Zygmunt Bauman Quotes

The rationality of the ruled is always the weapon of the rulers.

Real dialogue isn’t about talking to people who believe the same things as you.

For one to be free there must be at least two.

Questioning the ostensibly unquestionable premises of our way of life is arguably the most urgent of services we owe our fellow humans and ourselves.

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.

The updated version of Descartes’s Cogito is ‘I am seen, therefore I am’ – and that the more people who see me, the more I am…

What has been cut apart cannot be glued back together. Abandon all hope of totality, future as well as past, you who enter the world of fluid modernity.

Desire and love act at cross purposes. love is a net cast on eternity, desire is a stratagem to be spared the chores of net weaving. True to their nature, love would strive to perpetuate the desire. Desire, on the other hand, would shun love's shackles.

The main point about civility is...the ability to interact with strangers without holding their strangeness against them and without pressing them to surrender it or to renounce some or all the traits that have made them strangers in the first place.

Where we hope to land (and where we do land, though only for a fleeting moment, enough for tired wings to catch the wind anew) is a 'there' which we thought of little and knew of even less.

A consumerist attitude may lubricate the wheels of the economy; it sprinkles sand into the bearings of morality.

What is assumed to be the materialisation of the inner truth of the self is in fact an idealisation of the material - objectified - traces of consumer choices.

If political rights are necessary to set social rights in place, social rights are indispensable to make political rights 'real' and keep them in operation. The two rights need each other for their survival; that survival can only be their joint achievement.

To you is granted the power of degrading yourself into the lower forms of life, the beasts, and to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, the divine.

No longer can democracy and freedom be fully and truly secure in one country, or even in a group of countries; their defence in a world saturated with injustice and inhabited by billions of humans denied human dignity will inevitably corrupt the very values they are meant to defend.

In other words, it is not in craving after ready-made, complete and finished things that love finds its meaning ― but in the urge to participate in the becoming of such things. Love is akin to transcendence; it is but another name for creative drive and as such is fraught with risks, as all creation is never sure where it is going to end.

Beneath the dream of fame, another dream, a dream of no longer dissolving and staying dissolved in the grey, faceless and insipid mass of commodities, a dream of turning into a notable, noticed and coveted commodity, a talked about commodity, a commodity standing out from the mass of commodities, a commodity impossible to overlook, to deride, to be dismissed. In a society of consumers, turning into a desirable commodity is the stuff of which dreams, and fairy tales, are made.

Partnerships are increasingly seen through the prism of promises and expectations, and as a kind of product for consumers: satisfaction on the spot, and if not fully satisfied, return the product to the shop or replace it with a new and improved one! You don't, after all, stick to your car, or computer, or iPod, when better ones appear.

From the start and to this very day, modernity was about forcing nature to serve obediently human needs, ambitions and desires –

Precisar tornar-se o que já se é é a característica da vida moderna.

What happens is never unpredictable: there are always breaches, carelessness, incompetence, omissions, which have not prevented the occurrence.

Ser dos significa aceptar un futuro indeteminado

Postmodernity means the exhilarating freedom to pursue anything, yet mind-boggling uncertainty as to what is worth pursuing and in the name of what one should pursue it.

Occupying the bottom end of the inequality ladder, and becoming a 'collateral victim' of a human action or a natural disaster, interact the way the opposite poles of magnets do: they tend to gravitate towards each other.

Circular reasoning is infallible even if not exactly logical, and this is why so many of us so often resort to it—not so much to resolve baffling problems, but to be absolved of the obligation to worry about them.

فقد وقعت هذه الجريمة "بعيدًا هناك" ، في زمن آخر وبلد آخر. وكلما أُلقي اللوم "عليهم" ، كلما كنا "نحن" في أمان، وكلنا قل أضطرارنا إلى الدفاع عن هذا الأمان

This was replaced by a widespread and aggressive individualism whereby everyone looks out for himself, at the expense of others and without worrying about the good of society.

Los celulares ayudan a estar conectados a los que están a distancia. Los celulares permiten a los que se conectan… mantenerse a distancia.

