Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (2000)
Foreword: On Being Light and Liquid (1-15)
“...fluids … liquids, unlike solids, cannot easily hold their shape. Fluids, so to speak, neither fix space nor bind time.” (2)
Reading this after Debord’s Theory of Dérive, and my comments/thoughts on the relationship of space/time to dérive, leads me to see ‘dérive’ as fluid, definitely not solid.
“... fluids do not keep to any shape for long and are constantly ready (and prone) to change it; and so for them it is the flow of time that counts, more than the space they happen to occupy: that space, after all, they fill but 'for a moment'.” (2)
This is interesting, particularly in regard to the recent post by Petra Nimm . Petra has been exploring fluidity and the shifts in identity that occur from moment to moment.
“... solids cancel time; for liquids, on the contrary, it is mostly time that matters” (2).
This does mean that time is relevant to the dérive if it is not a solid. But this time is a momentary, non-fixed, shifting, fluid time.
“Descriptions of fluids are all snapshots, and they need a date at the bottom of the picture.” (2)
And if they go undated? Can the moment be just a moment or must it be delineated? This seems to me to begin drawing parameters which contain the fluid. When Petra drops a bead of water on a piece of paper, or Franzi pours a puddle of paint onto a canvas, the fluid moves in the direction the paper or canvas is tilted. It may run off or over the edge, drip on the floor, and if the floor is slanted it may continue to flow until there is no more fluid to flow or it has reached a barrier of some kind. This leads me back to ask, which moment in the flowing of the fluid can or must be dated? The flowing fluid can be captured by many snapshots as it moves through space.
Mobility of fluids we equate with lightness. Lightness we equate with the ability to move easier, to change frequently.
Liquidity, fluidity as a metaphor for (the present) modernity. “... has modernity not been 'fluid' since its inception ?” (3)
Melting the solids.
I’m thinking of smashing the solids and creating ‘solutions’ by dissolving the smaller, crushed particles in a liquid. Also of paints, where the solid pigments are ground extremely fine, do not dissolve but are dispersed in the liquid medium, such as the watercolors used by Petra Nimm. The solid pigments are still solid, but they are now carried along by the liquidity of the medium, mimicking the quality of fluidity they do not themselves possess but assume vicariously.
“Modern times found the pre-modern solids in a fairly advanced state of disintegration; and one of the most powerful motives behind the urge to melt them was the wish to discover or invent solids of - for a change - lasting solidity, a solidity which one could trust and rely upon and which would make the world predictable and therefore manageable.” (3)
The desire for solidity is greater than for fluidity; yet fluidity is what we seem to be left with more often than not. Still, the refining of the solids is a necessary step that determines the quality of the resulting dispersion. Looking at a rock known to contain a certain pigment one might just see a plain old rock, perhaps a fleck or streak of color here or there. Through a laborious process of crushing, separating and grinding down one finally achieves pure color, no longer the lump of hard, gray stone.
“Between the overall order and every one of the agencies, vehicles and stratagems of purposeful action there is a cleavage - a perpetually widening gap with no bridge in sight.” (5) [see: Claus Offe (in 'The Utopia of the Zero Option', first published in 1987 in Praxis International)]
Yes, this is how it feels today.
“Rigidity of order is the artefact and sediment of the human agents' freedom. … If the time of systemic revolutions has passed, it is because there are no buildings where the control desks of the system are lodged and which could be stormed and captured by the revolutionaries; and also because it is excruciatingly difficult, nay impossible, to imagine what the victors, once inside the buildings (if they found them first), could do to turn the tables and put paid to the misery that prompted them to rebel. One should be hardly taken aback or puzzled by the evident shortage of would-be revolutionaries: of the kind of people who articulate the desire to change their individual plights as a project of changing the order of society. ”(5)
This made me think of a recent opinion piece in the NYTimes.
