Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty

The passage from 'solid' to 'liquid' modernity has created a newand unprecedented setting for individual life pursuits, confrontingindividuals with a series of challenges never before encountered.Social forms and institutions no longer have enough time tosolidify and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actionsand long-term life plans, so individuals have to find other ways toorganise their lives. They have to splice together an unendingseries of short-term projects and episodes that don't add up to thekind of sequence to which concepts like 'career' and 'progress'could meaningfully be applied. Such fragmented lives requireindividuals to be flexible and adaptable - to be constantly readyand willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandoncommitments and loyalties without regret and to pursueopportunities according to their current availability. In liquidmodernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate thelikely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) underconditions of endemic uncertainty.

Zygmunt Bauman's brilliant writings on liquid modernity havealtered the way we think about the contemporary world. In thisshort book he explores the sources of the endemic uncertainty whichshapes our lives today and, in so doing, he provides the readerwith a brief and accessible introduction to his highly originalaccount, developed at greater length in his previous books, of lifein our liquid modern times.