The Individualized Society
The Individualized Society
复制标题
个性化社会
DOI：
10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300058
复制
发表时间：
2003
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
S. Tormey
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
S. Tormey
鲍曼当然是最有名的社会学家和编年史的我们这个时代，而不是一个政治理论家。尽管如此，他的著作对于那些认为自己的部分任务是详细阐述相关的、令人信服的规范性批判F而不是简单的规范性批判的政治理论家来说是必不可少的阅读。这两本书在这里回顾发展一个主题，将熟悉的经验丰富的鲍曼读者，一个反过来已成为一个主食的辩论中的文化和社会理论。这就是“我们”已经进入了现代性的第二阶段，他称之为“液体现代性”（与“晚期现代性”、“后现代性”、“超现代性”等相对），以区别于早期的“固体”阶段，其特征是“沉重”、固定性、领土性和相对稳定性。在这个新阶段，速度、流动性、流动性和活力将资本、权力和资源从民族国家中解放出来，从而带来了我们现在称之为“全球化”的效果或过程。作为一名社会学家，鲍曼主要感兴趣的是社会和个人生活领域的变化，而不是政治领域的变化，尽管在分析中不难看出对后者的影响，对全球化文献的追随者来说也不会陌生。然而，鲍曼对后者的补充是，对现代生活的感觉和结构的关注远远超出了全球化批评者所钟爱的“民族国家之死”的论点。总而言之，让鲍曼感到困扰的是，个人、公司和社会责任的范围和性质每天都在减少。例如，在当代条件下，公司宣布他们已经“外包”了他们的劳动力，使自己摆脱了为员工提供福利的义务（看看英国目前养老金的崩溃），增加了他们转移资本以逃避税收的能力。同样，个人比以往任何时候都更加孤立或原子化，因此不太倾向于认为自己有义务帮助或为维持他人做出贡献。鲍曼令人信服地认为，利害攸关的是，
Bauman is of course best known as a sociologist and chronicler of our times rather than a political theorist. Nevertheless, his work is essential reading for those political theorists who feel that part of their task is to elaborate relevant and compelling normative critique F as opposed to normative critique tout court. Both books reviewed here develop a theme that will be familiar to seasoned Bauman readers, one that in turn has become a staple in debates in cultural and social theory. This is that ‘we’have entered a second phase of modernity, what he refers to as ‘liquid modernity’(as opposed to ‘late modernity’,‘postmodernity’,‘sur-modernity’etc) to be distinguished from an earlier ‘solid’phase characterized by ‘heaviness’, immobility, territoriality, relative stability. In this new phase, speed, mobility, liquidity and dynamism liberate capital, power, resources from the nation state thus bringing about that effect or process we now term ‘globalization’. As a sociologist, what primarily interests Bauman is the change to the field of social and individual life rather than the political as such, though the impact on the latter is not difficult to discern in the analysis, nor one that will be unfamiliar to followers of the literature on globalization. What Bauman adds to the latter is, however, a concern for the feel and texture of modern life going well beyond the ‘death of the nation state’thesis so beloved of critics of globalization. To sum up this concern, what troubles Bauman is the degree to which the scope and character of individual, corporate and social responsibility are being diminished daily. Under contemporary conditions it is now a virtue, for example, for companies to declare that they have ‘outsourced’their labour, freed themselves from the obligation to provide benefits for their workforce (witness the current debacle over pensions in the UK), increased their capacity to shift capital around to evade taxes. Similarly, individuals are more isolated or atomized than ever before, and thus less inclined to regard themselves as obliged to help or contribute to the up-keep of others. What is at stake is, Bauman compellingly argues, nothing less than the rationale and future of the