“Ours is, as a result, an individualized, privatized version of modernity, with the burden of pattern-weaving and the responsibility for failure falling primarily on the individual's shoulders. … Keeping fluids in shape requires a lot of attention, constant vigilance and perceptual effort - and even then the success of the effort is anything but a foregone conclusion. ” (8)
“Modernity means many things, and its arrival and progress can be traced using many and different markers. One feature of modern life and its modern setting stands out, … That attribute is the changing relationship between space and time. Modernity starts when space and time are separated from living practice and from each other and so become ready to be theorized as distinct and mutually independent categories of strategy and action...” (8)
“... time has become, first and foremost, the weapon in the conquest of space. “ (9)
post-Panoptical
“What mattered in Panopticon was that the people in charge were assumed always to "be there', nearby, in the controlling tower. What matters in post-Panoptical power-relations is that the people operating the levers of power on which the fate of the less volatile partners in the relationship depends can at any moment escape beyond reach -into sheer inaccessibility.” (11)
There are times when the feeling that the argument “you’re in the driver’s seat” becomes simply a way for others to shirk responsibility, until the moment they decide they don’t like how one is driving, at which point they reappear to grab the wheel or slam on the breaks. At the same time, if the driving conditions are rough and one seeks assistance they are often absent, wanting no more to deal with the rough road than the driver behind the wheel. -”the end of the era of mutual engagement” (11) There is no more space for collaboration or assistance; you’re either on your own or have absolutely no control. No one wants to take responsibility but is quick to place the blame.
I find the author’s example of the war in the Balkans in the 1990s interesting, and looking back, I wonder how much of the early days of the second war in Iraq (which began after this was published) -the moment of GWB standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier in flight suit with ‘Mission Complete’ floating around him was not in part a response to what the author described of the Balkan war. Yet, at the same time it was in fact not in the least bit different.
“War today, one may say (paraphrasing Clausewitz's famous formula), looks increasingly like a 'promotion of global free trade by other means' “ (12)
As the G20 conference in Hamburg … and certain representatives imagine themselves as warriors of wealth to whom the spoils of war will flow (into their own accounts).
“Citizenship went hand in hand with settlement, and the absence of 'fixed address' and 'statelessness' meant exclusion from the law-abiding and law-protected community and more often than not brought upon the culprits legal discrimination, if not active prosecution. While this still applies to the homeless and shifty 'underclass', which is subject to the old techniques of panoptical control (techniques largely abandoned as the prime \-vehicle of integrating and disciplining the bulk of the population), the era of unconditional superiority of sedentarism over nomadism and the domination of the settled over the mobile is on the whole grinding fast to a halt. We are witnessing the revenge of nomadism over the principle of territoriality and settlement.” (13)
I think we might be experiencing a political and cultural backlash to this nomadic trend. However, that doesn’t mean it has changed or stopped. I think we will continue to move forward in this direction of nomadism in spite of the reactionary tendencies we are seeing throughout the world. But then, my view is skewed by my personal situation and experience.
Bits of this text still ring true today, but the events of the past year also make it very dated. This makes it very hard to critically assess because it is very hard to grab hold of anything. So, I guess the position that we are existing in a period defined by its liquidity/fluidity is on the mark. It is not a slow flowing stream we find ourselves in, rather we are being swept away by a flash flood with nary a tree trunk in sight -let alone any ground!
“For power to be free to flow, the world must be free of fences, barriers, fortified borders and checkpoints.” (18)
Unless one is afraid of losing power to others; in which case, build a wall.
“This seems to be a dystopia made to the measure of liquid modernity - one fit to replace the fears recorded in Orwellian and Huxleyan-style nightmares.” (15)
If only…
Chapter 4: Work (130-167)
Forward.
This seems to be a suspicious word nowadays; often used to mean the opposite of progress, regression. In terms of labor one can look to the coal mining industry in the USA and the call to bring back that form of work as a means to ‘making America great again’ denying the reality that such an act is one of regression and not progression. In this sense Henry Ford’s statement “History is bunk.” remains misunderstood, unheard by those who think that the now is to bring back the then in order to reach the future.
