Liquid Modernity: SummaryLiquid Modernity: Summary

Whoformulatedthetheory?

What does it explain?

Bauman's theory, published for the first time in the year 2000, explains the current social changes and the difference with previous generations, where life was designed to follow certain established patterns, such as getting married before that age and working in a only place until retirement

The Polish sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman was the one who developed the concept of LiquidModernity, a theory that describes the way of life of current society and how it breaks with the structures of the past; that is to say, with the way in which, for example, our grandparentslived

P U R P O S E

El propósito principal de Modernidad líquida es tratar de responder a estas preguntas, una tarea nada fácil Zygmunt Bauman realiza un valioso análisis sociológico. Uno de los puntos relevantes del texto es que nos encontramos ante la disolución del sentido de pertenencia social del ser humano para dar paso a una marcada individualidad.

Cuando el ser humano tiene posibilidades reales de ser independiente, la sociedad ya no es aquella suma de individualidades sino el conjunto de las mismas.

This physical state is applied to this theory of modernity in the sense that, after the Second World War, we find ourselves with at least three decades of continuous and prosperous development, in which the human being finds solid ground to be and relate to with the rest.

Years later, this same development, translated into science and technology, as well as political, economic, cultural exchange, market opening, globalization, has led human beings to distance themselves from what they were united with, the society. That is to say, from a solid society it passes to a liquid, malleable, slippery, flowing society in a light capitalism

Bauman explains that when faced with the possibility of real changes, we can react favorably by feeling more and more independent and in control of our destiny, but there will also be those who feel afraid of such circumstances Being independent is not so easy, liberationemancipation can bring consequences that we are not used to. We consider ourselves modern, but we are not First, because there are deficiencies to correct in different areas; Second, because in a few years this modernity will give way to another, but it will necessarily have to give way to another conception.

For Bauman, man puts aside that feeling of satisfaction and well-being derived from industrialization after the Second World War and seeks his freedom. He considers that the freedom achieved with his emancipation has made man keep more to himself, becoming even more unconcerned with what is happening around him. He points out that man is immersed in a consumer society, which increasingly seeks satisfaction and faster, given the expiration conditions of the products offered, and not necessarily food products Such are the cases of fashion collections, the latest in technology, which is today and will no longer be tomorrow He considers that this need for purchases is caused by the desperate search for belonging to the group that guides the course of the consumer capitalist society.

He points out that when we go shopping, we exorcise those spirits that only show us over and over again that, indeed, we have basic needs that will be covered in most cases; but only those, no more, we have no opportunity to obtain more. Those with high purchasing power will have a greater number of options. Those with less purchasing power will only be able to acquire what corresponds to them.

Accordance

the man will inevitably end up falling into the networks of consumerism, his identity will not be enough to save him from being part of the synoptic society However, there is still a subtly clear difference between society's number one enemy, the individual.

Third paragraph

In the third section, Bauman reflects on space/time and its separation, before they were united and represented joint forces for themselves Currently, they have not only separated, but also force against each other, especially time versus space The first is the medium, the second's conquest tool; before it was on a par with our senses, however, with technological advances, this perception of time has been transformed in such a way that what before seemed so far away, is now only a click away from us, in this way we conquer space. An instantaneous conquest, which takes longer to have a past than a future.

Another great contribution of the text is the one that refers to the classification of spaces in the field of human coexistence

The emic spaces or places (the one destined for exclusion), the phagic places (the one destined for the mass inclusion of consumption), the non-places (it is a space stripped of the symbolic expressions of identity) and the empty spaces (places that they have always been there, but nonexistent in our mental map) It is precisely in these spaces, in which humanity currently operates, that there is a certain need for exclusion

The human being feels safer being alone than in society he is losing the skills of coexistence he will only move and express himself,toacertainextent,withthosewhom he considers to be his own class Don't talk to strangers, as Bauman points out, has turned from a child protection phrase, to an adultprotectionshell

Another theme that the author explains to us is that the liquid society has transformed the essence of work as a common good, to the essence of individual work For my own interests Here work as such has two edges

First that of the financial capitals that produce them from factories etc the interest is only as human capital That is to say, as the means by which matter is transformed into a good that will be bought and that will quickly go down in history as obsolete Workers are the container that contains the work On the other hand, the worker first goes from a long-term jobdurable and in which affectionate ties are created with colleagues and the company, there is identification and gratitude-, to an immediate job -in which durability is not important and personal ties cease to exist andonlyinstantgratificationmatters

Although it is true that individuals live together around cities or towns, they are immersed in a mechanism from which it is very difficult to get out, a collective individuality The individual as such can only trust himself, and not others, since his security is far above collective interests or rather community If we add to this that the State

