Book Notes: State of Crisis by Bauman & Bordoni

Author: Zygmunt Bauman and Carlo Bordoni

Title: State of Crisis

Year of publication: 2014

My rating: 10 out of 10

As I’m working on my book, I read everything with the word “crisis” in it. State of Crisis is a dialogue between Bauman and Carlo Bordoni, an Italian sociologist and journalist. Bordoni’s contribution is translated really badly by some semi-literate joke of a translator, yet even that does not make the book any less valuable.

Bauman and Bordoni suggest that the phenomenon known in Europe as “the crisis” and in the US as “the Recession” is not, as these names suggest, a temporary state of affairs, but, rather, the permanent state of affairs. The illusion that there is a right set of measures that will resolve “the crisis” once and for all needs to be abandoned if we are to realize that what we are experiencing is much larger than a temporary lack of liquidity experienced by a few banks. We are undergoing an enormous societal transformation and entering into a civilizational model where uncertainty and constant change will be the norm.

Under the fold, there are several interesting quotes from this important book.

“From matrimonial crises that upset the life of a married couple, to adolescent crises that mark the transition from puberty to adulthood, ‘crisis’ conveys the image of a moment of transition from a previous condition to a new one – a transition which is necessary to growth, as a prelude to an improvement in a different status, a decisive step forward. For this reason it strikes less fear” (3).

“Personal peculiarities, including bizarre and unclassifiable idiosyncrasies that were once banned from the office and had to be left in the cloakroom on entering the building, come to be seen as the most precious of assets and the most promising and profitable capital. . . It is no longer employees who follow the rules and go through the motions who are in demand, but self-composed, self-managed and self-confident, boisterous and unconventional individuals” (50-1).

“We are immersed in one single great crisis, as a consequence of the end of modernity. The current crisis is not only striking Europe, it is not only an economic crisis: it is a profound crisis of social and economic transformation, which has its roots in the past. It comes from way back in time” (59).

“‘Democracy’ has been so emptied of its original meaning – government of the people – that it is looked upon more and more with jaded skepticism, if not with outright suspicion” (128).

“Immigration. . . is a phenomenon caused by the steadily growing production of redundant people in far-away lands – but it is up to the people in the places of the migrants’ arrival to provide them with jobs, accommodation, education facilities and medical care, as well as to mitigate the tensions which the influx of strangers is likely to provoke” (125).