Zygmunt Bauman is one of the leading figures in contemporary social thought. His work ranges across issues of ethics, culture and politics. It never forgets that social thought ought to help men and women make sense of their lives and aspire towards something different. His books and essays always focus on the here and now: violence and moral indifference, globalization, consumerism, politics and individualization. They cast a sharp eye on the panaceas of ‘there is no alternative'; the embrace of (...) community and the fads of the ‘counselling boom'; through which men and women are told that they can achieve biographical solutions to what are, in fact, systemic problems. In this new book, Zygmunt Bauman and Keith Tester engage in five accessible conversations that uncover and explore the assumptions and commitments underpinning Bauman's ground-breaking social thought. The conversations show how those commitments have influenced Bauman's analyses of modernity, postmodernity and ‘liquid modernity'. The book ranges widely, from autobiographical reflection through to pointers for the understanding and future of Bauman's social thought. The conversations illustrate the moral substance of Bauman's refusal to accept that the world cannot be made different. They show why social thought is a human necessity. Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman is a book which will offer fresh insight into Bauman's work for those who are familiar with it, and provide an engaging and helpful entry point for those who are new to it. (shrink)

Zygmunt Zawirski (1882-1948), an eminent and original Polish philosopher, belonged to the Lwow-Warsaw School (LWS) which left an indelible trace in logic, semiotics and philosophy of science. LWS was founded in 1895 by K. Twardowski, a disciple of Brentano, in the spirit of clarity, realism and analytic philosophy. LWS was more than 25 years older than the Vienna Circle (VC). This belies, inter alia, the not infrequently repeated statement that LWS was one of the many centres initiated by VC.

In Culture, Modernity and Revolution a group of distinguished sociologists and social philosophers reflect upon the major concerns of Zygmunt Bauman. Their essays not only honour the man, but provide important contributions to the three interlinked themes that could be said to form the guiding threads of Bauman's life work: power, culture and modernity. Culture, Modernity and Revolution is both a remarkable sociological commentary on the problems facing East-Central Europe and an exposition of some of the key, hitherto neglected, (...) features of the modern cultural universe. (shrink)

Life in Fragments is a continuation of the themes and motifs explored in Zygmunt Bauman's acclaimed study, Postmodern Ethics (Blackwell, 1993).

In February 2012, the Obama White House endorsed a Privacy Bill of Rights, comprising seven principles. The third, “Respect for Context,” is explained as the expectation that “companies will collect, use, and disclose personal data in ways that are consistent with the context in which consumers provide the data.” One can anticipate the contested interpretations of this principle as parties representing diverse interests vie to make theirs the authoritative one. In the paper I will discuss three possibilities and explain why (...) each does not take us far beyond the status quo, which, regulators in the United States, Europe, and beyond have found problematic. I will argue that contextual integrity offers the best way forward for protecting privacy in a world where information increasingly mediates our significant activities and relationships. Although an important goal is to influence policy, this paper aims less to stipulate explicit rules than to present an underlying justificatory, or normative rationale. Along the way, it will review key ideas in the theory of contextual integrity, its differences from existing approaches, and its harmony with basic intuition about information sharing practices and norms. (shrink)

This essay warns of eroding accountability in computerized societies. It argues that assumptions about computing and features of situations in which computers are produced create barriers to accountability. Drawing on philosophical analyses of moral blame and responsibility, four barriers are identified: 1) the problem of many hands, 2) the problem of bugs, 3) blaming the computer, and 4) software ownership without liability. The paper concludes with ideas on how to reverse this trend.