One thing which even the most seasoned and discerning masters of the art of choice do not and cannot choose, is the society to be born into - and so we are all in travel, whether we like it or not. We have not been asked about our feelings anyway. Thrown into a vast open sea with no navigation charts and all the marker buoys sunk and barely visible, we have only two choices left: we may rejoice in the breath-taking vistas of new discoveries - or we may tremble out of fear of drowning. One option not really realistic is to claim sanctuary in a safe harbour; one could bet that what seems to be a tranquil haven today will be soon modernized, and a theme park, amusement promenade or crowded marina will replace the sedate boat sheds. The third option not thus being available, which of the two other options will be chosen or become the lot of the sailor depends in no small measure on the ship's quality and the navigation skills of the sailors. Not all ships are seaworthy, however. And so the larger the expanse of free sailing, the more the sailor's fate tends to be polarized and the deeper the chasm between the poles. A pleasurable adventure for the well-equipped yacht may prove a dangerous trap for a tattered dinghy. In the last account, the difference between the two is that between life and death.

يبدو أن العالم يفضل تكريم فلاسفته برسم لوحات تذكارية لهم، وليس بالإنصات الجيد لهم

And the enticement to seek a rose without thorns is never far away and always difficult to resist.

Nadie dice que convertir a alguien en tu compañero de destino sea fácil, pero no hay otra alternativa que intentarlo, e intentarlo y volver a intentarlo.

People are cast in the underclass because they are seen as totally useless; as a nuisance pure and simple, something the rest of us could do nicely without. In a society of consumers - a world that evaluates anyone and anything by their commodity value - they are people with no market value; they are the uncommoditised men and women, and their failure to obtain the status of proper commodity coincides with (indeed, stems from) their failure to engage in a fully fledged consumer activity. They are failed consumers, walking symbols of the disasters awaiting fallen consumers, and of the ultimate destiny of anyone failing to acquit herself or himself in the consumer’s duties. All in all, they are the ‘end is nigh’ or the ‘memento mori’ sandwich men walking the streets to alert or frighten the bona fide consumers.

globalization is the last failed hope that, somewhere, there still exists a land where one can escape and find happiness. Or the last failed hope that, somewhere, there still exists a land different from yours in terms of being able to oppose the sense of meaninglessness, the loss of criteria and, ultimately, moral blindness and the loss of sensitivity.

En cuanto al poder, se aleja a toda vela de la calle y del mercado, de las asambleas y de los parlamentos, de los gobiernos locales y de los nacionales, más allá del alcance del control de los ciudadanos, hacia la extraterritorialidad de las redes electrónicas. En la actualidad, los principios estratégicos favoritos de los que tienen el poder son el escape, la evasión y la retirada, y su estado ideal es la invisibilidad.

sociologist Zygmunt Bauman writes, in modern life, “there is always a suspicion . . . that one is living a lie or a mistake; that something crucially important has been overlooked, missed, neglected, left untried, and unexplored; that a vital obligation to one’s own authentic self has not been met or that some chances of unknown happiness completely different from any happiness experienced before have not been taken up in time and are bound to be lost forever if they continue to be neglected.”8 He speaks directly to our nostalgia for unlived lives, unexplored identities, and roads not taken.

There is always a suspicion...that one is living a lie or a mistake; that something crucially important has been overlooked, missed, neglected, left untried, and unexplored; that a vital obligation to one's own authentic self has not been met or that some chances of unknown happiness completely different from any happiness experienced before have to been taken up in time and are bound to be lost forever if they continue to be neglected.

Ideally, nothing should be embraced by a consumer firmly, nothing should command a commitment till death do us part, no needs should be seen as fully satisfied, no desires considered ultimate. There ought to be a proviso 'until further notice' attached to any oath of loyalty and any commitment. It is but the volatility, the in-built temporality of all engagements that truly counts; it counts more than the commitment itself, which is anyway not allowed to outlast the time necessary for consuming the object of desire (or, rather, the time sufficient for the desirability of that object to wane).

The population of every country is nowadays a collection of diasporas. Every sizable city is now an aggregate of ethnic, religious, and lifestyle enclaves in which the line dividing insiders from outsiders is a hotly contested issue, while the right to draw that line, to keep it intact and make it unassailable, is the prime stake in the skirmishes over influence and battles for recognition that follow.

