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The question of identity has separated from the issue of 'assimilation', having lost much of its drama and become, so to speak, a secular problem.

Zygmunt Bauman

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Zygmunt Bauman
Age: 91 †
Born: 1925
Born: November 19
Died: 2017
Died: January 9
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Poznan
Problem
Issue
Much
Drama
Identity
Question
Issues
Speak
Assimilation
Lost
Separated
Become
Secular

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This awful concept of underclass is really horrifying. You're not lower class, you are excluded - outside.
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Every interpretation is but an introduction to another interpretation, and that is how Talmud pages are printed.
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In a consumer society, people wallow in things, fascinating, enjoyable things. If you define your value by the things you acquire and surround yourself with, being excluded is humiliating.
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It is easy now to break the vows. It is even easier to part your ways if vows haven't been taken.
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Cornelius Castoriadis, the great French social philosopher of Greek origin, was asked once by an exasperated interviewer: What do you want, Mr. Castoriadis - to change humanity? He answered: No, God forbid, I only want humanity to change itself, as it has done so many times in the past. I would be inclined to answer the same way.
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I suspect that one of capitalism's crucial assets derives from the fact that the imagination of economists, including its critics, lags well behind its own inventiveness, the arbitrariness of its undertaking and the ruthlessness of the way in which it proceeds.
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I worry about the Israeli moral standard, Israeli humanity.
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Christ could not create a codified 'Christian ethics' such a thing would be a contradiction in terms.
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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.
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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.
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Why do I write books? Why do I think? Why should I be passionate? Because things could be different, they could be made better.
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People do not choose a government that will bring the market within their control instead, the market in every way conditions governments to bring the people within its control.
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The value of other people is that they have something unique to offer.
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The proof of my Jewishness is that iniquities done by Israel pain me much more than iniquities perpetrated by any other country.
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As long as we say: Alright, it is truth for me, and I believe in it and I am ready to fight for it, but I accept that others have different beliefs - and so let me have a closer look at what they believe - we can gain from our intercourse thanks to our difference, not despite our difference.
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As the run-by-capital society of producers turned since into the run-by-capital society of consumers, I would say that the main, indeed meta, function of the governments has become now to assure that it is the meetings between commodities and the consumers, and credit issuers and the borrowers, that regularly take place.
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Alas, you don't need monsters for monstrous deeds to be accomplished.
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Now people are worried not about the prospects of buying new things, but about how to pay for the things they bought yesterday, a year ago or years before. It is, as Americans like to say, a wholly different kind of ball-game.
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