Utopianism in the Work of Zygmunt Bauman - Sociologi - Aalborg ...

Utopianism in the Work of Zygmunt Bauman
- Towards a Sociology of Alternative Realities
Abstract
Utopia has been a concern of philosophers for
centuries. For most sociologists, however, a preoccupation
with such a theme has been regarded
as scientifically redundant and as an unnecessary
departure from reality. For them, sociology must
deal with what is, not with what could be or
ought to be. In recent years, the sociological theory
of Zygmunt Bauman has been instrumental in
pointing to the possibilities, for sociology as well
as for society, in utopian thinking which, in his
view, must lead to social action and a change in
the current condition of what he terms liquid
modernity. His theories, though, also contain an
uncompromising critique of and challenge to
conventional modernist understandings of utopia
and he instead proposes a line of utopian thought
pointing to alternative realities alongside or parallel
to contemporary society. Only by proposing
utopia as an open-ended vision of the good society
or the common good can we escape the ironcages
of no alternatives, human suffering and
precariousness, which Bauman regards as signs
of the times, and replace them with a free,
autonomous, and moral social order based on mutual
responsibility and solidarity.
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