To understand how that astounding moral blindness was possible, it is helpful to think of the workers of an armament plant who rejoice in the 'stay of execution' of their factory thanks to big new orders, while at the same time honestly bewailing the massacres visited upon each other by Ethiopians and Eritreans; or to think how it is possible that the 'fall in commodity prices' may be universally welcomed as good news while 'starvation of African children' is equally universally, and sincerely, lamented.

En la historia del mundo, nunca antes los no-lugares han ocupado tanto espacio”. Los

La naturaleza del amor implica —tal como lo observó Lucano dos milenios atrás y lo repitió Francis Bacon muchos siglos más tarde— ser un rehén del destino.

Volar liviano produce alegría, volar a la deriva es angustiante. El cambio es embriagador, la volatilidad es preocupante. ¿La insoportable levedad del sexo?

Rigidity of order is the artefact and sediment of the human agents ' freedom.

El deseo destruye su objeto, destruyéndose a sí mismo en el proceso;

En otras palabras, el amor no encuentra su sentido en el ansia de cosas ya hechas, completas y terminadas, sino en el impulso de participar en la construcción de esas cosas. El amor está muy cercano a la trascendencia; es tan sólo otro nombre de impulso creativo, y por lo tanto, está cargado de riesgos, ya que toda creación ignora siempre cuál será su producto final

Arlie Russell Hochschild resume "el daño colateral" fundamental causado en el curso de la invasion consumista en una expresion tan incisiva como sucinta: "la materialización del amor".

Ivan Klima dice: casi nada se parece tanto a la muerte como el amor realizado. Cada aparición de cualquiera de los dos es única pero definitiva, irrepetible, inapelable e impostergable.

Os filhos estão entre as aquisições mais caras que o consumidor médio pode fazer ao longo de toda a sua vida. Em termos puramente monetários, eles custam mais do que um carro luxuoso do ano, uma volta ao mundo em um cruzeiro ou até mesmo uma mansão. Pior ainda, o custo total tende a crescer com o tempo, e seu volume não pode ser fixado de antemão nem estimado com algum grau de certeza. [...] Além disso, ter filhos é, em nossa época, uma questão de decisão, não um acidente - o que aumenta a ansiedade. Tê-los ou não é comprovadamente a decisão com maiores consequências e de maior alcance que existe, e portanto também a mais angustiante e estressante.

As can be seen, ‘crisis’, in its proper sense, expresses something positive, creative and optimistic, because it involves a change, and may be a rebirth after a break-up. It indicates separation, certainly, but also choice, decisions and therefore the opportunity to express an opinion.

not to mention forever – since they fear that such a state may bring burdens and cause strains they neither feel able nor are willing to bear, and so may severely limit the freedom they need – yes, your

Um aspecto muito visível do desaparecimento das velhas garantias é a nova fragilidade dos laços humanos. A fragilidade e transitoriedade dos laços pode ser um preço inevitável do direito de os indivíduos perseguirem seus objetivos individuais, mas não pode deixar de ser, simultaneamente, um obstáculo dos mais formidáveis para perseguir eficazmente esses objetivos -- e para a coragem necessária para persegui-los.

Vivir en una ciudad es, notoriamente, una experiencia ambivalente. Atrae y repele, pero para complicar aún más la situación del habitante de la ciudad, son los mismos aspectos de la vida urbana, intermitentemente o de manera simultánea, los que atraen y repelen." Zygmunt Bauman / Amor líquido

La cultura no puede convivir pacíficamente con la gestión, sobre todo, cuando ésta es molesta e insidiosa, y, más aún, cuando se trata de una gestión dedicada a distorsionar las ansias exploradoras/experimentadoras de la cultura para que encaje en el marco de la racionalidad dibujado por los gestores

Utopia’ used to denote a coveted, dreamt-of distant goal to which progress should, could and would eventually bring the seekers after a world better serving human needs. In contemporary dreams, however, the image of ‘progress’ seems to have moved from the discourse of shared improvement to that of individual survival. Progress is no longer thought about in the context of an urge to rush ahead, but in connection with a desperate effort to stay in the race.

[..] the innate tendency of a society of consumers to instil in their members a willingness to accord other people the same - and no more - respect as they are trained to feel and to show to consumer goods, the objects designed and destined for instantaneous, and possibly untroubled satisfaction, with no strings attached.