Zygmunt Bauman addresses the question to what extent today's resurgence of populism and nationalism is an appropriate answer to the very concrete loss of economic, social but also cultural security. He argues that the populist, nationalist and religious promises are no longer in a position to counter effectively and truly the multifarious problems people face today. Postmodern individualization and globalization undermine any possibility for an identitarian and nationalist solution to the loss of security. Only a political approach that takes (...) into account and addresses the global dimension of the current insecurity of citizens can have success in re-establishing a sense of security. (shrink)

According to the theory of contextual integrity (CI), privacy norms prescribe information flows with reference to five parameters — sender, recipient, subject, information type, and transmission principle. Because privacy is grasped contextually (e.g., health, education, civic life, etc.), the values of these parameters range over contextually meaningful ontologies — of information types (or topics) and actors (subjects, senders, and recipients), in contextually defined capacities. As an alternative to predominant approaches to privacy, which were ineffective against novel information practices enabled by (...) IT, CI was able both to pinpoint sources of disruption and provide grounds for either accepting or rejecting them. Mounting challenges from a burgeoning array of networked, sensor-enabled devices (IoT) and data-ravenous machine learning systems, similar in form though magnified in scope, call for renewed attention to theory. This Article introduces the metaphor of a data (food) chain to capture the nature of these challenges. With motion up the chain, where data of higher order is inferred from lower-order data, the crucial question is whether privacy norms governing lower-order data are sufficient for the inferred higher-order data. While CI has a response to this question, a greater challenge comes from data primitives, such as digital impulses of mouse clicks, motion detectors, and bare GPS coordinates, because they appear to have no meaning. Absent a semantics, they escape CI’s privacy norms entirely. (shrink)

We are spurred into action by our troubles and fears; but all too often our action fails to address the true causes of our worries. When trying to make sense of our lives, we tend to blame our own failings and weaknesses for our discomforts and defeats. And in doing so, we make things worse rather than better. Reasonable beings that we are, how does this happen and why does it go on happening? These are the questions addressed in this (...) new book by Zygmunt Bauman - one of the most original and perceptive social thinkers writing today. For Bauman, the task of sociology is not to censor or correct the stories we tell of our lives, but to show that there are more ways in which our life stories can be told. By bringing into view the many complex dependencies invisible from the vantage point of private experience, sociology can help us to link our individual decisions and actions to the deeper causes of our troubles and fears - to the ways we live, to the conditions under which we act, to the socially drawn limits of our imagination and ambition. Sociology can help us to understand the processes that have shaped the society in which we live today, a society in which individualization has become our fate. And sociology can also help us to see that if our individual but shared anxieties are to be effectively tackled, they need to be addressed collectively, true to their social, not individual, nature. The Individualized Society will be of great interest to students of sociology, politics and the social sciences and humanities generally. It will also appeal to a broader range of readers who are interested in the changing nature of our social and political life today. (shrink)

When Freud wrote his classic Civilization and its Discontents, he was concerned with repression. Modern civilization depends upon the constraint of impulse, the limiting of self expression. Today, in the time of modernity, Bauman argues, Freud's analysis no longer holds good, if it ever did. The regulation of desire turns from an irritating necessity into an assault against individual freedom. In the postmodern era, the liberty of the individual is the overriding value, the criterion in terms of which all social (...) rules and regulations are assessed. Postmodernity is governed by the 'will to happiness': the result, however, is a sacrificing of security. The most prominent anxieties in our society today, Bauman shows, derive from the removal of security. The world is experienced as overwhelmingly uncertain, uncontrollable and frightening. Totalitarian politics frightened by its awesome power; the new social disorder frightens by its lack of consistency and direction. The very pursuit of individual happiness corrupts and undermines those systems of authority needed for a stable life. This book builds imaginatively upon Bauman's earlier contributions to social theory. It consolidates his reputation as the interpreter of postmodernity. The book will appeal to second-year undergraduates and above in sociology, cultural studies, philosophy and anthropology. (shrink)

One subject which captured the imagination of sociologists, philosophers, political scientists and writers on culture in the 1980s was postmodernism. This text considers the meaning and importance of postmodernity.

This paper identifies two conceptions of security in contemporary concerns over the vulnerability of computers and networks to hostile attack. One is derived from individual-focused conceptions of computer security developed in computer science and engineering. The other is informed by the concerns of national security agencies of government as well as those of corporate intellectual property owners. A comparative evaluation of these two conceptions utilizes the theoretical construct of “securitization,”developed by the Copenhagen School of International Relations.

