Zygmunt Bauman was born in Poznan, Poland, on November 19, 1925, to Jewish parents. In 1939, following the Nazi invasion of Poland, he was forced to flee to the Soviet occupation zone, where he enlisted in a Soviet military unit. He began studying sociology at the University of Warsaw after the end of the war, collaborating with several specialized journals. Initially loyal to Marxism , Bauman later gravitated toward the thought of Gramsci and Simmel . He gained international fame for his studies on the connection between the culture of modernity and totalitarianism, particularly Nazism and the Holocaust. In particular, he focused his reflections on the theme of globalization . For Bauman, globalization undermines social cohesion on a local scale, leading to the creation of a mobility elite capable of obliterating space, of giving meaning to space, and above all capable of making space meaningful for themselves. Bauman defines this situation as “space wars,” which risk becoming the harbingers of dangerous consequences due to the disintegration of protective networks.
The advent of the liquid society
Zygmunt Bauman focused his attention on the transition from modernity to postmodernity , and the related ethical questions. He compared the concepts of modernity and postmodernity to the solid and liquid states of society, respectively. While in the modern age everything was given as a solid construction, nowadays, every aspect of life can be artificially reshaped. Therefore, nothing has clear, defined, and fixed contours once and for all. This cannot help but affect human relationships, which have become precarious because people do not want to feel caged in. Bauman argues that the uncertainty gripping modern society stems from the transformation of its protagonists from producers to consumers . The social exclusion Bauman elaborates is no longer based on being extraneous to the production system or on the inability to buy essentials, but on the inability to buy to feel part of modernity. According to Bauman, the poor, in a liquid life, seek to conform to common patterns, but feel frustrated if they cannot feel like others—that is, not feel accepted in the role of consumer. Thus, in a society that lives for consumption, everything is transformed into a commodity, including human beings. However, it is important to note that Bauman, unlike other authors, rejects the term "postmodern" in favor of " liquid modernity ," precisely to indicate the fragility of any construction in our era.
Identity for Zygmunt Bauman
For Zygmunt Bauman, the primary feeling afflicting postmodern man is unease . But where does this unease originate? From several factors, first and foremost the problem of identity . In postmodernity, in fact, unlike the modern era—in which the primary concern was to construct and stabilize an identity—it is necessary to avoid any kind of fixation: it is no coincidence that the postmodern watchword regarding the question of identity is " recycling ." Specifically, Bauman uses figures such as the pilgrim, the tourist, and the vagabond to help us understand the issue. The pilgrim , a symbolic figure of the modern age, is the portrait of the man who is building his life, his future, his identity, aware of the fact that tomorrow there will be a future. However, now there is no longer room for the pilgrim: reality has become too flexible for anything stable and lasting to be built over time. Thus, other replacement figures appear, such as the " flaneur " (the gentleman who wanders the city streets, experiencing emotion as he observes the landscape) but, above all, the vagabond . A true scourge of the modern age, in the postmodern era the figure of the vagabond is reevaluated precisely because of his lack of roots and stability, exactly like the world in which he now finds himself living. Finally, we have the tourist , who, unlike the vagabond, has a home but moves temporarily, in a constant and feverish search for sensations and pleasures.
The fear of postmodernism
What factors cause postmodern fear? First of all, technological progress has currently " rendered mass labor increasingly unnecessary in relation to the volume of production ," combined with a progressive deinstitutionalization of production processes, meaning that the state no longer provides the services needed to overcome human uncertainty. Postmodern man now " becomes his own supervisor and teacher ," and while in the modern age he served as a provider of goods, now his primary function is that of a seeker of pleasure and sensations. Another source of postmodern anxiety is the body , consistently seen as a receptor of sensations. For it to fulfill its primary function, it must be in good health: thus, the concept of fitness enters the life of postmodern man , linked to a maniacal attention to health practices.
Sociologically