Modern utopias.
Thinking again about the recent study of males working less, with labor replaced by video games. Is it harder to picture a future that is a modern utopia when we have fulfilled so many of the fantasy’s the previous generations worked to achieve? Much of my adult life I’ve heard that the trend of ‘making better’ than it was for the generations of my parents and grandparents is nearly impossible, let alone a really attainable goal for my children’s generation.
“Pierre Bourdieu has recently wistfully noted: to master the future, one needs a hold on the present.2 Those who keep the present in their grip can be confident of being able to force the future to make their affairs prosper, and for this very reason may ignore the past: they, and only they, can treat past history as 'bunk', which translates into more elegant English as 'nonsense', 'idle boast' or 'humbug'. ” (131)
I’m not so sure the vast majority people have a hold on the present, and the those that do wield it against those who don’t. [author states this on 135]
Progress = self confidence of the present.[time is on our side, we are the ones who make things happen] (132)
I sort of like that definition because it is a clear statement of accountability -not just to ourselves but to the group.
“Indeed, is history a march towards better living and more happiness? Were that true, how would we know? We, who say that, did not live in the past; those who lived in the past do not live today: So who is to make the comparison?” (132)
True. We cannot speak on behalf of either the past or the future, only the present. Yet, as soon as we speak the present has become the past and the future the present.
“The most poignant yet the least answerable question of our times of liquid modernity is not 'What is to be done?' (in order to make the world better or happier), but 'Who is going to do it?'” (133)
Joshua discourse
“If anything, the human condition in the stage of 'fluid' modernity or 'light' capitalism has made that modality of life yet more salient: progress is no longer a temporary measure, an interim matter, leading eventually (and soon) to a state of perfection (that is a state in which whatever had to be done would have been done and no other change would be called for), but a perpetual and perhaps never-ending challenge and necessity, the very meaning of 'staying alive and well'.” (134)
Progress no longer pertains to the group, but in the age of deregulation to the individual.
Progress is about ME, not you or us. It is for MY benefit and your concerns are only of concern to me as they will benefit ME.
Determinism and indeterminism in coexistence.
“Work was as signed many virtues and beneficial effects, like, for instance, the increase of wealth and the elimination of misery; but underlying every merit assigned it was it's assumed contribution to that order making, to the historic act of putting the human species in charge of its own destiny.” (137)
We are fated to work -all of us, together.
Thinking again to the recent study on work and video games.
Jacques Attali - labyrinth:
'In all European languages', Attali points out, 'the word labyrinth became a synonym of artificial complexity, useless darkness, tortuous system, impenetrable thicket. "Clarity" became a synonym of logic…. the labyrinth has become yet more treacherous and confusing owing to the illegible tangle of criss-crossing footprints, the cacophony of commands and the continuous addition of new twisting passages to the ones already left behind and new dead ends to the ones already blundered into. The settlers have become 'involuntary nomads', belatedly recalling the message they received at the beginning of their historical travels and trying desperately to recover its forgotten contents which - as they suspect - may well carry the 'wisdom necessary for their future'. Once more, the labyrinth becomes the master image of the human condition - and it means 'the opaque place where the layout of the roads may not obey any law. Chance and surprise rule in the labyrinth, which signals the defeat of Pure Reason.'9 ' (138)
“Work has drifted from the universe of order-building and future-control to the realm of a game; acts of work become more like the strategy of a player who sets himself modestly short-term objectives reaching no further than one or two moves ahead. What counts is the immediate effects of every move; the effects must be fit to be consumed on the spot.” (138-139)
“And so work has changed its character. More often than not, it is a one-off act: a ploy of a bricoleur, a trickster, aimed at what is at hand and inspired and constrained by what is at hand, more shaped than shaping, more the outcome of chasing a chance than the product of planning and design. … Work can no longer offer the secure axis around which to wrap and fix self-definitions, identities and life-projects.” (139)
Back to the game and how/who plays it and the impact on identity.
