By Nina Damsgaard
A short, round-backed and white-haired man is the cause of a full auditorium on a Monday afternoon at Aarhus University. But this man is not just anybody. Zygmunt Bauman is one of the most important thinkers in sociology, and even though he seems tired, slumped to the point of collapsing on his chair as he waits for it all to start, his eagerness and involvement leave nothing to be asked as he eventually mounts the podium. In spite of his 86 years, Bauman is energetic, ironic, and sharp as he reflects on liquid modern society. But he has also reached a high age. And so at this point, he harbours a wish for the youth to take over for him.
Photo: Lars Kruse/AU Kommunikation
Bauman has come all the way from Leeds to Aarhus University to give a lecture as part of the lecture series ”Aarhus Lectures in Sociology”, arranged by CESAU. Bauman has a special connection with Aarhus, as one of his most important inspirations is Danish theologian and philosopher K. E. Løgstrup, who was based in Aarhus. The title of today’s lecture is ”Liquid Modernity Revisited”, with reference to Bauman’s book “Liquid Modernity”, published in 2000. Today, 12 years later, we pay the book’s sphere of reflections another visit together with Bauman himself. In one corner of the auditorium, the university bookstore have served up boxes stuffed with a mere selection of Bauman’s books. He has written more than 60 during his many active years, several of them of great importance for modern sociology and sociological thought. Lines soon form at the cardboard boxes.
The lecture is captured on film. Even though the Bartholin-auditorium holds an audience of 235, far from all those interested managed to get tickets for the event. Students, teachers, and researchers alike occupy the seats, together forming a confused mass of voices. Spirits are high, and the majority part of the audience are in their seats, water-bottles filled, fruit and snacks in place, half an hour ahead of time.
The noise subsides as Bauman’s voice is heard in the room. He starts by speaking about the liquid modernity in which we live. Nothing is settled, everything is subject to change. Social systems and institutions no longer function as frame of reference for people’s actions and lives, and so we are forced to find other ways of organising ourselves – independently of a priori structural frameworks. This requires for the human being to be highly flexible and ready to adapt, constantly capable of changing its direction and cancelling obligations, all of this with no regrets. An important point, according to Bauman, is that we should not be afraid of the liquid. The goal is not a return to the solid, but rather the acceptance of our inability to capture and fixate the future. Next, we must then figure out how to adapt and achieve a good society under these conditions.
During his nearly two-hour talk, Bauman speaks several times of facebook, and one gets the impression that he has personally explored the website. But to be fair, this would make perfect sense; what could be more obvious than speaking of facebook and the social media in relation to liquid modernity? Facebook is an example of how we may constantly promote ourselves in new ways, thereby giving others the exact image of ourselves that we wish for them to have.
Bauman also passes by the theme of consumerism, criticising our society for being centred around consumption. This critique also has a central place in the book “Liquid Modernity”. He describes how this is significant for the balance between our professional and private lives, respectively.
”Instead of spending more life with your child you can buy large presents. The market works as a mediator to fulfill needs.”
Bauman also touches upon globalisation. He was earlier quite the sceptic on this subject, but he does not treat it too harshly in this lecture. He does, however, emphasize an important problem regarding globalisation, namely the rupture between politics and power. That is, a rupture between the capability of making and the capacity to see them through in action. Bauman explains:
“In order to act effectively you need both. Today power is global but politics is local. So now we have power that is absolutely free to do what it wants and politics that is not able to act.”
Following this statement, Bauman incites everybody in the auditorium:
“Your life will be spent resolving this issue. We need to invent global politics.”
It is also at this point that Bauman indicates the approaching end to his time as a sociological thinker. It is up to the youth to find solutions as to how we may overcome the challenges of liquid modernity. His final words are addressed to the many people in the auditorium, and presumably to young people in general:
“So it’s up to you to do something about it!”
Afterwards, there is time, as well as enough energy, for questions. Bauman is sincerely interested in hearing the students’ contributions to the discussion, and he stands quite close to them in order to properly hear their questions. In spite of his advanced age, he seems to strike quite the sense of awe into some of them – presumably due to the great academic respect he enjoys worldwide. For the same reason, one must be theoretially well versed before engaging the man in discussion. Bauman delivers long, deliberate responses to the questioners. After three questions, however, he starts to get tired. He sits down and slouches on his chair. This is Mads P. Sørensen’s cue to round of the session. The cheers cascade down over Bauman, who writes a couple of autographs before putting on his six-pence to leave the auditorium and Denmark.
