I worry about younger generations who were born to view their country trampling on humanity of everyone that comes in its way, as the 'normal state of affairs" - because they knew no other. We know how easy it is to shed, under such circumstances, the thin and frail veneer of civilization, not to mention the moral standards of which the Jews were presumed to be the world's teachers.
Zygmunt BaumanIn a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.
Zygmunt BaumanThroughout early modernity there were very strong pressures on Jews to assimilate. Assimilating meant cutting your ties with the community of origin.
Zygmunt BaumanIt is so true that in liquid modernity freedom was, so to speak, let off the leash, and for a quite a number of years the freedom of choice was "in principle" unlimited. One result was the weakening of inter-human bonds, particularly inherited bonds, and the counterfactual assumption that individuals must and can fend for themselves.
Zygmunt BaumanThe risk of the Holocaust is not that it will be forgotten, but that it will be embalmed and surrounded by monuments and used to absolve all future sins.
Zygmunt BaumanCivilisation, the orderly world in which we live, is frail. We are skating on thin ice. There is a fear of a collective disaster. Terrorism, genocide, flu, tsunamis.
Zygmunt BaumanJews are no longer pressed and obliged to fight, hide or deny their Jewishness. What for? No one actually requires today to abandon the idiosyncrasy of some other culture or ethnic tradition. The great achievement of this last period is that we have been slowly, sometimes reluctantly, yet steadily, learning the art of living with differences.
Zygmunt Bauman