And now the description of the melting of solids and molds and labor has me seeing The Large Glass.
“The present-day uncertainty is a powerful individualizing force. It divides instead of uniting, and since there is no telling who will wake up the next day in what division, the idea of 'common interests' grows ever more nebulous and loses all pragmatic value.” (148)
Instability and uncertainty is being generated all around us.
“... when virtually all rules concerning the game of promotions and dismissals have been scrapped or tend to be altered well before the game is over, there is little chance for mutual loyalty and commitment to sprout and take root. “ (148)
We can only play the game together when we agree on and stick to the rules.
“Having shed the ballast of bulky machinery and massive factory crews, capital travels light with no more than cabin luggage - a briefcase, laptop computer and cellular telephone.” (150)
And the irony of this sentence in the conditions of 2017… such items will no longer be permitted in the cabin!
“As Michel Crozier pointed out a long time ago, being free of awkward bonds, cumbersome commitments and dependencies arresting the freedom of manoeuvre, was always a favourite and effective weapon of domination; but the supplies of that weapon and the capacities to use them seem nowadays doled out less evenly than ever before in modern history.” (151)
So that is the tactic?!
Robert Reich’s categories… where the artist fits in appears to me to slip and slide between the various categories he identifies, belonging simultaneously to all and none.
“... Jacques Attali … ‘They do not own factories, lands, nor occupy administrative positions. Their wealth comes from a portable asset: their knowledge of the laws of the labyrinth.' They 'love to create, play and be on the move' They live in a society 'of volatile values, carefree about the future, egoistic and hedonistic'. They 'take the novelty as good tidings, precariousness as value, instability as imperative, hybridity as richness'.19” (153)
This text is on one hand like a fortune teller predicting the future which is today; on the other hand it is incredibly dated, less because it is dated than because of the backlash we are currently experiencing to the very conditions it predicted almost twenty years ago.
“'To procrastinate' means not to take things as they come, not to act according to a natural succession of things. Contrary to an impression made common in the modern era, procrastination is not a matter of sloth, indolence, quiescence or lassitude; it is an active stance, an attempt to assume control over the sequence of events and make that sequence different from what it would be were one to stay docile and unresisting, To procrastinate is to manipulate the possibilities of the presence of a thing by putting off, delaying and postponing its becoming present, keeping it at a distance and deferring its immediacy. ...To put it in a nutshell: procrastination derived its modern meaning from time lived as a pilgrimage, as a movement coming closer to a target. In such time, each present is evaluated by something that comes after. Whatever value this present here and now may possess, it is but a premonitory signal of a higher value to come. The use - the task - of the present is to bring one closer to that higher value. By itself, the present time is meaningless and valueless. It is for that reason flawed, deficient and incomplete. The meaning of the present lies ahead; what is at hand is evaluated and given sense by the noch-nicht-geworden, by what does not yet exist. “ (156)
“The most important thing put off in the act of procrastination tends to be the termination of the procrastination itself.” (157)
“The more severe the self-restraint, the greater would be, eventually, the opportunity for self-indulgence. Do save, since the more you save, the more you will be able to spend. Do work, since the more you work, the more you will consume.” (158)
Notions lost in the 21st century?
‘Casino Culture’ another ironic example…
The backlash is against the precariousness of contemporary culture. It is driven by the fear of uncertainty, but this is, in my opinion, a normal response of human nature.
Instant gratification as the panacea of the loss of security. In the US there was talk of the ‘Trump bump’ to the economy, but it never really happened. Unexpectedly the opposite did not happen either. It is as if the chaos has caused a weird equilibrium.
Insecurity and irritability leading to the way we treat each other and the disintegration of human bonds, lack of co-operations (and collaboration?). (see 164)
Alain Peyrefitte -confidence.
This reminds me of a recent piece by Thomas Friedman I read on formal authority and moral authority and how we respond to both. The crisis of authority is a crisis of confidence. This is the state we find ourselves in.