Postmodernity and its Discontents (eBook)

Zygmunt Bauman (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2013
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
9780745674346 (ISBN)

Infos

When Freud wrote his classic Civilization and its Discontents, he was concerned with repression. Modern civilization depends upon the constraint of impulse, the limiting of self expression.

Today, in the time of modernity, Bauman argues, Freud's analysis no longer holds good, if it ever did. The regulation of desire turns from an irritating necessity into an assault against individual freedom. In the postmodern era, the liberty of the individual is the overriding value, the criterion in terms of which all social rules and regulations are assessed. Postmodernity is governed by the 'will to happiness': the result, however, is a sacrificing of security.

The most prominent anxieties in our society today, Bauman shows, derive from the removal of security. The world is experienced as overwhelmingly uncertain, uncontrollable and frightening. Totalitarian politics frightened by its awesome power; the new social disorder frightens by its lack of consistency and direction. The very pursuit of individual happiness corrupts and undermines those systems of authority needed for a stable life.

This book builds imaginatively upon Bauman's earlier contributions to social theory. It consolidates his reputation as the interpreter of postmodernity. The book will appeal to second-year undergraduates and above in sociology, cultural studies, philosophy and anthropology.

Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) was Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Universities of Leeds and Warsaw.

Inhalt

Cover 1
Title page 5
Copyright page 6
Contents 7
Introduction: Discontents – Modern and Postmodern 8
1: The Dream of Purity 12
2: The Making and Unmaking of Strangers 24
3: The Strangers of the Consumer Era: from the Welfare State to Prison 42
4: Morality Begins at Home: or the Rocky Road to Justice 53
5: Parvenu and Pariah: the Heroes and Victims of Modernity 78
6: Tourists and Vagabonds: the Heroes and Victims of Postmodernity 90
7: Postmodern Art, or the Impossibility of the Avant-garde 102
8: The Meaning of Art and the Art of Meaning 110
9: On Truth, Fiction and Uncertainty 119
10: Culture as Consumer Co-operative 134
11: On the Postmodern Redeployment of Sex: Foucault’s History of Sexuality Revisited 148
12: Immortality, Postmodern Version 159
13: Postmodern Religion? 172
14: On Communitarianism and Human Freedom, or How to Square the Circle 193
Afterword: The Last Word – and it Belongs to Freedom 206
Notes 216
Index 225

Rezensionen

"For a penetrating discussion of the dilemmas which face postmodern
cultural analysis, it is hard to beat." Third Way

"This book has important things to say ... interesting and
thought-provoking." The Times Higher Education
Supplement

"Humane, impassioned essays." The Times Literary
Supplement

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.4.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Allgemeine Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Assault • Civilization • Classic • concerned • Constraint • depends • Desire • Discontents • ERA • Expression • freedom • Gesellschaftstheorie • Individual • Irritating • Modern • Modernity • Necessity • overriding • Political Philosophy & Theory • Political Science • Politikwissenschaft • Politische Philosophie u. Politiktheorie • postmodern • Regulation • Repression • self • Social Theory • Sociology • Soziologie • Time • turns • Value
• ISBN-13: 9780745674346 / 9780745674346