scholarly journals Cosmopolitan perspective in the work of Zygmunt Bauman

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (13-14) ◽  
Author(s):  
Valida Repovac Nikšić ◽  
Amila Ždralović

The theoretical legacy of Zygmunt Bauman is an inexhaustible sourceof inspiration for sociological analysis, particularly bearing in mindthe scope of his work and the diverse range of modern day problemsthat this British-Polish author dealt with. The first part of this articleexamines the question of personal identity in liquid modernity, whichis the starting point of Bauman’s work. Similar to some other authors,Bauman discusses the paradox of the individual who is not free inan individualized society. Bauman’s diagnosis carries pessimistic featureswhich in some places correspond to insights developed in classicalsociology. Bauman makes occasional and sporadic incursionsinto the pitfalls of conservative thought, particularly in relation tothe dichotomies of individual versus community, individualism versustogetherness, and egoism versus solidarity. However, it seems thatthe author manages to skilfully avoid the inherent theoretical traps ofsociology, turning towards cosmopolitan theory. The second part ofthis article presents the thesis that Bauman’s thought is in fact cosmopolitan,especially bearing in mind his final public appearances andwritings. This argument is based in his description of global societythat is simultaneously integrating and developing, and dramaticallydisintegrating and regressing. Bauman writes about violent killingsand expulsions of people in the 21st century and their inability to findrefuge in the Western and democratic world that promotes humanrights. Recalling the crucial cosmopolitan principles of solidarity andhospitality, Bauman makes an appeal to progressive forces to consolidateand work on opening and reaffirming the “cosmopolitan condition”of contemporary society.

polemica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-118
Author(s):  
Ronaldo Rangel ◽  
Gabriel Dolabela Raemy Rangel

Resumo: O ensaio revisita os livros A Teoria da Classe Ociosa (originalmente publicado em 1899), de Thorstein Veblen, e Modernidade Líquida, de Zygmunt Bauman, publicado pela primeira vez em 1999, os quais, embora separados por um século de história humana, observam as experiências sociais de seus respectivos tempos com constructos muito assemelhados. O ensaio assume que Veblen descreve efeitos da modernidade que emerge no fim do século XIX, ao passo que Bauman explicita a pós-modernidade do século XXI (à qual chama de Modernidade Líquida) e, com base nos autores, reflete sobre o indivíduo, as motivações de consumo, a demanda por crédito, o endividamento e outras categorias por eles tratadas, para apresentar um novo ator: o “consumidor falho” ou, como aqui chamado, o “indivíduo socialmente falho”.Palavras-chave: Consumo. Endividamento. Emulação pecuniária. Modernidade líquida.  Abstract: The essay revisits the books The Theory of the Leisure Class (originally published in 1899) by Thorstein Veblen and Liquid Modernity by Zygmunt Bauman first published in 1999 that, although separated by a century of human history, observe social experiences from their respective times with very similar constructs. The essay assumes that Veblen describes the effects of modernity that emerged at the end of the 19th century, while Bauman explains the post-modernity of the 21st century (which he calls Liquid Modernity) and, based on the authors, reflects on the individual, the motivations consumption, the demand for credit, indebtedness and other categories treated by them, to present a new actor: the 'flawed consumers' or, how we conceptualize, a “socially flawed individual”.Keywords: Consumption. Indebtedness. Pecuniary emulation. Liquid modernity.


