On a Thursday afternoon, a group of students have settled into one of the conference rooms at Aarhus University. They have chosen to spend three hours of their precious spare time on getting slightly better acquainted with Zygmunt Bauman. CESAU’s student group have organized a warm-up session about Bauman, occasioned by the influential sociologist’s visit to Aarhus University.
By Nina Damsgaard
It is three in the afternoon and there is a buzz of anticipation from the approximately 40 students prior to the Bauman warm-up. “Well, I don’t know a thing about Bauman”, one explains, while another eagerly tells the person next to her that she has brought popcorn. Most of the participants study history of ideas or political science.
Zygmunt Baumans authorship spans almost 60 books as well as a vast amount of articles. Two Bauman-connoisseurs are going to acquaint the eager students a bit more closely with the 86 years old, Polish-born sociologist. First up is Ole Morsing, associate professor of the history of ideas, who is to give an introduction to Bauman’s thought.
Bauman was born in Poland in 1925 and has studied both sociology and philosophy. Since 1971, he has lived in Leeds, England. Bauman’s authorship took its beginnings in 1960, and up untill around 1980, he wrote primarily about social stratification, conflict, and class, clearly inspired by Marx. From the mid-eighties, Bauman took an interest especially in modernity. From our seats in the room, we have a view of Bauman’s image, projected onto a screen. His eyes reveal their insight, and the deep creases on his face tell of years of thinking and reflection. 1989 saw the beginning of Bauman’s interest in the postmodern.
However, the concept of the postmodern becomes so obscure and negatively charged that Bauman completely abandons it in 2000, using instead the concept liquid modernity to describe the time we live in.
Bauman’s intention in the works on liquid modernity, according to Ole Morsing, is to respond to, and criticise, with ever fewer stable points of reference. Bauman’s thought is not simple, and his having changed his course several times in his extensive authorship makes it no simpler. But the students seem able to follow, nonetheless. A couple are tapping away at their laptops, a few taking notes by hand, and by far the most just sitting, listening to Ole Morsing who has mounted the podium, raised just short of a meter over the floor in the room’s right corner.
Morality is an important in Bauman’s sociology. Within the postmodern, it is random, unpredictable, and uncontrollable, and there are no ethical grounds for it. In liquid modernity, nothing is stable. Everything is subject to change. The human being is constantly changing and therefor, like society, characterised by ambivalence. Bauman is not afraid of liquid modernity nor of the ambivalence. He believes that we must learn to live with contradictions. And this is precisely where his concept of morality becomes relevant. For in a world with no stable set of guidelines, we must find morality deep within ourselves. When face to face with another person, one must listen to the morality within. It must act as frame for our life in the liquidly modern.
After a break to stabilise the blood sugar level with chocolate biscuits, fruit, and coffee, Ph.D. and senior researcher at Political Science, Mads P. Sørensen, is up. He has brought slides and chooses to remain on the floor.
“If you can wish for only one thing for your birthday, go for this one”, says Mads, smiling. He is speaking of Bauman’s book Modernity and Holocaust, which is Baumans perhaps most famous work, and at the same time an important book in modern sociology. The book from 1989 also marks the end of Bauman’s interest in modernity and the beginning of his interest in the postmodern.
Mads describes how Bauman had three motivations for writing the book, which seeks to explain how the holocaust was possible: firstly, his wife was in a concentration camp during the Second World War. Secondly, Bauman is of the opinion that the Holocaust phenomenon has been misunderstood and misinterpreted by sociology, and precisely because we have misunderstood it, thirdly, it may repeat itself.
The Holocaust is a constant possibility, inherent to the process of civilisation. And so modernity is not merely a sufficient, but a necessary condition for its occurrence to be possible. Modern bureaucracy, increased specialisation, division of labour, and rationality are some of the factors which, in combination, may serve to explain the Holocaust. During the holocaust, some people had the task of pressing a button or check off names on a list. But if that was one’s only orders, it never became visible that one was in the process of killing a lot of people. And so there was no clear connection between intention and action. Very few were directly involved in killing people. Everybody just minded their job and did their duty.
Mads shows a couple of short films about Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment,
Behavioral study of obedience, from 1962. In one of the films, we see the experiment attempted in Denmark. In the Milgram experiment, as it is also known, one test person is to administer an electric shock to a person in another room, should the latter person be unable to answer a number of questions correctly. The shocks increase in power and the screams on the other side of the wall grow louder. What the person administering the shocks does not know is that the person in the other room is an actor, not receiving any shock at all. An experiment leader in a white coat is present, encouraging the test person to carry on. A major part on the test persons ended up administering a shock at the maximum volume to the other person, despite their screams and begging for mercy. The goal of the experiments is to show how rules, a sense of duty, and obedience influence the free choice, independence, and conscience of the individual person.
The experiment is an example of a part of what, according to Bauman, may help to explain the Holocaust. Namely the level of obedience of human beings to authorities and contexts of authority, even if what they do is perhaps at odds with their conscience and humanity.
It is in this context we must turn to Bauman’s concept of morality. It is precisely in a system where rationality and rules point in a direction different to that of ethics that one must listen to and make use of inner morality. It is in the encounter between human beings that one must bring out good morality. When faced with another human being, inner morality must always weigh heavier than the rules and structures created and given by social systems.
There are enough of students keen to discuss, but we quickly reach six o’clock, which is the cue to round of the session. Even though it may be difficult to follow Bauman’s thought and reflections, it seems that the students feel slightly better equipped for experiencing Bauman live.