Introduction: Morality in Modern and Postmodern Perspective Shattered beings are best represented by bits and pieces. Rainer Maria Rilke As signalled in its ...

This paper investigates gaps in degree phrases with too, as in John is too rich [for the monastery to hire ___ ]. We present two curious restrictions on such gapped degree phrases. First, the gaps must ordinarily be anteceded by the subject of the associated gradable adjective. Second, when embedded under intensional verbs, gapped degree phrases are ordinarily restricted to surface scope, unlike their counterparts without gaps. Just as puzzlingly, we show that these restrictions are lifted when there is overt (...) wh-movement in the main clause, revealing a striking similarity between the distribution of gapped degree phrases and so-called parasitic gap constructions. These findings, we argue, suggest that the theory of parasitic gaps needs to accommodate gapped degree phrases. Specifically, they argue that parasitic constituents are null operator structures—and under the right conditions need not be accompanied by matrix wh-movement. (shrink)

1. In the circumstances of the overgrowth signs the scientific-technical revolution the following events in essential way are influencing the activities of public administration : 1° the establishing, under thepressure of the technical progress and specialization, of the big economic units ; 2° the acceleration of the processus of urbanization ; 3° the increasing threat of the biological environment and the appearance of newpossibilities for its protection; and 4° the leveling of differences between the living standards of the population in (...) town and in countryside. In that situation the socialist state has first of all to develop its organizationalfunctions.2. The organizational functions of the socialist state are implemenied above all by the supreme and local representative organs of the state authority and by the subordinated to them organs of the state administration. In the result of this organizational activity the scope of civic rights is extending. The state apparatus therefore is responsible for calling into being and for activities of the public institutions and facilities being used by the citizens at their choice. The regulating role of the state has hence respect more to these public institutions and facilities, and it is addressed more seldom directly to the citizens. That takes place especially in the sphere of the administration of national economy, the organization of technical public services as well as the services rendering administration.3. The social and economic assumptions of the socialist system are putting into effect by the organizational activities of the state apparatus. One of the fundamental features of this system is to gain the conscioussupport of the overwhelming majority of the society for actions of the socialist state and to consolidate this support. Such support is possible to reach only by the development of the democratic principles of thestate activities. The democratic institutions are established by the law, and the law is one of instruments of the realization of the political tasks of the socialist society being organized into the state. The state apparatus' function is to embody in action the tasks established by the law. And this therefore makes the role of the state apparatus very important as welt as provides to the necessity of permanent improvement of this apparatus.4. The social and economic plans create the substantial basis for the state administration activities. In the both national and local plans, voted by representative organs of the state authority, there are determined theeconomic and social tasks as welt as the aims concerning in advancement of the living standards of the population. In the state enterprises plans are voted by the organs of the workers' self-government. The principles of socialist democracy and democratic centralism are reflected in the procedure of planning.5. The processus of the administration in the contemporary state becomes more and more complicated. This processus demands an improvement of th social nature, but not of the technocratic one. And that improvement, realized in conformity with the social necessities, is safeguarded by the fact that the state machinery in the socialist country is inspired and vivified by the political leadership of the working class' party. (shrink)

This article highlights a contemporary privacy problem that falls outside the scope of dominant theoretical approaches. Although these approaches emphasize the connection between privacy and a protected personal (or intimate) sphere, many individuals perceive a threat to privacy in the widespread collection of information even in realms normally considered "public". In identifying and describing the problem of privacy in public, this article is preliminary work in a larger effort to map out future theoretical directions.