2020 ◽  
pp. 146954052095520
Author(s):  
Paul Hewer

This paper has three objectives. The first is to deliver a critical review of the work of Zygmunt Bauman on Liquid Modernity and Liquid Times. I argue that Bauman’s work can provide a useful starting point for analysing the ‘unruly’ forces of contemporary society. Bauman’s work, as I have sought to reveal, takes us to the heart of liquid modern darkness. It forces us to take seriously the import of the sociological imagination and the insight that personal troubles are best understood as emerging public issues stemming from structural processes. The second objective, is to explore how consumer culture theorists have taken and in dialogue with these ideas sought to expand upon his initial ideas. Here I review the value of the concept of ‘liquid consumption’ and the ‘fresh start mindset’. The third and final objective, is to demonstrate how reflexive marketing practitioners are responding to such liquid times through rethinking their practice and thereby extending the terrain of marketing. Here I detail how the promise marketing imagination starts not with the darkness of liquid modern times but rather with a far more hope inspired tale to enchant new markets and new audiences on the possibilities and ‘solutions’ of being future oriented and technologically savvy. Finally, it argues that the task of reimagining appears essential given the current zeitgeist, where the climate of anxiety, fear and uncertainty whether it be political, economic, environmental or social threatens to engulf us.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-351
Author(s):  
Sarah Bowman ◽  
Jane Hendy

This is a conceptual essay that explores the concept of knowledge as it relates to public relations (PR). It suggests an ecological knowledge architecture as a lens through which to understand the theories and concepts that support practice. It does so by drawing on the work of Zygmunt Bauman and his reflections on liquid modernity to inform and shape thinking and uses it as a thread to help synthesise scholarship from knowledge, competency and career scholarship and debates around professionalisation. It argues that by subdividing knowledge into explanatory, interventionist and practice principles greater clarity can be given to the know-how (functional skills) and know-that (theoretical knowledge) of PR. In addition, by overlaying a postmodernist and liquid concept to this tripartite division of knowledge, PR can be well placed to take advantage of the change in careers and capabilities necessary for work in the 21st century.


2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Wicklund

Abstract: Solidarity in the classic sense pertains to a cohesion among humans that entails physical contact, shared emotions, and common goals or projects. Characteristic cases are to be found among families, close friends, or co-workers. The present paper, in contrast, treats a phenomenon of the solidarity of distance, a solidarity based in fear of certain others and in incompetence to interact with them. The starting point for this analysis is the person who is motivated to interact with others who are unfamiliar or fear-provoking. Given that the fear and momentary social incompetence do not allow a full interaction to ensue, the individual will move toward solidarity with those others on a symbolic level. In this manner the motivation to approach the others is acted upon while physical and emotional distance is retained.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-31
Author(s):  
Francisco Xavier Morales

The problem of identity is an issue of contemporary society that is not only expressed in daily life concerns but also in discourses of politics and social movements. Nevertheless, the I and the needs of self-fulfillment usually are taken for granted. This paper offers thoughts regarding individual identity based on Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. From this perspective, identity is not observed as a thing or as a subject, but rather as a “selfillusion” of a system of consciousness, which differentiates itself from the world, event after event, in a contingent way. As concerns the definition  of contents of self-identity, the structures of social systems define who is a person, how he or she should act, and how much esteem he or she should receive. These structures are adopted by consciousness as its own identity structures; however, some social contexts are more relevant for self-identity construction than others. Moral communication increases the probability that structure appropriation takes place, since the emotional element of identity is linked to the esteem/misesteem received by the individual from the interactions in which he or she participates.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Chamim Tohari

Relation between the different of religion comunity in the multicultural nation as in Indonesia be a natural phenomenon that it cannot be avoided. As to one of the problem that had appeared in this case is about wedding problem betweena moslem with the difference religion womans. Majority of the Indonesia religious scholars as scholar in Majelis Tarjih Muhammadiyah had been prohibiting wedding like that with various reason. while a part little of the contemporary moslem scholars have been permiting the wedding. The points which will discussed in this research is how is opinion of Majelis Tarjih Muhammadiyah about the law of wedding with the woman from Ahl Al-Kitab and its ijtihad methodology. This research should analyze the argumentation of the Majelis Tarjih that make forbidding a muslem married with the difference religion womans. This research using library research approach dan content analysis. The results of this research are: (1) Majelis Tarjih of Muhammadiyah forbidding the wedding with sad al-dzari’ah as its argumentation; (2) Majelis Tarjih’s opinion has been irrelevant because two reason, the mistake of methodology and the change of the Indonesian contemporary society (based on an empiric data). Keywords: Ahlu Kitab; Majelis Tarjih; Different Religion Marriage


