condition of our lives as liquid being transformed from its solid state through the pressure of time and space. He believes that the current liquid condition of the society are like the shape of a liquid or fluid that is its shape is changing very fast and thus confronting the individuals with situation that were never before encountered/faced by them. The fast pace of this liquid society structure give birth to a lot of contemporary issues which needs to be considered seriously in order to devise effective strategies for covering future uncertainties of the society that may become the cause of bog disaster. Which he referred to as that the society is running on a thin ice which can anytime become the reason for a disaster of the whole nation (Bauman, Z. (1989). Bauman’s Concepts of Solid and Liquid Modernity and Liquidity Concept’s Ability to Capture Contemporary Life Issues. Bauman’s concept of Solid Modernity: This concept relates to the past state of the older society whereby the societies was subjected to follow some traditions and rules that were either inherited or were learned from the past experiences of the society. It was very simple and way of doing things which are not applicable in the modern times. This concept is discussed by Bauman in his book “Liquid Modernity”. He used this term for making differentiation between the old and new ways of doing that is the solid modernity and the liquid modernity. The term solid modernity was used to refer to the unchanging structure of the society of that era, most of these rules was considered as constant and was not supposed to change (Bauman, Z. (1989). That is action was defined and reactions to those actions was also devised from these traditional rules of the society, which was based on the more humane view of the society and was considered as human friendly favoring the human togetherness and reduction of hatred among them through a series of social interactions. As Mr. Bauman was previously a Marxist therefore most of his theories and ideas are seems to be motivating or praising communism or socialism. The idea of solid modernity was explained for the purpose of clarification of another idea that is the liquid modernity. The solid modernity also explains the resistance of this shape towards change in the habitual ways of doing things. The reason for the Bauman’s idea he presented in his book of “Modernity and Holocaust” in which he blamed modern civilizations for the occurrence of Holocaust and therefore he considered modernity as murderous (Bauman, Z. (1989). Bauman though provided these ideas about the solid and liquid modernity in his books and tried to remain unbiased while making these statements but most of the writers criticize his work for its judgmental nature. The reason for such criticism is very clear that is Bauman was a Jew and was personally expelled first from Poland and then from USSR to Israel and then from Israel to England. He was affected from the anti-Semitism activities and that is why his ideas are seems infected with hatred from the modern era’s ideas/civilizations. Liquid Modernity: Zygmunt Bauman described Liquid Modernity in his book “Liquid Modernity” with the following four characteristics: A situation where social organizations does not remain persistent for any length of time that is changing frequently Separation of Power from Politics that is the Power and Politics are not the same things Sociality should be seen as a network and not as a structure. Non-application of long-term thinking and Planning (Bauman, Z. (1989). In his book “Liquid Modernity” Bauman described this as the modern era’s social condition and treated it as liquid due to its nature of being inclined towards rapid changes in the society and non-continuous nature of society’s rules and regulations for dealing with prone to changes circumstances(Bauman, Z. (1989). As per Bauman “In a liquid modern life there are no permanent bonds, and any that we take up for a time must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again as quickly and effortlessly as possible, when circumstances changes as they surely will in our liquid modern liquid society, over and over again”( Anon, (2015). This perspective of Bauman which he specified in his book of Liquid Modernity simply states the nature of modern society that is its nature of being prone to change. The Bauman intimates us or in other restricts us from making any permanent bonds in this liquid era and suggests that loose bonds should be made in order to untie it when the circumstance change will be repeated which is possible at any moment of time due to the nature of modern society. In another occasion Bauman says “Unlike real relationships virtual relations are easy to enter and to exit” (Anon, (2015). In this quote Bauman again enlighten the changing nature society suggesting that real relations shall not be adopted as it is difficult to enter and exit while virtual relations shall be adopted which is easy for entry and exit and are therefore shall be adopted in this kind of society (Bauman, Z. (1989). Liquid Modernity concept of Bauman is the result of the Bauman’s concept that today’s world is denying to accept the previous rules and traditions that were devised for the purpose of application and dealing with the matters that would arise in the society with the passage of time. Bauman states that human wants to make their world as predictable and thus by formulation of strategies and policies make it manageable. This human quest leads towards rejection of the past made traditional societal rules that were considered as trivial and defective or deficient to be applied to the modern era’s society problems (Bauman, Z. (2000). In the “Liquid Modernity” Bauman states that change from solid to liquid modernity that is selecting new ideas in place of old ideas was the not only resentment of old solid ideas but was the dissatisfaction that was caused by these ideas in the form of compulsiveness or obsessiveness that were observed in its application (Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity and Issues of Contemporary Life: Liquidity concept if on one side provides fruit full solutions for the issues of modern contemporary life, on the other side also give birth to some threats or contemporary fears on the other side, which was marked by the criticizing sides. Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity provided solutions for the issues of contemporary life in the form of suggestions that he provided in his books and quotes. As per the Bauman “the task for sociology is to come to help of the individual. We have to be in service of freedom. It is something we have lost sight of” (Anon, (2015). He has provided that we shall be in service of freedom thereby resolving the one issue of contemporary life. He has also provided solution for other contemporary issues such as consumerism, love, community, freedom and globalization. He provided solution to these issues in the form of well-written books which are considered as treasure of knowledge for the subject of sociology. The solutions for issues of contemporary life that were presented by Bauman was also criticized by others who states that the Liquid Modernity theory gives birth to some issues that induces contemporary fears. The very important factor that is no control became reason for contemporary fear. That is no control on any resource of the society induces panic of uncertainty in the society which is not considered as a good factor in society. The unpredictability of the future circumstances is another contemporary fear which creates tension in society about what to be done with the emerging circumstances that are certain in term of occurrence but uncertain in terms of its time for occurrence. The metaphors used by Bauman for making his theory more humanistic are mostly of dualistic nature and creates hurdles in the way of making conclusions. The term “gathering place” was replaced by Bauman as “Gardening State” and he connected violence for the creation of such a state by giving the example of Nazi Germany war and thereby referring to the Holocaust (Bauman, Z. (1989). Conclusion: Bauman’s concept of Liquid Modernity provides a fruitful solution towards the complexities of social change by providing suggestion regarding formulation of certain values or traditions or rules for society that would lead towards the freedom of society and making it a Gardening State without issues like Holocaust. Bauman’s ideas regarding Solid Modernity provided an insight towards the old solid values and the melting powers that would eventually leads towards liquefaction of the society (Bauman, Z. (2000). References Anon, (2015). [online] Available at: http:\\http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/z/zygmunt_bauman.html [Accessed 24 Mar. 2015]. Bauman, Z. (1989). Modernity and the Holocaust. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UNIVERSITY Press. Bauman, Z. (1991). Modernity and ambivalence. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Dimitrov, B. (2015). Modernity and Liquid Modernity. [online] areadnetopology. Available at: http://ariadnetopology.org/ [Accessed 24 Mar. 2015]. Rappert, B. (2001). Zygmunt Bauman: Dialectic of Modernity, Peter Beilarz, London: Sage, 2000, £45.00 (£14.99 paperback), xi+180 pp. (ISBN 0-76196734-X) The Bauman Reader, Peter Beilarz, London: Blackwell, 2000, £15.99 paperback, xi+192 pp. (ISBN 0-631-1492-5). Sociology, 35(04), pp.991-1008. ROCCO, C. (1994). Between Modernity and Postmodernity: Reading Dialectic of Enlightenment against the Grain. Political Theory, 22(1), pp.71-97. Read More