Zygmunt Bauman, Polish Jewish Marxist.
I despise Marxism with a passion I can barely put into words. Marxism is a profound deception, in all its forms. And there are many variants of this hideous ideology.
As with most other sociologists with left wing persuasions writing during the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s Zygmunt Bauman subscribed to the Marxist view. This wasn’t unusual for that period.
“It was a time when Marxist Theory…..ruled the intellectual roost, not only by defining the terms of debate but also by turning on an endless supply of conceptual tools with which to conduct it. Almost every corner of the social sciences and beyond came to absorb the language of the Marxist renaissance”. (Parkin 2002)
The 1960's and 1970's was a period in which we witnessed profound social change in western society. Some of it necessary in my opinion, but a lot of it, perhaps most, was not required and simply tore up society causing huge divisions.
It is no coincidence that we live in an age of relentless focus on equality and diversity yet we are more divided than ever before. Division - that's one of the salient toxic products of Marxism, dressed up as something harmless known as diversity.
However, by the 1980’s Bauman was less convinced by the Marxist story, it no longer explained his societal understanding and rationale. So he claimed. I'm not so sure. The most significant thrust of this purported change is embodied in the 1987 publication Legislators and Interpreters where he believes that his own ideas have to remain secondary and subservient to the metaphysical structure he inherited from Marx.
It was in the early phases of postmodernism where Bauman started to receive more attention and command more authority for his sociological contributions. From Legislators and Interpreters it followed that Bauman’s sociology was shifting away from modernity and moving into postmodernity and thereafter from solid modernist to liquid modernist; it is the absence of an older and singular critique of Marxism that the reader of Bauman is exposed to along with a new seminal critical theory.
This new sociology from Bauman did not explode onto the scene, it took some time before it gained momentum. Much of his work in the late 1980’s was absorbed into postmodernity and its impact on his own developing sociology. The 1990’s then saw him concentrating on a comprehensive examination of modernity. It was at this juncture that Bauman was now in full throttle pursuit of his own sociological ideologies which Marxism, with its focus on social class, could not harmonise. However, Marxism has many faces and the old economic class model was indeed no longer a viable sell, but Marxism adapts and morphs as we know. Today's Marxist threat comes from within. Today's Marxists don't open seek the overthrow of capitalism, they seek the destruction of the nation state. We are facing a new form of Marxism - global Marxism.
It was the idea of modernity that both incited and aggravated him. In order to understand Bauman’s interest with modernity we first need to consider his disappointment with Marxism. One of the reasons he felt let down by Marxism was due to its reliance on outmoded and now inapplicable practical concepts – the Marxist concepts of ‘social class’, ‘alienation’ and ‘ideology’. These principles were now becoming more difficult to connect with definitive social relations especially in light of social and cultural developments in the 1960’s. It was postmodernism which now provided a more credible sociological framework for the new era, Bauman states:
“The problem with Marxism was that it failed to provide an adequate account of the monumental changes in modern industrial capitalism which had seen consumption and consumer culture taking the place of production and work”. (Macey 2000)
Let's not forget though that postmodernism is just another stage in the personal development of the leftist individual. Call it whatever you want, Marxism, communism, liberalism, leftism, these days it's all the same. It's all the same destructive force parading at something good. The ultimate deception. And millions have fallen for it.
Peace and Light,
GoldStreet