Human attention tends to be focused on the satisfactions relationships are hoped to bring, precisely because somehow they have not been truly satisfactory. And if they do satisfy, the price of this satisfaction has often been found to be unacceptable.
Zygmunt BaumanThe Bible unites its interpreters as a shared focus of attention, but it does not demand consensus. On the contrary, it invites and prods us to make responsible choices, to take responsibility for the choices that we have made... It was always like that, and our holy scripture grows over the centuries, gets thicker and thicker, with more texts around, which need/have to be looked into, referred to, considered.
Zygmunt BaumanWhat is assumed to be the materialisation of the inner truth of the self is in fact an idealisation of the material - objectified - traces of consumer choices.
Zygmunt BaumanOnce upon a time there were the Pampas in Argentina, that people could treat as "empty lands" and where they could run away from their problems from problem-ridden homes. That eventuality is no longer available.
Zygmunt BaumanWe have found ourselves in the period of "interregnum": the old works no more, the new is not yet born. But the awareness that without it being born we are all marked for demise, is already much alive, as is the awareness that the hard nut we must urgently crack is not the presence of "too many poor", but "too many rich".
Zygmunt Bauman