-before guarantor of security, certainty, and to a certain degree, freedom- no longer offers these guarantees, then there is that separation between the national, within which patriotism is immersed It only remains for him to try to achieve that security, understood not only as physical security, but also as mental security

That is to say, in solid modernity, the individual felt identified with the State, in addition to the fact that it represented a future if not a more promising one, at least a future Now the individual finds that that future has vanished, he does not know how he will find himself in four or five decades For this reason, it is important to point out that the individual, seeing himself co-opted by these created needs, takes refuge in himself to be able to gain that security, which has evaporated among the powers of the financial markets The concept of the nation-state represented a solid community, however security and certainty seek a new model to base their expectations The State has ceased to be benefactor Currently it has taken the role of mediator between the powers that be and individuals, it has ceded its decision-making powers The State and the nation have taken different paths in liquid modernity

Finally Bauman points out that submerged in the liquid society we can only expect one change, in a long time We cannot change in a few years what has happened for centuries Of course, we must have hope But it is worth noting that the search for identity, for our author, is a constant struggle to stop the flow Perceiving identity from the outside draws our attention, it causes us attraction, we want to go after it, in a way that allows us not to be so dependent on a consumerist society However, when we are inside it, when we possess it, it will seem to us something illusory, volatile, for which we always prefer to return to the state of a solid and consumerist society Being part of a group

These are the main ideas that Bauman raised in his liquid modernity and what it is like to "live in an age of uncertainty"

2) CITIZENS OF THE WORLD

Another of the traditional patterns that is broken in the Liquid Modernity described by Bauman is the concept of citizenship, which is replaced by a more nomadic lifestyle where people do not "put down roots" in one place but live their lives as a tourist, changing not only their place of residence but, as we have already seen, their work, partner and other aspects, excluding themselves from traditional support networks (such as the family) More and more young people travel "out there" in search of new experiences and with the desire to see new realities they move from one place to another without staying in any one place for more than a couple of months They do not do it to get involved with other ways of life but to feed their own individual baggage of experiences

Not only love ties are rejected in the liquid society: many reject all kinds of ties, so it is unthinkable to stay in a company until the day we retire Today there seems to be no place for a lifetime job or even lifetime knowledge, as with the ever-changing technological world, knowledge often becomes obsolete too quickly

Every day workers are required to be prepared for more challenges and have new skills and aptitudes for work, which in turn are also constantly renewed Likewise, one of the requirements that companies demand more and more frequently is that the ideal person for a position must be willing to leave their lives to move to another city when necessary for the business

1)LIQUIDLOVE

Aswealreadymentioned,mostofour grandparentsmanagedtomaintaintheir relationshipuntiltheendoftheirdays,this beingalmostautopiatoday

AsBaumanexplains,today'srelationshipsare basedontheconceptofliquidlove;Forthis reason,itismorefrequentthatcouplesrun awayfromcommitmentandrefusetosacrifice theirsupposedindividualfreedomtofocuson asinglepartner

Howmanyofthecouplesyouknowhavemet onTinder,Instagramoranothersocialnetwork andhowmanyofthemhavemanagedto surviveandstrengthentheirrelationship?Most often,currentrelationshipsarebriefandare maintaineduntilconflictsarise,atwhichpoint therelationshipendsandthe"catalog"(the socialnetwork)istakenupagaintostartwith someoneelseandsoonandonagain fall backinthesamecircle

The expression "liquid modernity" seeks to define a social model that implies "the end of the era of mutual commitment", where the public space recedes and an individualism is imposed that leads to "the corrosion and slow disintegration of the concept of citizenship"

4)THESOCIETYOFCONSUMERISM

In the current era consumerism is such that the important thing is not to keep the objects but to renew them all the time Anyone who currently has a mobile from 2010 has an archaic device in their hands, with no chanceofbeing"connected"withothers

It does not only happen with telephones but with everything that surrounds us as well as planned obsolescence which is the programming that is carried out on a product so that it does not have a long-term usefullifeorpartstorepair:directly,theeasiestsolution istoreplaceit

3)JOBSARENOTFORLIFE

For everything described above about Liquid Modernity which states that today's citizen is in a permanent search for new experiences work is another of the areas that are not designed to last beyond a while

Todays society has more and more stores and more and more people with a consumer fever Likewise, pollution and the false idea that many of us can access whatadvertisingshowsusandthatinthiswaywouldbe breaking in some way with social segmentation also increases

But, since in the liquid society the important thing is not to satisfy desire but to generate and feed it constantly, the person will soon become anguished in the face of the ephemeral and inconstant of everything that surroundshim