A society notorious for effacing the boundary which once separated the private from the public, for making it a public virtue and obligation to publicly expose the private, and for wiping away from public communication anything that resists being reduced to private confidences, together with those who refuse to confide them.

El amor es un préstamo hipotecario a cuenta de un futuro incierto e inescrutable.

Los celulares ayudan a estar conectados a los que están a distancia. Los celulares permiten a los que se conectan… mantenerse a distancia. Jonathan

Después de todo, ¿qué diferencia hay entre vivir y dar explicaciones sobre la vida?

[T]he secret of all successful 'socialization' is making individuals wish to do what is needed to enable the system to reproduce itself.

Consuming life cannot be other than a life of rapid learning, but it also needs to be a life of swift forgetting.

Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burnt-out human dreams and charred hopes.

Siempre y cuando uno no olvide que lo que antes era invisible -la cuota de intimidad de cada uno, la vida interior de todos- ahora es expuesto en la escena pública, uno comprenderá que quienes procuran la invisibilidad están condenados al rechazo, a la exclusión, condenados a ser sospechosos de algún crimen. La desnudez física, social y psíquica está a la orden del día.

t was not illiterate savages, but graduates of the finest educational systems of the West who designed the gas chambers used to burn millions of innocent men, women and children in Germany.

The relations individuals enter into with other individuals nowadays have been described as ‘pure’ – meaning ‘no strings attached’, no unconditional obligations assumed and so no predetermination, and therefore no mortgaging, of the future. The sole foundation and only reason for the relationship to continue is, it has been said, the amount of mutual satisfaction drawn from it.

El amor está muy cercano a la trascendencia; es tan sólo otro nombre del impulso creativo y, por lo tanto, está cargado de riesgos, ya que toda creación ignora siempre cuál será su producto final.

This is stability at the cost of dependence − because the primary cause of ‘voluntary servitude’, i.e. submission to power, even if it's not required – according to Étienne de la Boétie – is simply a habit.5

Robbing humans of their faces and individuality is no less a form of evil than diminishing their dignity or looking for threats primarily among those who have immigrated or harbour different religious beliefs.

The economic crisis, so conveniently operated and driven by the markets, by financial groups, by the needs of a globalized economy, faces the task of restoring social control, which the crisis of modernity lost sight of.

Thorough, adamant and uncompromising privatization of all concerns has been the main factor that has rendered postmodern society so spectacularly immune to systemic critique and radical social dissent with revolutionary potential.

Mas o que aprendemos antes de mais nada da companhia de outros é que o único auxílio que ela pode prestar é como sobreviver em nossa solidao irremível, e que a vida de todo mundo é cheia de riscos que devem ser enfrentados solitariamente.

To quote from Le Délabrement de l’Occident of Cornelius Castoriadis, An autonomous society, a truly democratic society, is a society which questions everything that is pre-given and by the same token liberates the creation of new meanings.

Consumer society thrives as long as it manages to render the non-satisfaction of its members (and so, in its own terms, their unhappiness) perpetual. The explicit method of achieving such an effect is to denigrate and devalue consumer products shortly after they have been hyped into the universe of the consumers' desires. But another way to do the same thing, and yet more effectively, stays in the semi-shade and is seldom brought out into the limelight except by perceptive investigative journalists: namely, by satisfying every need/desire/want in such a fashion that they cannot but give birth to yet new needs/desires/wants. What starts as an effort to satisfy a need must end up as a compulsion or an addiction.

the notion that we know all there is to know about people and their needs and that all these data are pinned down exactly and fully explained by the market, the state, sociological surveys, ratings, and everything else that turns people into the Global Anonymous.

As Pierre Bourdieu signalled as long as two decades ago, coercion has by and large been replaced by stimulation, the once obligatory patterns of conduct by seduction, the policing of behaviour by PR and advertising, and normative regulation by the arousal of new needs and desires.

For I showed men how they were the cause of their own unhappiness and, in consequence, how they might avoid it’, writes Rousseau to Voltaire in his famous letter on the Lisbon disaster, laying the foundations of a new spirit that desacralizes nature, removing it from divine will and entrusting it to the hands of man.

Los sentimientos de injusticia que podrían ser aprovechados para conseguir una mayor igualdad se reorientan hacia las manifestaciones más claras del consumismo, y se dividen en miríadas de quejas individuales que se resisten a la agregación o a la combinación, y en actos esporádicos de envidia y venganza dirigidos contra otras personas de su propio bando.

