The Various Elements of British Social Structures - Case Study Example

Bauman’s view of postmodernity Zygmunt Bauman was born in 1925 Poland and has experienced a great dealof the more defining moments of modern history. As a young man, he served in the Soviety-run Polish First Army through World War II and until he was discharged in 1953. It was here that he first began studying sociology, only switching to philosophy when the Soviets determined sociology to be among the ‘bourgeois’ disciplines. His early interest in the organization of societies and the various elements that contributed to changes occurring since the last major war has been reflected even in his earliest writings, including “British Socialism” published in 1959 (Decjusza, 2000) in which he examined the various elements of British social structures. A professor of sociology at Warsaw University, he suddenly found it necessary to locate a new home and position when communist authorities questioned the value of his lessons. From Warsaw, Bauman went on to lecture at the universities of Tel Aviv and Haifa until 1971 when he traveled to England and accepted a permanent post at the University of Leeds (Decjusza, 2000). He has also been a visiting professor at Berkeley, Yale, Canberra, St. John’s and Copenhagen. Throughout, and especially after his retirement from Leeds in 1990, he has written numerous books and essays, identifying and introducing the concept of postmodernism, turning in recent years to new terminology that describes a liquid culture. To understand the impact he has had on the world of sociology, it is necessary to understand what he meant by postmodernism, itself requiring an investigation into modernism, and to understand how and why he has recently adopted the new concepts of a liquid society. Before one can gain a perspective of what Bauman meant when he discussed postmodern, it is necessary to understand what he meant when he defined a modern society. “Modernity is a project, and not only a period, and it is, or was, a project of control, the rational mastery over nature, the planning, designing and plotting which led to planomania and technocracy” (Beilharg, 2001: 6). The basic concepts of modernism were to take a hard and fast look at various social processes to determine the universal truths of existence. These could then be canonized and applied across all cultures, individuals and time periods as a means of progressing toward a more ideal civilization. The tripod upon which the theory rested were economic, political and scientific rationalization (Mourad, 1997). Economic rationalization would bring all the forces of nature into the understanding and control of intellectual processes. In similar fashion, political rationalization would subject and control the governing bodies as well as the value systems by which the ‘correct’ society would measure itself and others. Scientific rationalization operated on the premise that an objective truth for all could be discovered through the careful application of appropriate scientific methods. (Mourad, 1997). Through this ideology, it is natural and common for the intellectuals of the age to wish to retain some control over what is deemed as ‘correct’ or ‘true’ and to therefore seek positions of power as legislators. A natural by-product of this process is chaos through the resulting disagreements regarding what is the ultimate ‘truth’ on such issues that defy any kind of objective definition as well as through the need to define the world according to that which is new, a paradox in itself. Thus, modernity, as Bauman saw it, was a continuous opposition struggling between chaos on one side and absolute order on the other. In this struggle, the indeterminate qualities of social life are exposed and demand as well as defy explanation. These concepts become more comprehensible through Bauman’s analysis of the Holocaust and how this one event in history helps to define the role of the sociologist as modernistic approaches attempted to account for or explain away the various social issues that must be examined regarding this period. Bauman argued that the Holocaust was not the horrific event of a lapse of civilization and example of primitive barbarism it had been explained away as being, but was instead a frightening example of the modern ideal. Talking about the various educated publications of the world and the published opinions regarding the German state prior to the outbreak of the war, Bauman says, “they wistfully described the Germany of the 1930s as the paragon of the civilized state, of prosperity, of social peace, of obedient and cooperative workers’ unions, of law and order. Indeed, as an example for the wan European democracies to follow for its rapidly falling rate of crime, almost total removal of violence from the street …, industrial peace, safety and security of daily life” (Bauman, 1991: 19). This was brought about thanks to strong determinations of rather ambiguous terms such that art was deemed beautiful or banned based upon a single definition of what makes art to the disadvantage of any other form of expression. The German state under the Nazis prior to their application for world domination were indeed the paragon of a modern society with its bureaucratic division of labor and division of moral obligations. This