“Ulrich, the hero of Robert Musil’s great novel, was — as the tile of the novel announced — Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften: the man without qualities. Having no qualities of his own, whether inherited or acquired once and for all and undetachable, Ulrich had to compose whatever quality he might have wished to have by his own effort, using his own wits and acumen; but none of these qualities were guaranteed to last indefinitely in a world full of confusing signals, prone to change fast and in a way no on expected.”
(Bauman, Liquid Love, 2003)
最近在讀Bauman的理論（Liquid Love），他對現代性有很深入的討論，我認為有趣的地方是他用「liquid 與 solid」這兩個形容詞的對比來描繪現代性，而我讀的是《Liquid Love》這本，是他從原先建立的現代性理論延伸到討論現代的「情感 love」（總覺得翻成愛情似乎並不貼切），他很喜歡討論人類追求安全感/安逸同時又嚮往自由的矛盾，還有現代性下的人際脆弱性（比如說，戀愛關係的平衡，是建立在「給予懲罰」與「給予甜頭」的平衡之上，也就是時而痛苦時而甜蜜，正是戀愛關係長久的巧妙平衡）。
總而言之，很有趣。而因為這一切想法對我而言玩味，我以為他是在里茲大學任教的年輕教授，想說查查資料有沒有可能過去拜他門下，結果結果，一查才知道， 人家其實超老了，現年 89歲，白髮蒼蒼。波蘭人，反猶太主義被驅逐出境，才來到英國。里茲大學都已經有Bauamn institute了…..
然後然後，我聽不懂他講話。......
An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman: http://baumaninstitute.leeds.ac.uk/teaching/interview/
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