Quote

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.

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
Many
Answer
Interviewer
Great
Asked
Forbid
Would
Humanity
Inclined
Times
Answered
Social
Origin
Past
Greek
Change
French
Cornelius
Done
Philosopher
Exasperated

More quotes by Zygmunt Bauman

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As long as being a stranger and surrounded by strangers was seen as a temporary irritant, a smallest departure from the binding rules of conduct by a member of a minority, was taken for a major crime justifying deportation.
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If Christ would have left Christian ethics codified on the table, then he wouldn't produce moral beings choosing between good and evil, but conformists fulfilling orders. I think the same can be said about the Bible.
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A whole world is taken to the grave with the dead person each one of us is unique and unrepeatable.
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I was leftwing, I am leftwing, and I will die leftwing.
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Human attention tends to be focused on the satisfactions relationships are hoped to bring, precisely because somehow they have not been truly satisfactory. And if they do satisfy, the price of this satisfaction has often been found to be unacceptable.
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For one to be free there must be at least two.
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It is so true that in liquid modernity freedom was, so to speak, let off the leash, and for a quite a number of years the freedom of choice was in principle unlimited. One result was the weakening of inter-human bonds, particularly inherited bonds, and the counterfactual assumption that individuals must and can fend for themselves.
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There are other ways of finding satisfaction, recipes for human happiness, enjoyment, dignified and meaningful, gratifying life, than increased consumption that increases production.
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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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We have found ourselves in the period of interregnum: the old works no more, the new is not yet born. But the awareness that without it being born we are all marked for demise, is already much alive, as is the awareness that the hard nut we must urgently crack is not the presence of too many poor, but too many rich.
Zygmunt Bauman
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Man is in his short sojourn on earth equal to God in His eternity.
Zygmunt Bauman
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At the turn of the twenty-first century, the richest 5 percent of people receive one-third of total global income, as much as the poorest 80 percent.
Zygmunt Bauman
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As to describing me as an outsider throughout, and an outsider through and through - I have no reason to disagree.
Zygmunt Bauman
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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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When people think, rightly or wrongly, that marriage is forever, they are stimulated to seek and find a resolution, a modus vivendi, whenever they quarrel.
Zygmunt Bauman
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Jews are no longer pressed and obliged to fight, hide or deny their Jewishness. What for? No one actually requires today to abandon the idiosyncrasy of some other culture or ethnic tradition. The great achievement of this last period is that we have been slowly, sometimes reluctantly, yet steadily, learning the art of living with differences.
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'I am insecure' means: I can't cope on my own. The odds are overwhelming. I can't resist them on my own. I need us to join forces, stand shoulder to shoulder, march hand in hand.
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Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burnt-out human dreams and charred hopes.
Zygmunt Bauman
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In Celan's words a Jew is a man with a little book under the shoulder. We are the keepers of tradition.
Zygmunt Bauman
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In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.
Zygmunt Bauman