...el "multiculturalismo" (y el "culturalismo en general), en su esfuerzo por proporcionar un apoyo académico (o, para ser más precisos, una pátina promocional) a la práctica multiculturalista, es en sí mismo un ejercicio de encubrimiento. Lo que intenta tapar y expulsar del debate público es la cruda realidad de la discriminación y la privación sociales.

Each extra lock on the entry door in response to successive rumours of foreign-looking criminals in cloaks full of daggers and each next revision of the diet in response to a successive ‘food panic’ makes the world look more treacherous and fearsome, and prompts more defensive actions – that will, alas, add more vigour to the self-propagating capacity of fear.

الكفاح من أجل الحرية ، الذي هو في أصله علاقة اجتماعية تماما ، لا يمكن أن يكون إلا قوة تحدث الفرقة والشقاق ، وأن أي تطبيق واقعي لها لا بد من أن يحدث الانقسام والاختلاف لا محالة . فالحرية ، مثل كثير من القيم والمثل العليا ، في حالة مخاض دائم ، فلا تتحقق أبدا ، بل ( أو لهذا السبب نفسه ) نصبوا إليها دائما ، ونكافح من أجلها ، فتتولد قوة دافعة كبيرة في تجريب متواصل لا نهاية له. وهو ما يسمى التاريخ

E assim é numa cultura consumista como a nossa, que favorece o produto pronto para uso imediato, o prazer passageiro, a satisfação instantânea, resultados que não exijam esforços prolongados, receitas testadas, garantias de seguro total e devolução do dinheiro. A promessa de aprender a arte de amar é a oferta (falsa, enganosa, mas que se deseja ardentemente que seja verdadeira) de construir a “experiência amorosa” à semelhança de outras mercadorias, que fascinam e seduzem exibindo todas essas características e prometem desejo sem ansiedade, esforço sem suor e resultados sem esforço. Sem humildade e coragem não há amor. Essas duas qualidades são exigidas, em escalas enormes e contínuas, quando se ingressa numa terra inexplorada e não-mapeada. E é a esse território que o amor conduz ao se instalar entre dois ou mais seres humanos.

السعادة العامة وتبعاتها من المسؤولية؛ تلك الحرية التي يهيم في مدحها دعاة التحرر ليست على النقيض من تأكيداتهم ضامنة للسعادة ، فأغلب الظن انها ستأتي ببؤس وشقاء يقوق الفرح . ومن هذا المنظور يخطى دعاة التحرر عندما يحزنون ، كما يفعل ديفيد كونواي ، ويؤكدون مبدا هنري سیدجويك الذي يقول إن السعادة العامة تأتي على أكمل وجه وأحسنه إذا ما غرسنا في نفوس الشباب البالغين، التوقع بأن كل واحد منهم سيترك إلى قدرته على تدبير أموره وقضاء حوائجها.

Em todo amor há pelo menos dois seres, cada qual a grande incógnita na equação do outro. É isso que faz o amor parecer um capricho do destino – aquele futuro estranho e misterioso, impossível de ser descrito antecipadamente, que deve ser realizado ou protelado, acelerado ou interrompido. Amar significa abrir-se ao destino, a mais sublime de todas as condições humanas, em que o medo se funde ao regozijo num amálgama irreversível. Abrir-se ao destino significa, em última instância, admitir a liberdade no ser: aquela liberdade que se incorpora no Outro, o companheiro no amor. “A satisfação no amor individual não pode ser atingida sem a humildade, a coragem, a fé e a disciplina verdadeiras”, afirma Erich Fromm – apenas para acrescentar adiante, com tristeza, que em “uma cultura na qual são raras essas qualidades, atingir a capacidade de amar será sempre, necessariamente, uma rara conquista”.

W bezlitośnie powikłanym świecie praca, podobnie jak całe ludzkie życie, rozpada się na szereg zamkniętych epizodów, a szanse na wykonanie jej zgodnie z założonym planem są, podobnie jak w przypadku innych ludzkich działań, nikłe lub wręcz nierealne. Praca przemieściła się ze świata ładotwórstwa i kontrolowanej przyszłości na obszar gry. Działania pracujących osób przypominają coraz bardziej strategię graczy, którzy stawiają sobie umiarkowanie odległe cele i wybiegają myślą nie dalej niż jeden lub dwa posunięcia do przodu.

