Scan barcode
mateuslevisf's review against another edition
3.0
I liked it, particularly the last two chapters and the whole discussion around the ambivalent nature of urban life with its tendency to cause both mixophilliac and mixophobic feelings - that felt like a very apt description of what I've seen my entire life living in a capital. It's a bit unfortunate that the book doesn't go in possible solutions to the problems it very adequately describes, but I grant that a disclaimer about that is in the beginning of the book so one shouldn't really expect it. Nevertheless, I think it's a good book to think more critically about urban space, the society we live in and some of the moral and social tendencies we might see unraveling in modern times.
ombraluce's review against another edition
5.0
... di fronte a un flusso di "esterni", i "radicati" hanno tutte le ragioni di sentirsi minacciati. Oltre a rappresentare la "grande incognita" che tutti gli "stranieri in mezzo a noi" incarnano, questi particolari esterni che sono i profughi portano qui gli echi lontani della guerra e il tanfo di case sventrate e villaggi dati alle fiamme, e non possono fare a meno di ricordare ai radicati quanto potrebbe essere facile infrangere e schiacciare il bozzolo della loro routine rassicurante e familiare, quanto sia illusoria la sicurezza del loro insediamento. Il profugo, come dice Bertolt Brecht nella poesia Die Landschaft des Exils, è "ein Bote des Unglücks", un messaggero di sventura.
Un libro da leggere assolutamente per capire le convulsioni della moderna società globalizzata.
Un libro da leggere assolutamente per capire le convulsioni della moderna società globalizzata.
maxguevara's review against another edition
3.0
Uncover the essence and key insights of 'Liquid Times' in minutes with a comprehensive book summary: https://youtu.be/gZOBqy_FF9I
il_principe_ignoto's review against another edition
5.0
[Bauman readings: Social rights. The forgotten and the forbidden task.]
Trumpshits around the world eventually will lose! My bet.
Bauman is very harsh in his language, almost he employs a highly enraged, bitter language about his concerns for this world. Yet, he seems infuriated and very displeased, to say the least, about the management, by the few, of this world. A careless, mindless if not offensive and irresponsible endeavor to cast off their waste (human and material)!
His thoughts are dark and future pessimistic. Fear and the need for security is the reason. But the means to achieve them, by promising more security, have driven our societies off-course. I suspect the right course was to keep fulfilling the promise of providing justice to a society that enjoys personal, political and social rights. Peace presupposes and needs justice after all. It follows:
‘A vigorous welfare programme’, as d’Arcais sums up his argument more than half a century after Beveridge, ‘ought to be an integral, and constitutionally protected, part of every democratic project.’ Without political rights, people cannot be confident of their personal rights; but without social rights, political rights will remain an unattainable dream, a useless fiction or a cruel joke for the large number of those to whom they have been granted by the letter of law. If social rights are not assured, the poor and indolent cannot practise the political rights they formally possess. And then the poor will have only such entitlements as governments think it necessary to concede, and as is acceptable to those with the genuine political muscle to gain and keep power. As long as they remain resourceless, the poor may hope at most to be receivers of transfers, not subjects of rights.'
Paolo Flores d'Arcais, "The US elections: a lesson in political philosophy: populist drift, secular ethics, democratic politics" in Zygmunt Bauman (2007). "Liquid Times. Living in an Age of Uncertainty." Polity, p.65.
Trumpshits around the world eventually will lose! My bet.
Bauman is very harsh in his language, almost he employs a highly enraged, bitter language about his concerns for this world. Yet, he seems infuriated and very displeased, to say the least, about the management, by the few, of this world. A careless, mindless if not offensive and irresponsible endeavor to cast off their waste (human and material)!
His thoughts are dark and future pessimistic. Fear and the need for security is the reason. But the means to achieve them, by promising more security, have driven our societies off-course. I suspect the right course was to keep fulfilling the promise of providing justice to a society that enjoys personal, political and social rights. Peace presupposes and needs justice after all. It follows:
‘A vigorous welfare programme’, as d’Arcais sums up his argument more than half a century after Beveridge, ‘ought to be an integral, and constitutionally protected, part of every democratic project.’ Without political rights, people cannot be confident of their personal rights; but without social rights, political rights will remain an unattainable dream, a useless fiction or a cruel joke for the large number of those to whom they have been granted by the letter of law. If social rights are not assured, the poor and indolent cannot practise the political rights they formally possess. And then the poor will have only such entitlements as governments think it necessary to concede, and as is acceptable to those with the genuine political muscle to gain and keep power. As long as they remain resourceless, the poor may hope at most to be receivers of transfers, not subjects of rights.'
Paolo Flores d'Arcais, "The US elections: a lesson in political philosophy: populist drift, secular ethics, democratic politics" in Zygmunt Bauman (2007). "Liquid Times. Living in an Age of Uncertainty." Polity, p.65.
camicarreno's review against another edition
4.0
Este libro es del 2007, pero muchas de las cosas que habla siguen siendo –tristemente– muy actuales. Por ejemplo, el tema de los refugiados, el miedo al terrorismo y la pérdida de libertades.
wallsc's review against another edition
3.0
Started this little provocateur while studying for my defence, and in coming back to finish realized its full compliment of gifts. It is a concise summary of the economic, social, and political perils we live with...and the clarity it offers isn't always easy to accept.
I'm left with the encouragement to read more Bauman.
"'Markets without frontiers' is a recipe for injustice..."
"Having leaked from a society forcefully laid open by the pressures of globalizing forces, power and politics drift ever further in opposite directions."
"The volume of humans made redundant by capitalism's global triumph grows unstoppably and comes close now to exceeding the managerial capacity of the planet..."
I'm left with the encouragement to read more Bauman.
"'Markets without frontiers' is a recipe for injustice..."
"Having leaked from a society forcefully laid open by the pressures of globalizing forces, power and politics drift ever further in opposite directions."
"The volume of humans made redundant by capitalism's global triumph grows unstoppably and comes close now to exceeding the managerial capacity of the planet..."