There are other ways of finding satisfaction, recipes for human happiness, enjoyment, dignified and meaningful, gratifying life, than increased consumption that increases production.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
In a liquid modern life there are no permanent bonds, and any that we take up for a time must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again, as quickly and as effortlessly as possible, when circumstances change - as they surely will in our liquid modern society, over and over again.
Interpretation
In a rapidly changing world, relationships and commitments must be flexible to adapt to new circumstances.
Zygmunt Bauman discusses the nature of relationships in our modern society, describing them as 'liquid' due to their transient and adaptable nature. In a world where change is constant, forming permanent bonds becomes unrealistic; instead, we must accept that our connections may need to be loose and easily adjustable, allowing us to navigate the fluctuations of life without being overly constrained by our commitments.
In practice
In a speech about the evolving nature of work and collaboration.
There are other ways of finding satisfaction, recipes for human happiness, enjoyment, dignified and meaningful, gratifying life, than increased consumption that increases production.
Civilisation, the orderly world in which we live, is frail. We are skating on thin ice. There is a fear of a collective disaster. Terrorism, genocide, flu, tsunamis.
We belong to talking, not what talking is about... Stop talking - and you are out. Silence equals exclusion.
The carrying power of a bridge is not the average strength of the pillars, but the strength of the weakest pillar. I have always believed that you do not measure the health of a society by GNP but by the condition of its worst off.
As far as love is concerned, possession, power, fusion and disenchantment are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
We live in a world of communication - everyone gets information about everyone else. There is universal comparison and you don't just compare yourself with the people next door, you compare yourself to people all over the world and with what is being presented as the decent, proper and dignified life. It's the crime of humiliation.
He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness and the like, yet these are tolerated because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments.
Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
It's clearly more important to treat one's fellow man well than to be always praying and fasting and touching one's head to a prayer mat.
Man is the highest being that exists, and this is the greatest world.
Poverty must be reduced not only for reasons of moral and justice, but also of security.
To think justly, we must understand what others mean. To know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds.
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