If Max Weber was right and the ethical principle of the producing life was (and always needed to be, if the aim was a producing life) the delay of gratification, then the ethical guideline of the consuming life (if the ethic of such a life can be presented in the form of a code of prescribed behaviour) has to be to avoid staying satisfied. For a kind of society which proclaims customer satisfaction to be its sole motive and paramount purpose, a satisfied consumer is neither motive nor purpose — but the most terrifying menace.

Even if the self he or she is struggling to display and get recognized is deemed by the actor to precede, pre-empt and predetermine the choice of individual identity (ethnic, race, religious and gender ascriptions claim to belong to that category of self), it is the urge of selection and the effort to make the choice publicly recognizable that constitutes the self-definition of the liquid modern individual. That effort would have hardly been undertaken if the identity in question was indeed endowed with the determining power it claims and/or is believed to possess.

Every type of social setting produces its own visions of the dangers that threaten its identity, visions made to the measure of the kind of social order it struggles to achieve or to retain. If the self-definition, simultaneously descriptive and postulative, can be thought of as a photographic replica of the setting, visions of threats tend to be the negatives of those photographs. Or, to put this in psychoanalytical terms, threats are projections of society's own inner ambivalence, about its own ways and means, about the fashion in which that society lives and intends to live.

Milan Kundera'nın söylediği gibi: Cervantes Don Kişot'u mitlerden, maskelerden, basmakalıplardan, önyargılardan ve önyorumlardan örülü perdeyi yırtmak için gönderdi, içinde bulunduğumuz ve anlamaya çabaladığımız dünyayı sıkı sıkı örten perdelerden... Ancak perde kalkmadıkça ya da yırtılmadıkça boşuna uğraşıyoruz. Don Kişot bir fatih değildi, 0 fethedilmişti. Ancak, yenilgisi ile, bize gösterdiği, “hayat denen kaçınılmaz yenilginin karşısında yapabileceğimiz tek şey durup onu anlamaya çalışmaktır” oldu. Bu Miguel de Cervantes'in büyük, çığır açan keşfiydi; bir kere bulundu mu bir daha unutulamazdı. Beşeri bilimlerle uğraşan bizler önümüzde serili duran bu keşfin izlerini takip ediyoruz. Cervantes sayesinde buralardayız. Perdeyi yırtmak, hayatı anlamak... Bunun anlamı ne? Biz, insanlar, iyinin ve kötünün, güzelin ve çirkinin, gerçeğin ve yalanın birbirlerinden kesin bir şekilde ayrıldığı ve asla bir diğerine karışmadığı, böylece şeylerin nasıl olduğundan, nereye gidebileceğimizden ve nasıl ilerleyebileceğimizden emin olduğumuz sıradan, temiz ve saydam bir dünyayı tercih ediyoruz; çaba gerektiren bir anlayış olmadan hükümlere ulaşmayı ve kararlar almayı hayal ediyoruz. İşte bizim bu hayalimizden ideolojiler doğdu. Görüşümüzü kapatan o kalın perdeler. . . Bizim bu etkisizleştirici eğilimimize Etienne de la Boétie "gönüllü kölelik” adını verdi. Cervantes bizim bu tür bir kölelikten çıkmamızı istiyordu; dünyanın tümüyle çıplak, rahatsız, ancak özgürleştirici gerçekliğini sunarak; anlam çokluğu gerçekliğini ve onarılamaz mutlak gerçekler açığını. Bu tür bir dünyada, kesin olan tek şeyin hiçbir şeyin kesin olmaması olduğu bir dünyada, tekrar tekrar ve sonuç almaksızın kendimizi ve birbirimizi anlamaya, iletişim kurmaya ve birbirimiz için yaşamaya çalışacağız.

