Postmodernity, Or: Living with Ambivalence by Zygmunt Bauman -- Summary and Notes

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Zygmunt Bauman. Image by Grzegorz Lepiarz

Summary

In modernism what was considered absolute truth was simply the principles of Western civilization. Propagators of it were intent on converting the rest of the world and abolishing "alterity", and so this "crusading spirit" and absolute knowledge merged. There was a crusade for universality which resulted in only more difference. This masked contingency, or free will and uncertainty, which the modern subject would otherwise have felt. In postmodernism, that is in the present, we are unhappy because we realize that there is uncertainty, that the hope of unification of modernity will not come true and we need to learn to live with this ambivalence.

Then Bauman cites Heller who suggests that we can transform the ambiguity into destiny, by embracing our free will, making a decision and sticking by it.

Response

  • The title already betrays a lack of absolutes and bottom lines. Nothing striking or polemic, just ambivalence. This is in contrast to Modernity which was characterized by a strict world order dictated by an all-inclusive comprehensive meta narrative. The epigraph shows the lack of security which modernity afforded: we possess contingency (randomness and free will), but we can try to pretend it's destiny, that there's some higher plan and purpose for us.
  • Speaks of self-deception like Camus (2, right, bottom)

  • Words language vocabulary

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