Society under Suspicion

Bauman and Rorty

Presented by

MD. Tahmid Hasan

Department of Anthropology
University of Rajshahi 
Key concepts

 Consumerism: This is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of
goods and services in ever-increasing amounts.

 Morality: It is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those

that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper.

 Normative: Normative statements make claims about how things should or ought to be,
how to value them, which things are good or bad, and which actions are right or wrong
Key concepts Continued

 Pragmatism: An approach that evaluates theories or beliefs in terms of the success of

their practical application.

 Relativization: The action of making relative; the fact or process of being made
relative

 Relativism: A name given to theories or doctrines that truth, morality etc. are relative
to situations and are not absolute.

 Sociality: It is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to

associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies.
Introduction

Pluralism and the Postmodern Condition

 Limits of the modern, freedom of the postmodern
 Post-philosophical culture

Withdrawing from Society

 Postmodern ethics and morality
 Rorty: politics beyond reason

Critical Discussion
 Dangers of pragmatism
 Postmodern theory
Pluralism and the Postmodern Condition

 Only Bauman is specifically concerned with the sociological analysis of

postmodern society

 Modern society has reached its limits, and it is our realization of this
that defines the postmodern condition

 Rorty identifies a crisis of representation in contemporary culture and

social thought .
Limits of the modern, Freedom of the
postmodern
 Bauman the struggle between capitalism and socialism was integral to the narrative of
modern society

 The limits of modern society that holds the key to the postmodern condition

 Post-modernism is a media-driven culture of excess.

 Post-modern society, consumerism much more than work.

 The reality of postmodern world is much more fluid, heterogeneous and under
patterned.
Post-philosophical culture

 Bauman writes of the limits of modern society, Rorty focus on limitations to what
can be known about the world we inhabit.

 There is no philosophical language in which we could know for certain that

modern society.

 A vocabulary serves as a framework through which particular statements or

sentences.

 We no longer have need for philosophy, all that we can do is learn to live in our
post-philosophical culture.
Withdrawing from Society

 Postmodern or post-philosophical culture is characterized by the

absence of any authorized account of history and by the erosion of
dominant belief systems.

 Morality is essentially a private matter.

Postmodern ethics and morality

 Bauman argues that universal reason can not provide the foundations of an
emancipatory critique of contemporary society.

 In postmodern society, the notion of community circumvents moral

responsibility by differentiating between moral standards as applied to us
and as applied to them.

 Bauman’s argument homes in on the relationship between private morality

and public ethics.

 Bauman associates with modernity nor to embrace moral relativism.

Critical Discussion
 “Morality can not be grounded in philosophy or social theory”.
 “The concept of universal reason can not provide fail-safe answers to ethical
questions”.
 “We should place greater trust in a private sense of morality”.
But,

 Both of them opposed or denied the values and beliefs postmodernism offer,
i.e. relativism.
 They didn’t propose any counter theoretical argument of relativism rather
emphasized the normative argument and favored private morality.
Dangers of Pragmatism

 “Rorty’s normative argument is based on the notion that humans are capable of re-
describing themselves in any number of ways according to whatever vocabularies are
available to them”.

 “He describes self as a network that is constantly reweaving itself”.

 He thinks, “society can not and should not impose rules on that process and thus be
prefers the notion of politics as literary conversation.

 “Rorty’s characterization of the post-philosophical culture is deliberately formless.”

Dangers of Pragmatism Continued

“But,
 Can loose and unstructured literary conversation provide an adequate means of
sustaining liberal democracy?
 Rorty’s political community consists of hearing, but not necessarily of listening to
and engaging with alternative points of view thus his ideas “replicate the modern
approach to philosophy from which he seeks to escape”.
Dangers of Pragmatism Continued

 Rorty view ‘campaign politics’ as “practical and realistic” which rests on a theoretical
understanding of ‘solidarity’ which may not turn out to be true.

 “According to Bauman, Rorty is fundamentally correct in his argument that movement

politics is invariably based on assumptions about the moral and ethical development of
society which turn out to be either invalid or unattainable”.

 Bauman argues “society requires both socialization and sociality in order to sustain
its historical life while nourishing individual creativity and moral autonomy which
differs from Rorty’s position where he argues that “anything other than sociality is
required in order to maintain the historical life of society”.
Dangers of Pragmatism Continued

But,

 Bauman criticizes ‘campaign politics’ by arguing it might have been “tailor made for
contended majority and thus increase the existing levels of social exclusion”.

 Rorty doesn’t provide the explanation how social solidarity is achieved and reproduced
over time whereas Bauman gives socialization and sociality as explanation.
Postmodern theory
 “Both Bauman and Rorty express a deep suspicion towards society as a moral force”,
thus criticizing the ideas of Durkheim about morality.

 In Rorty’s case the answer is ‘liberal pragmatism’ which argues that liberal-
democratic society has largely coincided with the peaceful coexistence of cultures.

 In Bauman’s case the answer is ‘postmodern condition’ which marks a loss of faith in
the ideal od society which is rooted in the mass destruction of one culture or race by
another.
Postmodern theory Continued

 “According to Bauman, modern social theory tends to support an idealization of

society which confuses social integration with social control”.

 “Bauman rejects the idea that public always has primacy over private and ethics over
morality.”
Postmodern theory Continued

 “For Bauman, modern social theory consists of concepts and metaphors that are
inappropriate to the postmodern condition”.

 He suggests that “the first requirement od postmodern social theory must therefore
be to develop an entirely new semantic field”.

 He agrees that postmodern sociology lacks a theoretical core, i.e. it only offers
multiple and competing interpretations of a phenomenon rather than trying to
explain how it has come about”.
Postmodern theory Continued

 Bauman agrees that the objective of sociology in postmodern society a should be to

relativize (the action of making relative) existing interpretations of reality.

 He insists that, postmodern condition shouldn’t be viewed merely as a variant of or

deviation from modern society but as altogether distinctive,
Postmodern theory Continued

 Bauman tried to resolve the ‘relativist’ dilemma of postmodern condition by making a

distinction between forms of reason. Those are-
1. Legislative
2. Interpretative

 Legislative reason derived from Kant’s ideas. It means that “universal rational
principles should form the basis of a tribunal which seeks to make a judgement
between competing points of view.
Postmodern theory Continued

 Interpretative reason derived from Dilthey’s ideas. According to Bauman, the role of
interpretative reason consists of mediation not judgement. Interpretative reason is
compatible with pluralism and its most radical form can be seen in Rorty’s works.
But,
 To suggest that reason can mediate between different perspectives implies that
reason is distinctive from culture, thus it is beyond pluralism whereas reason must be
regarded as a source or vital component of pluralism. That means, it can not fulfil the
role of mediation Bauman envisioned.
Conclusion

 Postmodern society should be modeled in its own specific way.

 The postmodern reaction to modern social theory, even in the hands of
Bauman, appears to be confused.
Thank you, all.