Hacer pedazos el velo, comprender la vida... ¿Qué significa esto? Nosotros, seres humanos, preferiríamos habitar en un mundo ordenado, limpio y transparente donde el bien y el mal, la belleza y la fealdad, la verdad y la mentira estén nítidamente separados entre sí y donde jamás se entremezclen, para poder estar seguros de cómo son las cosas, hacia donde ir y cómo proceder. Soñamos, con un mundo donde las valoraciones puedan hacerse y las decisiones puedan tomarse sin la ardua tarea de intentar comprender. De este sueño nuestro nacen las ideologías, esos densos velos que hacen que miremos sin llegar a ver. Es a esta inclinación incapacitadora nuestra a la que Étienne de La Boétie denominó . Y fue el camino de salida que nos aleja de esa servidumbre el que Cervantes abrió para que pudiésemos seguirlo, presentando el mundo en toda su desnuda, incómoda, pero liberadora realidad: la realidad de una multitud de significados y una irremediable escacez de verdades absolutas. Es en dicho mundo, en un mundo donde la única certeza es la certeza de la incertidumbre, en el que estamos destinados a intentar, una y otra vez y siempre de forma inconclusa, comprendernos a nosotros mismos y comprender a los demás, destinados a comunicar y de ese modo, a vivir el uno con y para el otro.

éste es un mundo duro, hecho para las personas duras, un mundo de individuos que sólo pueden confiar en su propia astucia, decididos a ser más listos que sus enemigos y a superarlos. Al encontrarse con un desconocido, se requiere en primer lugar vigilancia, en segundo lugar vigilancia y en tercer lugar vigilancia. Reunirse, estar juntos y trabajar en equipos tiene sentido en tanto y en cuanto los demás contribuyan a que uno se salga con la suya. No hay razón para que el compañerismo persista luego de que los otros ya no reportan más beneficio, o reportan menos que el que reportaría deshacerse del compromiso y cancelar toda obligación hacia ellos.

La promesa moderna de conjurar o derrotar una tras otra todas las amenazas para la seguridad humana se ha cumplido hasta cierto punto, [...] La que evidentemente no se ha materializado, sin embargo, es la expectativa de liberación de los miedos nacidos de la inseguridad y nutridos por ella. [...] Combinada con la convicción de que, aún así, esa promesa es algo que podría hacerse realidad de algún modo, esa frustración de esperanzas añade la afrenta de la impotencia a la ofensa de la inseguridad, y canaliza la ansiedad en forma de deseo de dar con los culpables y de castigarlos, así como de obtener indemnización/compensación por las esperanzas que ya han sido traicionadas.

The retreat of the state from the function on which its claims to legitimation were founded for the better part of the past century throws the issue of legitimation wide open again. A new citizenship consensus (‘constitutional patriotism’, to deploy Jürgen Habermas’s term) cannot be presently built in the way it used to be built not so long ago: through the assurance of constitutional protection against the vagaries of the market, notorious for playing havoc with social standings and for sapping rights to social esteem and personal dignity. The integrity of the political body in its currently most common form of a nation-state is in trouble, and so an alternative legitimation is urgently needed and sought. In

More often than not, the 'totality' to which individuals are to stay loyal and obedient no longer enters their life and confronts them in the shape of a denial of their individual autonomy, or as an obligatory sacrifice like universal conscription and the duty to give their life for the country and the national cause. Instead, it presents itself in the form of highly entertaining and invariably pleasurable and relished festivals of communal togetherness and belonging, held on the occasions of a football world cup or a cricket test match. Surrender to the 'totality' is no longer a reluctantly embraced, cumbersome and quite often onerous duty, but 'patriotainment', an avidly sought and eminently enjoyable festive revelry.

Que haya otros que estén en desacuerdo con nosotros (que no tomen en cuenta lo que hacemos sino lo que no hacemos, que crean que sería provechoso para la unidad humana basarse en valores diferentes de aquellos que nosotros consideramos superiores, y, por sobre todas las cosas, que dudan de que tengamos acceso directo a la verdad absoluta y por lo tanto sepamos exactamente donde debe terminar la discusión incluso antes de que empiece) no es un escollo en el camino hacia la comunidad humana. Lo que sí es un escollo es nuestra convicción de que nuestras opiniones son la verdad, toda la verdad y nada más que la verdad y sobre todo la única que existe, y nuestra creencia de que las verdades de los demás, si son diferentes a las nuestras, son “meras opiniones”.