'Community' is one of those words that feels good: it is good 'to have a community', 'to be in a community'. And 'community' feels good because of the meanings which the word conveys, all of them promising pleasures, and more often than not the kind of pleasures which we would like to experience but seem to miss. 'Community' conveys the image of a warm and comfortable place, like a fireplace at which we warm our hands on a frosty day. Out (...) there, in the street, all sorts of dangers lie in ambush; in here, in the community, we can relax and feel safe. 'Community' stands for the kind of world which we long to inhabit but which is not, regrettably, available to us. Today 'community' is another name for paradise lost - but for a paradise which we still hope to find, as we feverishly search for the roads that may lead us there. But there is a price to be paid for the privilege of being in a community. Community promises security but seems to deprive us of freedom, of the right to be ourselves. Security and freedom are two equally precious and coveted values which could be balanced to some degree, but hardly ever fully reconciled. The tension between security and freedom, and between community and individuality, is unlikely ever to be resolved. We cannot escape the dilemma but we can take stock of the opportunities and the dangers, and at least try to avoid repeating past errors. In this important new book, Zygmunt Bauman takes stock of these opportunities and dangers and, in his distinctive and brilliant fashion, offers a much-needed reappraisal of a concept that has become central to current debates about the nature and future of our societies. (shrink)

Why do most of us consider ourselves free but also believe there is little we can change in the way the world is run - individually, severally, or even collectively? Why has the growth of individual freedom coincided with the growth of collective impotence? Bauman argues that this condition hangs on the agora - the space where private and public meet to seek the creation of 'public good', a 'just society', or 'shared values'. The problem is that little remains of (...) such old style spaces. We cannot, he argues, overcome our collective impotence without resorting to politics and using the vehicle of political agency. Three orientation points for a reconstruction of politics are suggested: the republican model of the state and of citizenship, basic income as a universal entitlement, and re-enabling the institutions of autonomous society by catching up with the controlling extraterritorial powers in an age of globalization. (shrink)

This topical new book by Zygmunt Bauman explores the notion of identity in the modern world. As we grapple with the insecurity and uncertainty of liquid modernity, Bauman argues that our socio-political, cultural, professional, religious and sexual identities are undergoing a process of continual transformation. Identities the world over have become more precarious than ever: we live in an era of constant change and disposability - whether it's last season's outfit, or car, or even partner - and our identities (...) as a result have become transient and deeply elusive. In a world of rapid global change where national borders are increasingly eroded, our identities are in a state of continuous flux. Identity - a notion that by its very nature is elusive and ambivalent - has become a key concept for understanding the changing nature of social life and personal experience in our contemporary, liquid modern age. In this brief book, Zygmunt Bauman explains compellingly why this is so. (shrink)

This study points to two kinds of relationship between justice and equality: the relationships between the concept of justice and equality, and the relationships between different formulae of justice adopted in social life and the formula of justice based on simple egalitarianism or on the modified formula of egalitarianism. Aristotelian distributive justice postulates identical treatment of similar people, and the controversy arises when it is being decided by virtue of what characteristics similar people are to be treated identically or how (...) differently people should be treated if they possess the relevant characteristic in different degrees. The viable moral doctrines of today accept egalitarian formulae only partially, and for various reasons. The opinions of the society that there is a required dependence of the compound formulae of justice on egalitarian formulae are rather fluid and susceptible to persuasion. (shrink)

The global financial crisis has shattered the illusion that all was well with capitalism and forced us to confront the great challenges we face today with a new sense of urgency. Few are better placed to do this than Zygmunt Bauman, a social thinker whose writings on liquid modernity have pioneered a new way of seeing the world in which we live at the dawn of the 21st Century. Our liquid modern world is characterized by the transition from a (...) society of producers to a society of consumers, the natural extension of which is the society of perpetual debtors. The ruling idea of the society of consumers is to prevent needs from being satisfied and to create demand; its natural extension is to enable consumers to consume more by borrowing. Debt was transformed into a crucial profit-earning asset of capitalism in liquid modern times. The present-day 'credit crunch' is not the outcome of the banks' failure but rather the fruit of their success in transforming the majority of men and women, young and old, into a race of debtors. They got what they were looking for: a society of debtors whose condition of being in debt was made self-perpetuating, with more debts being offered, and more undertaken, as the only way of escaping from the debts already incurred. Starting from this reflection on the current global financial crisis and prompted by the probing questions of his interlocutor, Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo, Bauman examines in an historical perspective some of the most pressing moral and political issues of our time, from international terrorism and the rise of religious and secular fundamentalism to the decline of the nation-state and the threats posed by global warming, issues whose seriousness and urgency attest to the fact that we are living today not only on borrowed money but also on borrowed time. (shrink)