combination of a lack of individual accountability and an official sanction of higher authority upon which to act enabled dissociation from the atrocities committed as the objective necessary evils toward achieving progressive aims. However, this was still only a possibility of the modern state, brought about by having the right, or perhaps, wrong conditions in place in a time and manner that enabled such a state to emerge. Discussing the various elements that have been proposed and rejected as possible reasons that the Holocaust was permitted, Bauman reveals the many ways in which sociologists had struggled to contain it within a single explanation and how no single plausible explanation could be seriously applied (Bauman, 1989). This began to open up the field to the concepts of postmodernism, concepts that would be expanded as the world began expanded interactions through globalization. One of the concepts that emerge in his discussion regarding the Holocaust and the modern social construction is the idea that the first form of human experience takes place within a social context based on interdependence. Therefore, the first human relationship to be experienced is a moral relationship as each individual must work with each other in mutual understanding. Globalization, as it is generally understood, is a process by which temporal space has been diminished between cultures thanks to advances in technology, continuously decreasing the time necessary to effect this communication as well (Harvey, 1989). Bauman points to all this technology and suggests that it has created easily as many divisions as it has connections. As the world has become increasingly distanced through the modern conveniences of the impersonal keyboard and monitor, so has it become easier to dissociate with others. In addition, the world has had a tendency to become more polarized along many lines, constantly attempting to define the other and constantly being foiled in this attempt, again leading to the development of the concept of the postmodern. With this view, it is impossible for Bauman to endorse wide-spread social engineering, understanding this to lead to a dehumanizing view of humanity (Bauman, 2000). Another major theme within the modernist ideology that is important in the development of the postmodern concept is the concept of the stranger. Rather than being the ‘other’ in terms of skin color, cultural background or other specific external characteristics, Bauman describes the stranger as a product of his position as it is granted and defined by modern society. More importantly, Bauman suggests society must have a stranger as its only means of identifying itself. Although strangers are usually defined as “removed and disconnected from us,” Simmel (1950) points out that “strangeness means that he, who also is far, is actually near.” Building off of this idea, Bauman indicates the stranger is anything that doesn’t fit within an accepted societal mold. As such, the stranger is automatically identified as being something foreign and outside of the usual sphere of behavior, but the stranger is also within, forcing an internal comparison that cannot help but frighten. Because it is neither friend nor enemy, the stranger remains suspiciously undecided (Bauman, 1993). Like the concepts of globalization and the new ideas regarding sociological thought as it is expressed through its consideration of the Holocaust, Bauman pulled out the seeds of postmodernism in his identification of the vagabonds and the tourists. These distinctions are related directly to postmodern concepts as they embrace large conceptions with multiple manifestations. The vagabonds are those who have not profited from their endeavors or their deviances, while the tourists are those who have found benefit in their strangeness (Jacobsen, 2001). These distinctions are fundamentally different from the ‘stranger’ or the ‘other’ in a way that makes the concepts of postmodernism possible to discuss. Rather than identifying a single, hegemonic point of view and then defining a ‘stranger’ or ‘other’ as different from this concept, Bauman’s vagabonds and tourists can embody a variety of sameness and differences. While a single white male might seem to fit in with the hegemonic society, he may also be different in that he has an unusual career or a different worldview as a blatant and obvious example of how this concept can be applied. Taking it a step further, this same single white man might be highly successful working in his unorthodox career or highly esteemed because of his unorthodox viewpoint, or he can be poverty-stricken or vilified for these same attributes. Moreover, he is both of these things with the most applicable attributes being revealed depending upon specific circumstances and situations. Looking at the sociologic thought that predominated when Bauman first started writing and examining his analyses of the modernist ideology, it can be seen that modernism represented a particular regime of order. However, Bauman saw much more in the combative relationships he’d exposed, always leading him to a plurality of meaning on multiple levels of being. “Modern intellectuals aspire to power, as legislators; postmodern intellectuals seek to live out, or to return, to their hermeneutical roles, as interpreters or translators across life-worlds or experiences” (Beilharz, 2001: 6). Emerging from the failed ideals of modernism, the postmodern represents a drive toward an undefined and undefinable goal within a collapse of the traditional boundaries of ‘self’, ‘other’ and ‘stranger.’ It can also be seen as a means of existence in which this multiplicity of forms is recognized and dealt with. In its tendency to embrace all concepts as equally valid considerations with a variety of viewpoints, Bauman doesn’t oppose modern to postmodern, as many definitions of the latter term would suggest, but rather attempts to blend them as differing yet mutually explanatory logics regarding social life. Each helps to define the other while illustrating the differences and similarities in each, thereby further highlighting some of the concepts that seem to have widespread (though probably not universal) application. While he has not refuted his early ideas regarding postmodern as a general amorphous mixture of various differences, Bauman has recently drifted away from the use of the term postmodern because of this tendency for it to be placed in opposition to modern, thus losing much of the concept. To try to avoid future misrepresentations of his concepts such as what happened with the use of the term ‘postmodern’, Bauman has adopted the concept of a liquid and a solid society. “The concept of liquid modernity proposed by Zygmunt Bauman suggests a rapidly changing order that undermines all notions of durability. It implies a sense of rootlessness to all forms of social construction” (Lee, 2005). The metaphor is immediately suggestive of the concept just as the idea of the solid is immediately suggestive of the attempts of modernism to establish long-term social structures applicable to all. While a similar dichotomy might be envisioned in the opposition of liquid and solid, it is important to extend the metaphor only a little further. Water flows as the result of the shape of the solids beneath it just as the solids are shaped by the force and direction of the liquid. “By applying this concept to development, it is possible to address the nuances of social change in terms of the interplay between the solid and liquid aspects of modernization” (Lee, 2005). Through the development of his ideas as they explored the general structures of society through the Holocaust and the modern era into the 21st century and the era that came to be known by his own keyword, postmodern, Bauman has shaped and altered the look of sociology. “His position in contemporary social theory has been achieved through hard work, intuition and foresight, progressive sophistication, an altruistic attitude and a never-ending appetite and hermeneutic search for knowledge and truth” (Decjusza, 2000). As his ideas developed from an exploration of the concepts of modernism and an exposure of the blind spots that had developed within the theory to his development of a concept of the postmodern as the aftermath of the modern age, Bauman can be seen to always keep an open mind and a questioning spirit. He explores areas of sociological thought that had been carelessly laid aside and discovers a multiplicity of meaning that had little been expected. His evolving theories lay a groundwork upon which future sociologists can follow and prove the example of his own conception of what sociology should be: Sociologists may deny or forget the ‘world-view’ effects of their work only at the expense of forfeiting that responsibility of choice which every other human being faces daily. What is at stake is our tolerance to difference and solidarity with the different, our readiness to see through the variety of forms life to the common core of humanity, marked first and foremost by the universal right to one’s own identity. What is at stake, in other words, is the new, this time freely built, universality of human beings, resulting from mutual respect of men and women who have freely chosen their won ways of being human. And the job of sociology in all this is to see to it that all the choice are genuinely free, and that they remain such for the duration of humanity. (Bauman, 2000: 54). References Bauman, Zygmunt. (1989). Modernity and the Holocaust. New York: Cornell University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt. (1991). Modernity and Ambivalence. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Bauman, Zygmunt. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Bauman, Zygmunt. (2000). Globalization. Columbia University Press. Beilharz, Peter. (2001). The Bauman Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Decjusza, Stowarzyszenie Willa. (2000). “Zygmunt Bauman: Literature Profiles.” Culture PL. Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Available 20 May 2007 from Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid. (2001). “Zygmunt Bauman: (Un)Happiness of Uncertain Pleasures.” Sociologisk ARbejdspapir. N. 10. Lee, Raymond L. M. (2005). “Bauman, Liquid Modernity and Dilemmas of Development.” Thesis Eleven. Vol 83, N. 1, pp. 61-77. Mourad, R.P. (1997). “At the Forefront: Postmodern Interdisciplinarity.” The Review of Higher Education. Vol 29, N. 2, pp. 115-140. Simmel, G. (1950). “The Stranger.” The Sociology of Georg Simmel. K.H. Wolff (Ed.). Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Read More