If the privilege of 'never being bored' is the measure of a successful life, of happiness and even of human decency, and if intense consumer activity is the prime, royal road to victory over boredom, then the lid has been taken off human desires; no amount of gratifying acquisitions and enticing sensations is likely ever to bring satisfaction in the way once promised by 'keeping up to standards'. There are now no standards to keep up to — or rather no standards which, once reached, can authoritatively endorse the right to acceptance and respect, and guarantee their long duration. The finishing line moves together with the runner, the goals stay forever a step or two ahead. Records keep being broken, and there seems to be no end to what a human being may desire.

When electronic communication networks enter the habitat of the individual consumer they are equipped from the start with a safety device: the possibility of instant, trouble-free and (hopefully) painless disconnection — of cutting off communication in a way that would leave parts of the network unattended and deprive them of relevance, together with their power to be a nuisance. It is that safety device, and not the facility of getting in touch, let alone of staying together permanently, that endears the electronic substitute for face-to-face socializing to men and women trained to operate in a market-mediated world. In such a world, it is the act of getting rid of the unwanted, much more than the act of getting hold of the desired, that is the meaning of individual freedom.

La gente se siente un poco mejor porque la soledad es la gran amenaza en estos tiempos de individualización. Pero en las redes es tan fácil añadir amigos o borrarlos que no necesitas habilidades sociales. Estas las desarrollas cuando estás en la calle, o vas a tu centro de trabajo, y te encuentras con gente con la que tienes que tener una interacción razonable. Ahí tienes que enfrentarte a las dificultades, involucrarte en un diálogo (...) el diálogo real no es hablar con gente que piensa lo mismo que tú. Las redes sociales no enseñan a dialogar porque es tan fácil evitar la controversia… Mucha gente usa las redes sociales no para unir, no para ampliar sus horizontes, sino al contrario, para encerrarse en lo que llamo zonas de confort, donde el único sonido que oyen es el eco de su voz, donde lo único que ven son los reflejos de su propia cara.

في سالف الأزمان ، كان الزمن يتحرك بسرعة أبطأ بكثير من السرعة المعتادة ، فكان يقاوم زيادة السرعة ، وكان الناس يحاولون سد الفجوة الرهيبة بين فقر تمثله حياة فانية قصيرة وثراء لا نهائي يمثله الكون الأبدي من خلال الآمال الموعودة بيوم القيامة أو البعث . أما في عالمنا الذي لا يعرف حدودا للتسارع ، فقد صارت الآمال منبوذة . فإن استطاع المرء أن يتحرك بسرعة كافية وأن يجري من دون توقف ينظر من خلاله إلى الخلف ويحسب المكاسب والخسائر ، فبوسعه أن يفوز في زمن الحياة الفانية بحيوات عديدة وجديدة ، ربما بعدد الحيوات التي يمكن أن تهبها الأبدية . فإن لم يكن ذلك عملا بذلك الإيمان ، فماذا يكون الوسواس القهري الدائم الذي يدفع إلى تحسين الهوية وتجديدها وإعادة تدويرها وإصلاحها إصلاحاً شاملاً وإعادة تشكيلها من جديد ؟ فالهوية - في نهاية الأمر - تشبه تماما بعث الأزمنة الماضية وإحياءها ، فهي تدور حول إمكانية " الميلاد من جديد " ، إمكانية الخروج من هيئة الوجود الحالي إلى هيئة جديدة .

Loïc Wacquant ha sugerido recientemente que "la vorágine securitaria es a la criminalidad lo que la pornografía es a las relaciones amorosas", ya que ignora totalmente las causas y el significado de su objeto ostensible y reduce su tratamiento a una simple adopción de "posturas" seleccionadas exclusivamente por su espectacularidad. Pero también porque se la exhibe públicamente no por ella misma, sino por la propia publicidad en sí. La exhibición pública condensa la atención en "los reincidentes, los mendigos molestos, los refugiados nómadas, los inmigrantes pendientes de expulsión, las prostitutas de las aceras y otros tipos de marginados sociales que ensucian las calles de las metrópolis para disgusto de la 'gente decente'. Es con ese fin con el que se escenifica una batalla contra el crimen en forma de un "excitante espectáculo burocrático-mediático". [...] el peso de la delincuencia con respecto a otros temas de preocupación pública tiende a medirse -al igual que el de todos los demás objetos de atención pública- en función de la extensión y la intensidad de la publicidad que se le dedica, más que por sus cualidades intrínsecas.