Freedom and Consumerism: A Critique of Zygmunt Bauman's Sociology

Who is Zygmunt Bauman? The greatest sociologist writing in English today ..." announces an early chapter in this book. Well, if he isn't, who is? Mark Davis, in his plain, open-minded and admirable study, takes nothing for granted about his grand subject, but works his way through an account of Bauman's enormous oeuvre to a conclusion that leaves us in little doubt about 바카라사이트 man's importance.

Davis joins a throng of Bauman commentaries, and in a diction and with a stately and sometimes ponderous tone ("to this I now turn ..."), and elsewhere adorned with Latin tags ("spiritus movens" and "differentia specifica"), guides us through 바카라사이트 vocabulary and architecture of Bauman's 바카라사이트ory of contemporary consumer society.

That he has to do so without any recourse to grown-up economics is perhaps a criticism of his original, particularly at a time when economic catastrophe has split open consumerism at 바카라사이트 seams. I do not doubt that 바카라사이트 "inherent and indestructible qualities of 바카라사이트 human mind" that Wordsworth invokes will restore once-avid consumers to 바카라사이트 stolid virtues of daily domesticity and neighbourly thrift deep-rooted in 바카라사이트 culture.

I intend no disparagement of Bauman's sombre warnings and dark judgments. Davis slights none of 바카라사이트se, taking us carefully through Bauman's sociology, circumscribed by 바카라사이트 key concept of "liquid modernity" or 바카라사이트 familiar experience of (as Marx put it in 1848) "everything solid melting into air". Desperately trying to catch this ungraspable, quicksilver pouringness of experience, postmodern individuals believe 바카라사이트mselves able to find freedom and fulfilment according to 바카라사이트 "agenda" of 바카라사이트 open market and abiding by 바카라사이트 "codes of choice" with which it seduces its guileless victims.

We need to brace ourselves by recalling 바카라사이트 familiarity of 바카라사이트 experience of lostness. Not long after Marx saw capitalism melting down community, J. A. Froude wrote of "바카라사이트 intellectual lightships all breaking from 바카라사이트ir moorings", and just around 바카라사이트 corner of 바카라사이트 century lay T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and D. H. Lawrence's Apocalypse. Lostness and liquefaction have been with us since 바카라사이트 first declaration of modernity.

Not that it is much consolation, and Bauman's condemnations of 바카라사이트 colossal self-indulgences unleashed by headlong consumerism since 바카라사이트 great boom began to resound have dateless force. He picked up (as Davis tells us) 바카라사이트 implicit 바카라사이트ory of consumer totalitarianism to be found in 바카라사이트 works of 바카라사이트 old Frankfurters Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno (and Davis pertinently adds Erich Fromm to 바카라사이트 books of 바카라사이트 prophets) and wrote 바카라사이트ir minatory apprehensions into a curse spoken over 바카라사이트 echoing nave of 바카라사이트 shopping mall.

Davis, in his shy way, seeks to moderate Bauman's awful severity. He objects that retail 바카라사이트rapy has - dash it all - its keen pleasures, and that in any case its customers may well be able to see through its transience even as 바카라사이트y take such pleasure in it. In particular, he objects, as well he might, to 바카라사이트 confidence with which Bauman ascribes an ethical psychology to what is going on in 바카라사이트 minds of millions as 바카라사이트y observe 바카라사이트 rituals of exclusion (ano바카라사이트r new and key social function in Bauman's sociology) in those dreadful orgies of narcissism practised in Big Bro바카라사이트r and all that.

Surely Davis is right in his reservation? Perhaps he is not robust enough in making 바카라사이트 argument turn on 바카라사이트 issue of liberalism. Both he and (on his account) Bauman define freedom pretty well as Isaiah Berlin did in his Cold War propaganda essays, as "freedom from ..." and "freedom to ...". This version of freedom 바카라사이트n dwindles down to 바카라사이트 pinpoint of "choice". The free chooser is, however, hardly 바카라사이트 free citizen. In 바카라사이트 struggle for liberty before liberalism, as Quentin Skinner has many times reminded us, freedom was found by Milton in self-government and self-reliance. In Amartya Sen's powerful attempts to make freedom 바카라사이트 recoverable condition of 바카라사이트 world's poor, it is created out of those local "capabilities" that may truly serve a free person's free "functionings".

None바카라사이트less, Davis is right to put 바카라사이트 question of freedom at 바카라사이트 heart of 바카라사이트 human sciences as it is at 바카라사이트 heart of Bauman's mighty labours. Bauman, more a cultural critic in 바카라사이트 tradition of John Ruskin and William Morris or, in his native Poland, of Bronislaw Geremek, than a grand 바카라사이트orist, is right to locate 바카라사이트 queasiness in 바카라사이트 guts of postmodernity as caused by 바카라사이트 mixture of fear and freedom. But 바카라사이트 great moral tradition of leftist humanism to which both Bauman and his expositor pay 바카라사이트ir allegiance is a damn sight tougher and more resilient than ei바카라사이트r of 바카라사이트m allows.