Abstract
Zygmunt Bauman has been and still is a controversial author. Even authors who have written sympathetic introductions to his work have been ambivalent in their evaluations (cf. Beilharz 2001:12; cf. also Blackshaw 2005:14). Ali Rattansi’s analysis in Bauman and Contemporary Sociology: A Critical Analysis of Bauman’s views on modernity, postmodernity (or postmodernism), and “liquid life” may add to the controversy because of its marked critical slant. The book consists of three parts: the undesirable aspects of modernity; the sociological characteristics of postmodernity; and the perils of liquid life. Each of them deals with major themes of Bauman’s oeuvre.
Rattansi mentions in the Introduction one of Bauman’s major flaws, namely, the “huge generalizations” present in Bauman’s writings on modernity, postmodernity, consumerism, and globalization (p. 15, pp. 60–61). These excessive generalizations stem from his “totalizing mode of analysis” (p. 130), which Rattansi finds detrimental to Bauman’s argumentations. Referring to the undesirable or “dark” side of modernity, Rattansi considers Bauman’s books Legislators and Interpreters (1987) and Modernity and the Holocaust (1989). The former work is conducive to a discussion of the relationship between modernity and the Enlightenment, the latter to a reconsideration of the Holocaust’s modernity.
As for Legislators and Interpreters, Rattansi observes that intellectuals were oftentimes not, pace Bauman, believers in progress and rationality. Bauman neglects to consider, moreover, the importance of racial and gender differences, and of imperialism, for the philosophy of the Enlightenment. As for the Holocaust’s modernity, Rattansi raises several objections, as follows: a) the great relevance for the Holocaust of traditional anti-Semitism; b) “the issue of the uniqueness of the cultural and political history of Germany” (p. 52, p. 65); and c) Bauman’s neglect to assess “the nightmare and the desperation of the ghetto,” which had nothing to do with “modern bureaucratic rationality” (p. 56). Disregarding German historical specificity “severely weakens” (p. 68) Bauman’s thesis concerning the relation between modernity and the Holocaust. Rattansi also questions the evidence on the perpetrators’ motives and the interpretation that Bauman provides of them, and he observes that Bauman has paid insufficient attention to “moral dilemmas and the imperative of survival” in the concentration camps (p. 79). Bauman is further taken to task for having ignored the predicament of the female inmates.
In the second and third parts of this work, Rattansi critically discusses such Bauman notions as legislators versus interpreters, modernity, postmodernity, and liquid and reflexive modernity. The following criticisms deserve attention: a) these concepts are defined unclearly and inconsistently; b) confusion and cursoriness affect his definition of the role of intellectuals in the postmodern condition; c) it is not clear how anti-foundationalism, which is the distinctive trait of postmodernity according to Bauman, could ensue from a variety of “fragmentary developments” allegedly responsible for this “grand epochal tide” (pp. 109–16, 122, 145).
Modernity, Rattansi maintains, is “a far more contradictory phenomenon than it appears in Bauman’s analysis” (p. 115), which is “ahistorical and abstract” (pp. 125). As for postmodernity, Rattansi calls attention to “two radically different conceptions” of this notion in Bauman’s writings, since it involves both freedom of action on consumers’ part and also “the total commodification of social and cultural life” (p. 135). Other aspects of Bauman’s notion of postmodernity are also subject to critical scrutiny.
Bauman’s analysis of modern society evidences these flaws: his conflation of society with the nation-state, the abolition of agency, and the high level of abstraction of his exposition. This exposition revolves around the theme of the consumer society (pp. 147–49). As Rattansi observes, Bauman thereby misses “the vital, stimulating debate about cultural hybridity” that connotes “the new multi-ethnic mosaic of Western societies” (p. 153). Hybridity is not the rarified identity of a few privileged globetrotters, Rattansi maintains. Other critical observations bear on the following points: a) Bauman’s neglect of gender as a sociological category; b) his contentious thesis of the disappearance of classes because of the prevalence of consumerism; c) his economistic and simplistic notion of the welfare state; d) his relative neglect of the debate on the underclass, and unclear conception of it; e) the inadequate evidence that Bauman provides on the postmodern condition; and f) his asociological account of the origins of morality.
In the last part of his book, Rattansi critically discusses Bauman’s notions of liquid life and postmodernity. These categories evidence Bauman’s neglect of agency, in keeping with “the pessimistic tradition of the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory” (p. 197). As for the “liquid” metaphor, with reference to postmodern society, Rattansi finds it ill-defined and loosely conceptualized. Rattansi, moreover, rejects the opposite metaphor of “solid” as “a lightweight metaphor that simply cannot support the weight Bauman wishes it to bear” (p. 209). The liquid modernity thesis is repeated with little or no variation in several recent and interchangeable books by Bauman (p. 211). Absence of evidence, but also of correct understanding, besets moreover Bauman’s discussion of multiculturalism, which Rattansi considers “no more than collusion with globalization” (p. 219).
Bauman’s analysis often fails to offer anything original and insightful. He not only ignores “gender, race, and ethnicity” but also any “oppositional elements in consumerism and popular culture” (p. 229). Consumers are no cultural dupes. Bauman, moreover, fails to consider that most consumption is for household necessities, and when voluptuary, it “can cement family ties and friendships” (p. 239). Bauman, in addition, leaves out of consideration the issues of gender and imperialism in his discussion of consumerism. Rattansi voices similar criticisms on Bauman’s discussion of globalization, which he finds beset by “tendentious oversimplifications” (p. 253) and obliviousness toward the objections that Giddens and Beck have raised to the globalization discourse.
Bauman’s aversion to globalization does not lead him to suggest any solution to its reported ills. It is also contradictory in that it claims that neoliberal ideologies are popular and, at the same time, that most people reject them. Bauman’s neglect to consider the variety of forms that globalization has taken provides another object of critical assessment. Rattansi observes that in our age of globalization the state is still important as creator of jobs and regulator of the national economy. The state has, accordingly, remained an important factor in the global age. Rattansi also finds much to disagree with in Bauman’s other assertions on consumerism. In the final part of his work, Rattansi wonders whether Bauman was “a sociologist of hope or a prophet of doom” (p. 277) and concludes that Bauman “constantly vacillated” between these two alternatives (p. 279). However, pessimistic tones have prevailed in his evaluation of the effects of the mass media on democratic initiatives, in the chances of enacting a universal basic income, and in the possibilities of alternatives to the present. Rattansi finds little or no justification for this pessimism.
Rattansi’s strictures, taken as a whole, refer to problems of inner consistency and the empirical tenability of Bauman’s work. Rattansi is aware of some secondary literature on Bauman (pp. 5–6) but has preferred not to dwell on it. He has also avoided underlining Bauman’s neglect to deal with the environmental problems of the global age [cf. Giddens 2009:215; see also Giddens 2002:32–33) and has recognized Bauman’s moral commitment as his greatest strength (p. 289). In conclusion, Rattansi has written a well-informed assessment of Bauman’s writings that provides an excellent critical introduction to this author. Bauman and Contemporary Sociology is therefore recommended not despite, but rather because of, its judgmental slant.