The life and work of Moj?esz Presburger (1904?1943?) are summarised in this article. Although his production in logic was small, it had considerable impact, both his own researches and his editions of lecture notes of Adjukiewicz and ?ukasiewicz. In addition, the surviving records of his student time at Warsaw University provide information on a little-studied topic.

In this major work, Zygmunt Bauman seeks to classify the meanings of culture. He distinguishes between culture as a concept, culture as a structure and culture as praxis and analyzes the different ways in which culture has been used in each of these settings. For Bauman, culture is a living, changing aspect of human interaction which must be understood and studied as a universal of human life. At the heart of his approach is the proposition that culture is inherently (...) ambivalent. With a major new introduction to this new edition, this classic work emerges as a crucial link in the development of Bauman's thought. By his own admission, it was the first of his books to grope towards a new kind of social theory, in contrast to the fals. (shrink)

Privacy and surveillance scholars increasingly worry that data collectors can use the information they gather about our behaviors, preferences, interests, incomes, and so on to manipulate us. Yet what it means, exactly, to manipulate someone, and how we might systematically distinguish cases of manipulation from other forms of influence—such as persuasion and coercion—has not been thoroughly enough explored in light of the unprecedented capacities that information technologies and digital media enable. In this paper, we develop a definition of manipulation that (...) addresses these enhanced capacities, investigate how information technologies facilitate manipulative practices, and describe the harms—to individuals and to social institutions—that flow from such practices. -/- We use the term “online manipulation” to highlight the particular class of manipulative practices enabled by a broad range of information technologies. We argue that at its core, manipulation is hidden influence—the covert subversion of another person’s decision-making power. We argue that information technology, for a number of reasons, makes engaging in manipulative practices significantly easier, and it makes the effects of such practices potentially more deeply debilitating. And we argue that by subverting another person’s decision-making power, manipulation undermines his or her autonomy. Given that respect for individual autonomy is a bedrock principle of liberal democracy, the threat of online manipulation is a cause for grave concern. (shrink)

In its original formulation, ‘culture’ was intended to be an agent for change, a mission undertaken with the aim of educating ‘the people’ by bringing the best of human thought and creativity to them. But in our contemporary liquid-modern world, culture has lost its missionary role and has become a means of seduction: it seeks no longer to enlighten the people but to seduce them. The function of culture today is not to satisfy existing needs but to create new ones, (...) while simultaneously ensuring that existing needs remain permanently unfulfilled. Culture today likens itself to a giant department store where the shelves are overflowing with desirable goods that are changed on a daily basis - just long enough to stimulate desires whose gratification is perpetually postponed. In this new book Zygmunt Bauman - one of the most brilliant and influential social thinkers of our time - retraces the peregrinations of the concept of culture and examines its fate in a world marked by the powerful new forces of globalization, migration and the intermingling of populations. He argues that Europe has a particularly important role to play in revitalizing our understanding of culture precisely because Europe, with its great diversity of peoples, languages and histories, is the space where the Other is always one’s neighbour and where each is constantly called upon to learn from everyone else. (shrink)

The book discusses the role of intellectuals in the modern world. Bauman connects this with current analyses of modernity and post-modernity. The theme of the book is that the tasks of intellectuals change from being 'legislators' to 'interpreters' with the transition from modernity to post-modernity. The book discusses the role of intellectuals in the modern world. Bauman connects this with current analyses of modernity and post-modernity. The theme of the book is that the tasks of intellectuals change from being 'legislators' (...) to 'interpreters' with the transition from modernity to post-modernity. (shrink)

Notes on the life of Adolf Lindenbaum, a complete bibliography of his published works, and selected references to his unpublished results.