It 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.

I guess my claustrophobia is incurable - feeling, as I tend to, ill at ease in any closed room, and always tempted to find out what is on the other side of the door.

The value of other people is that they have something unique to offer.

We belong to talking, not what talking is about... Stop talking - and you are out. Silence equals exclusion.

The task for sociology is to come to the help of the individual. We have to be in service of freedom. It is something we have lost sight of.

As to describing me as an outsider throughout, and an outsider through and through - I have no reason to disagree.

The consumerist culture insists that swearing eternal loyalty to anything and anybody is imprudent, since in this world new glittering opportunities crop up daily.