Utopianism in the Work of Zygmunt Bauman - Sociologi - Aalborg ...
Utopianism in the Work of Zygmunt Bauman - Sociologi - Aalborg ...
Utopianism in the Work of Zygmunt Bauman - Sociologi - Aalborg ...
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treme, <strong>the</strong> agent <strong>of</strong>ten <strong>the</strong> state and its bureaucracy legitimised by <strong>the</strong> monopoly<br />
on <strong>the</strong> use <strong>of</strong> force that modernity bestowed upon it toge<strong>the</strong>r with <strong>the</strong> drill<strong>in</strong>g<br />
mach<strong>in</strong>ery <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Panopticon <strong>of</strong> prisons and asylums and <strong>the</strong> factory where pro-<br />
duction took place under rigid regulation. As a consequence, what is utopia for<br />
some may well turn <strong>in</strong>to a dystopia for o<strong>the</strong>rs. The dream <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> realisation <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>the</strong> Thousand-Years-Reich meant for a large proportion <strong>of</strong> people – Jews, sex-<br />
ual dissidents, political heretics and ethnically ambivalent groups <strong>of</strong> people –<br />
that <strong>the</strong> barbed wire <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> concentration camps marked <strong>the</strong> meander<strong>in</strong>g divid-<br />
<strong>in</strong>g-l<strong>in</strong>e between <strong>the</strong> dystopia on <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>side and <strong>the</strong> outside utopian social order<br />
(cf. <strong>Bauman</strong> 1989).<br />
As a result, <strong>Bauman</strong> has been <strong>in</strong>strumental <strong>in</strong> illustrat<strong>in</strong>g how excess, ei-<br />
<strong>the</strong>r <strong>in</strong> its National Socialist, Stal<strong>in</strong>ist or later capitalist and consumerist guise,<br />
despite differences <strong>in</strong> degree equally will lead to dehumanised conditions, how<br />
<strong>the</strong> tensions or contradictions between freedom and dependency, order and<br />
chaos, production and consumption, morality <strong>of</strong> proximity and ethics <strong>of</strong> dis-<br />
tance, Unsicherheit and security, certa<strong>in</strong>ty and safety appear to haunt most so-<br />
cial arrangements. His utopianism, though, seeks to overcome <strong>the</strong>se <strong>in</strong>herent<br />
contradictions by pos<strong>in</strong>g ways to transcend <strong>the</strong>m without resort<strong>in</strong>g to portrayals<br />
<strong>of</strong> actual arrangements or concrete conditions and circumstances to be realised.<br />
In this fashion he is true to most traditional utopian rules <strong>of</strong> thumb:<br />
Utopia, <strong>of</strong> course, aspires to overcome <strong>the</strong>se contradictions, to show how <strong>the</strong> cir-<br />
cle can be squared. In do<strong>in</strong>g this what it <strong>of</strong>ten reveals is <strong>the</strong> price to be paid for<br />
follow<strong>in</strong>g one or o<strong>the</strong>r pr<strong>in</strong>ciple to its logical extreme. This is part <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> value <strong>of</strong><br />
utopia. One <strong>of</strong> its chief heuristic uses, <strong>in</strong> fact, is that by <strong>the</strong> very idealism <strong>of</strong> its at-<br />
tempt to resolve <strong>the</strong> dilemmas <strong>of</strong> modern society it dramatizes <strong>the</strong>m <strong>in</strong> a vivid and<br />
highly effective form […] It also evokes, as a fierce challenge to its whole prom-<br />
ise <strong>of</strong> reconciliation, <strong>the</strong> grim-faced anti-utopia, its dialectical and equally one-<br />
side counterpart (Kumar 1990:51).<br />
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