Postmodernity and its discontents ebook

Page 84 Increasingly, being poor is seen as crime; becoming poor, as the product of criminal predispositions or intentions — abuse of alcohol, gambling, drugs, truancy and vagabondage. The poor, far from meriting care and assistance, deserve hate and condemnation — as the very incarnation of sin. Page These results are sought through the two-pronged strategy of the criminalization of poverty and the brutalization of the poor.

Page Under such conditions, one would expect a widespread feeling of injustice, with the potential to condense into a mass protest movement, if not an open rebellion against the system.

Page Moral impulses aroused by the sight of human misery are safely channelled into sporadic outbursts of charity in the form of Live Aid, Comic Aid or money collections for the most recent wave of refugees. Justice turns into a festive, holiday event; this helps to placate the moral conscience and to bear with the absence of justice during working days.

Lack of justice becomes the norm and the daily routine. Page Truly modern is not the readiness to delay gratification, but the impossibility of being gratified.

Page But metaphors transform both sides that enter the metaphorical relationship. Page The world construed of durable objects has been replaced with disposable products designed for immediate obsolescence. In such a world, identities can be adopted and discarded like a change of costume. Page And so the snag is no more how to discover, invent, construct, assemble even buy an identity, but how to prevent it from being too tight — and from sticking too fast to the body.

Page The figure of the tourist is the epitome of such avoidance. The tourists keep their distance, and bar the distance from shrinking into proximity. They abandon the site when new untried opportunities beckon elsewhere. Page One may say that in this world of ours signs float in search of meanings, meanings drift in search of signs. Page Postmodern discontents are born of freedom rather than of oppression.

Page View all 11 comments. Le tesi di Bauman sono famose, sono diventate un punto di riferimento del pensiero occidentale contemporaneo.

Chi per sentito dire o chi per diretta lettura, bene o male conosce quanto sostenuto dal sociologo. Fortemente consigliato a chi voglia avere degli strumenti forti per guardare con maggiore chiarezza il mondo contemporaneo. View 1 comment. Mar 15, Scott rated it it was amazing. This book is absolutely wonderful and very worth reading for persons interested in the current milieu of postmodern societies. Dec 24, Quefren Nogueira rated it liked it.

Stefano Minichilli rated it it was amazing Mar 31, Diego rated it it was amazing Jan 18, Francesco Manno rated it it was amazing Aug 25, Luka Ekhvaia rated it really liked it May 31, Marcin Osial rated it really liked it Dec 28, Mads Gassen rated it it was amazing Nov 20, Dimitar rated it it was amazing Dec 19, Claudia rated it really liked it Jul 29, Eduardo rated it really liked it Jul 26, Fausto rated it liked it Feb 02, Monique Marques rated it it was amazing Dec 02, Raphael Cruz rated it liked it Aug 17, Marcelo rated it it was amazing Jun 07, Michiel rated it it was amazing Aug 10, Cerebral rated it really liked it May 12, Giordano P.

Mariana rated it liked it Dec 20, John rated it liked it Oct 03, Josephine Ensign rated it really liked it Dec 08, There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one ». Readers also enjoyed. About Zygmunt Bauman. Zygmunt Bauman. Zygmunt Bauman was a world-renowned Polish sociologist and philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds. Books by Zygmunt Bauman. When Dana Schwartz started writing about a 19th-century pandemic ravaging Edinburgh in her latest book, Anatomy: A Love Story, she had no idea 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. 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.

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