Author(s):  
Andrew van der Vlies

Two recent debut novels, Songeziwe Mahlangu’s Penumbra (2013) and Masande Ntshanga’s The Reactive (2014), reflect the experience of impasse, stasis, and arrested development experienced by many in South Africa. This chapter uses these novels as the starting point for a discussion of writing by young black writers in general, and as representative examples of the treatment of ‘waithood’ in contemporary writing. It considers (spatial and temporal) theorisations of anxiety, discerns recursive investments in past experiences of hope (invoking Jennifer Wenzel’s work to consider the afterlives of anti-colonial prophecy), assesses the usefulness of Giorgio Agamben’s elaboration of the ancient Greek understanding of stasis as civil war, and asks how these works’ elaboration of stasis might be understood in relation to Wendy Brown’s discussion of the eclipsing of the individual subject of political rights by the neoliberal subject whose very life is framed by its potential to be understood as capital.


Author(s):  
Jakub Čapek ◽  
Sophie Loidolt

AbstractThis special issue addresses the debate on personal identity from a phenomenological viewpoint, especially contemporary phenomenological research on selfhood. In the introduction, we first offer a brief survey of the various classic questions related to personal identity according to Locke’s initial proposal and sketch out key concepts and distinctions of the debate that came after Locke. We then characterize the types of approach represented by post-Hegelian, German and French philosophies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We argue that whereas the Anglophone debates on personal identity were initially formed by the persistence question and the characterization question, the “Continental” tradition included remarkably intense debates on the individual or the self as being unique or “concrete,” deeply temporal and—as claimed by some philosophers, like Sartre and Foucault—unable to have any identity, if not one externally imposed. We describe the Continental line of thinking about the “self” as a reply and an adjustment to the post-Lockean “personal identity” question (as suggested by thinkers such as MacIntyre, Ricœur and Taylor). These observations constitute the backdrop for our presentation of phenomenological approaches to personal identity. These approaches run along three lines: (a) debates on the layers of the self, starting from embodiment and the minimal self and running all the way to the full-fledged concept of person; (b) questions of temporal becoming, change and stability, as illustrated, for instance, by aging or transformative life-experiences; and (c) the constitution of identity in the social, institutional, and normative space. The introduction thus establishes a structure for locating and connecting the different contributions in our special issue, which, as an ensemble, represent a strong and differentiated contribution to the debate on personal identity from a phenomenological perspective.


Complacency potential is an important measure to avoid performance error, such as neglecting to detect a system failure. This study updates and expands upon Singh, Molloy, and Parasuraman’s 1993 Complacency-Potential Rating Scale (CPRS). We updated and expanded the CPRS questions to include technology commonly used today and how frequently the technology is used. The goal of our study was to update the scale, analyze for factor shifts and internal consistency, and to explore correlations between the individual values for each factor and the frequency of use questions. We hypothesized that the factors would not shift from the original and the revised CPRS’s four subscales. Our research found that the revised CPRS consisted of only three subscales with the following Cronbach’s Alpha values: Confidence: 0.599, Safety/Reliability: 0.534, and Trust: 0.201. Correlations between the subscales and the revised complacency-potential and the frequency of use questions are also discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
RACHAEL DOBSON

AbstractThis article argues that constructions of social phenomena in social policy and welfare scholarship think about the subjects and objects of welfare practice in essentialising ways, with negativistic effects for practitioners working in ‘regulatory’ contexts such as housing and homelessness practice. It builds into debates about power, agency, social policy and welfare by bringing psychosocial and feminist theorisations of relationality to practice research. It claims that relational approaches provide a starting point for the analysis of empirical practice data, by working through the relationship between the individual and the social via an ontological unpicking and revisioning of practitioners' social worlds.


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