Bauman on Refugees

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Clarissa

October 19, 2016

We all know how I feel about Zygmunt Bauman but his new book on refugees (Strangers at Our Door) is not up to his usual standards.

For one, Bauman trots out this line of argument that I detest and that defends the right of refugees to humane treatment by portraying them as ticking bombs or creatures who all hide monsters within. If refugees don’t feel included, Bauman says, they will be tempted to run off and join ISIS. He argues that the young people who run away to ISIS are the downtrodden and the excluded from Western societies. I, however, don’t buy this argument for a second.

Young people in opulent societies run away to join murderous gangs because they are spoiled, bored brats. I fail to notice any important differences between the female mass murderers who joined the Charlie Mason cult and the male idiots who join mass murderers in ISIS. I wish that ISIS were excluded from the discussion of migrants altogether because it’s an altogether separate issue.

Of course, I will have more on Bauman later because when did I ever not have more on him?

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2 responses to “Bauman on Refugees”

cliff arroyo

October 20, 2016

“Young people in opulent societies run away to join murderous gangs because they are spoiled, bored brats. ”

The explanation that I think works best is that they are looking for existential meaning that consumerism and fluidity cannot provide (both are about running away from any value that doesn’t serve capital).

They want to be part of somethig so important that it’s worth killing and dying for even as fluidity tells them there’s nothing more important than identit through consuming they want identity through actions.

The problem with 95 % or so of the migrants coming in Europe (a large majority of whom aren’t refugees in any real sense) is much harsher, nd no one who wants to protect their reputation in academia dare say it: They simply have nothing to offer Europe in return for being allowed in.

They have almost nothing in the way of useful education or marketable skills and are liable to despise the only kinds of jobs they could conceivably do. So they drift into welfare dependence and petty crime because those are the only realistic options minus massive reeducation and integration efforts that they most do not want.

If the nation-state carried within it the seeds of its own destruction (universal education for starters) then fluidity carries the seeds of its own destruction in sucking existential meaning out of the lives of the fluid.

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1. ladyfiaran
  
  October 20, 2016
  
  My tablet doesn’t allow cut and paste of small segments, but I agree with the part about young people looking for meaning and being bored by a consumerist society, even if I am not a big spender or buyer. My parents never randomly bought us stuff and have the typical Gallego trait of being cheap, so instead they would take us to the library and Dad would often buy boxes of books from yard sales so there were always books at home of all sorts. In school kids, especially the girls, were surprised I didn’t have many toys or trendy clothes but we had three encyclopedia sets. I don’t want to sound like a socialist, but maybe being a full time consumer and parents buying their kids lots of stuff is bad, spoiled kids turn into bored adults who do very questionable things to find meaning.
  
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