Zygmunt Bauman

Sociologist

• Born: November 19, 1925
• Birthplace: Poznań, Poland
• Died: January 9, 2017
• Place of death: Leeds, United Kingdom

Education: University of Warsaw

Significance: Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman wrote about the Holocaust, consumerism, globalization, and the nature of identity in modern society.

Background

Zygmunt Bauman was born in Poland on November 19, 1925. His Jewish family was poor and persecuted. He later recalled being beaten by other children on the playground. In September of 1939, when he was nearly fourteen years old, Germany invaded Poland. His family escaped the early days of World War II (1939–1945) by fleeing to the Soviet Union. He joined the Polish First Army and served in a unit under Soviet leadership. In 1945, Poland awarded him the Military Cross of Valor for bravery against the German forces.

He remained in the army after the war ended and became one of the Polish army's youngest majors. Bauman was also a member of the Polish Workers' Party and a communist. After his father visited the Israeli Embassy to learn about immigrating to Israel, Bauman's military career in Poland was over. In 1953, he was expelled from the military with a dishonorable discharge.

After leaving the military, Bauman attended the University of Warsaw, where he studied sociology and philosophy and earned a master of arts degree. He had married by this time, and he began teaching at the university. Bauman also renounced his membership in the Communist Party, but the communists in power in Poland again thwarted him. Because of a 1968 anti-Jewish purge, the Bauman family and thousands of others were ejected from Poland.

Bauman lived in Israel for a time, working as a university lecturer from 1969 to 1971. He then moved to the United Kingdom. Bauman became head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Leeds in England, a position he held until he retired in 1990. He remained a professor emeritus in his retirement.

Life's Work

Bauman wrote a number of articles during his career. He wrote most of his books, which number more than fifty, after he retired from teaching. Much of his work is concerned with postmodernity and the ways in which the Industrial Revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries changed societies.

According to his teachings, Bauman believed modern society was devoted to order and rationalization. People are divided according to social class and profession. Children are taught to pursue order, such as obeying rules, from an early age. People and societies use rationalization, or logical reasoning, to explain or justify actions and beliefs. Bauman believed order and rationalization led to the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and other events and actions that society preferred to view as out of character and repulsive. He saw participation in such actions as logical results of twentieth century morality and modernity—people felt pressured to follow the rules, regardless of the consequences. Bauman, who addressed the many issues he had faced in his early life in his 1989 book Modernity and the Holocaust, refined his ideas about modernity throughout his career.

According to Bauman, contemporary human society has been changing at a rapid pace. In the past, life varied very little from generation to generation. Yet, the modern era has been characterized by change. Technology, transportation, and industry rapidly and continuously alter society and daily life. People have become more mobile. They increasingly live farther from their families and childhood communities. Technology has affected the ways people communicate and relate, and people are constantly distracted by the newest innovations. Beliefs, too, change rapidly, as new threats and concerns arise. For example, although wars and conflicts have taken place throughout human history, modern warfare changed a great deal after the Industrial Revolution. From the nineteenth century to the twentieth century, warfare progressed from soldiers carrying arms and firing cannons to troops using large explosives that could level buildings. During the 1940s, scientists invented the first nuclear weapons, which could destroy entire cities.

In the twenty-first century, society faced new concerns about cyberwar and large-scale acts of terrorism. In modern times, acts of war may be sudden, which can lead individuals to feel as if the threat of violence is everywhere. Such concerns about the nature of warfare illustrate Bauman's theory about liquidity, meaning how contemporary society's fears and interests rapidly shift from one issue to another.

Bauman believed the stability once found in society was disappearing. He felt this affected both individuals and communities. He described this as a transition from a solid to a liquid state. Bauman believed that people's relationships were also less stable. They were designed to be easily established and quickly dissolved at will or as situations changed. He wrote about these ideas in several books, including Liquid Modernity and Liquid Times, which were published in the early twenty-first century. He also rejected the use of the word postmodern. He instead used liquid modernity, which he felt better reflected the state of modern society. He wrote that society transitioned from solid modernity to liquid modernity. Bauman felt that in a liquid society, the individual could not adequately form an identity that was stable but instead developed a liquid identity.

Bauman died on January 9, 2017, at his home in Leeds, England. His family was with him. He was ninety-one years old.

Impact

Bauman's best-known book, Modernity and the Holocaust, contradicts many scholars in its analysis of how the mass extermination of Jews and other marginalized groups by the Nazis came about. Bauman also coined the term liquid modernity, which refers to a rootlessness he recognized in modern society. His ideas about modern society have influenced the field of sociology.

Many anti-globalization groups around the world, particularly in Italy and Spain, have embraced Bauman's ideas. He was awarded the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology in 1992, the Theodor W. Adorno Award in 1998, and the Prince of Asturias Award in 2010. Also in 2010, the University of Leeds created the Bauman Institute.

Personal Life

Bauman married his wife, Janina, in 1948. She was a survivor of the Holocaust and had lived in the Warsaw ghetto. They had three daughters: Lydia, Irena, and Anna. Following Janina's death in 2009, he married Aleksandra Jasińska-Kania six years later. He also had three granddaughters and three grandsons at the time of his death.

Principal Works

Nonfiction

Modernity and the Holocaust, 1989

Liquid Modernity, 2000

Liquid Times, 2007

Bibliography

"About Us." The Bauman Institute, baumaninstitute.leeds.ac.uk/about/. Accessed 6 Sept. 2017.

Associated Press. "Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, Known for His Work on Modern Identity and the Holocaust, Dies at 91." Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2017, www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-zygmunt-bauman-obit-20170109-story.html. Accessed 6 Sept. 2017.

Davis, Mark, and Tom Campbell. "Zygmunt Bauman Obituary." Guardian, 15 Jan. 2017, www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jan/15/zygmunt-bauman-obituary. Accessed 6 Sept. 2017.

De Querol, Ricardo. "Zygmunt Bauman: 'Social Media Are a Trap.'" El País, 25 Jan. 2016, elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/19/inenglish/1453208692‗424660.html. Accessed 6 Sept. 2017.

"Liquid Modernity." Routledge Social Theory, routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/liquid-modernity. Accessed 6 Sept. 2017.

"Professor Zygmunt Bauman." The Times, 16 Jan. 2017, www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-zygmunt-bauman-tj9f3m7qh. Accessed 6 Sept. 2017.

"Renowned Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman Dies in Leeds." BBC, 10 Jan. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38568257. Accessed 6 Sept. 2017.