Community Seeking Safety in an Insecure World

by Bauman, Zygmunt

• ISBN13: 9780745626345
• ISBN10: 0745626343
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-02-08
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

'Community' is one of those words that feels good: it is good 'to have a community', 'to be in a community'. And 'community' feels good because of the meanings which the word conveys, all of them promising pleasures, and more often than not the kind of pleasures which we would like to experience but seem to miss. 'Community' conveys the image of a warm and comfortable place, like a fireplace at which we warm our hands on a frosty day. Out there, in the street, all sorts of dangers lie in ambush; in here, in the community, we can relax and feel safe. 'Community' stands for the kind of world which we long to inhabit but which is not, regrettably, available to us. Today 'community' is another name for paradise lost - but for a paradise which we still hope to find, as we feverishly search for the roads that may lead us there. But there is a price to be paid for the privilege of being in a community. Community promises security but seems to deprive us of freedom, of the right to be ourselves. Security and freedom are two equally precious and coveted values which could be balanced to some degree, but hardly ever fully reconciled. The tension between security and freedom, and between community and individuality, is unlikely ever to be resolved. We cannot escape the dilemma but we can take stock of the opportunities and the dangers, and at least try to avoid repeating past errors. In this important new book, Zygmunt Bauman takes stock of these opportunities and dangers and, in his distinctive and brilliant fashion, offers a much-needed reappraisal of a concept that has become central to current debates about the nature and future of our societies.

Author Biography

Zygmunt Bauman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Universities of Leeds and Warsaw.

Table of Contents

An Overtrue, or Welcome to Elusive Community	1	(6)
The Agony of Tantalus	7	(14)
Rerooting the Uprooted	21	(18)
Times of Disengagement, or the Great Transformation Mark Two	39	(11)
Secession of the Successful	50	(8)
Two Sources of Communalism	58	(16)
Right to Recognition, Right to Redistribution	74	(15)
From Equality to Multiculturalism	89	(21)
The Bottom Line: the Ghetto	110	(14)
Many Cultures, One Humanity?	124	(20)
Afterword	144	(7)
Notes	151	(6)
Index	157