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| Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, who has written extensively on the origins and ephemeral quality of postmodern life, says that liquidity is the metaphor which best characterizes the contemporary world. In a world which is "liquid," everything is short-lived and nothing stands still. Bauman says that while human life expectancy continues to be extended, everything else seems to be short-lived, and anxiety among human beings rises as nothing stands still and people are constantly on alert. The person capable of the most liquidity, according to Bauman, will often come to power in a society. |
Liquid Modernity (Polity Press, 2000) |
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Zygmunt Bauman's Intimations of Postmodernity (Routledge, 1992) looks at the philosophical antecedents of postmodernity, and speculates on the role of the intellectuals in a world where old certainties have dwindled and new unsettling contingencies are recognized.
 Globalization: The Human Consequences (Columbia University Press, 1998) and In Search of Politics (Stanford University Press, 1999) were two other books by Bauman that examined some of the same questions considered in Liquid Modernity.
On the bonus track for Volume 48, Zygmunt Bauman, author of Liquid Modernity, talks about the effect of this new sensibility on business, politics, and personal life. Click here to listen to the segment. (Left click to stream; right click to save.) |
Globalization
Modernity
Postmodernity
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