WORLD SOCIAL SUMMIT 2008
'Wss: Bauman, today's insecurities are liquid fears'

"A brief history of modern fears": Zygmunt Bauman opened this way his lectio magistralis this morning, at the World Social Summit organized by Fondazione Roma that ends today in the Capital city.

According to Bauman, it is wrong to talk about fear, but we must rather talk about "fears". And for this reason, he defines them "fluid" because "they are free to move easily, and detach and bond from one sphere to the other".

Bauman goes on and talks about contemporary fears. What we feel today, it is often the "fear of being unsuitable". Because "today's society does not establish rules but offers possibilities that can be exploited. If the opportunity is lost, this is the fault of the individual "who did not put enough effort, cleverness and did not try enough". There is therefore "a personal, individual responsibility that involves the risk of not fully grasp the opportunities offered by life". Within the fear of being unsuitable, says Bauman, it falls also the fear of "being unable to use newer systems" and the fear that the sociologist defines as "environmental fear, an anxiety widespread in contemporary society". This category "is not well defined and it is very much felt". It is "a fear that seems to come from every corner". In a world of changes, there is for example the fear not to find "any longer buyers for a type of skills acquired with hard work" or the fear "to lose our social position, to be kicked out, how we see reality" proposed by the media through expectations: "who will be excluded next time?". And the impact of fear, of being unsuitable "makes us feel vulnerable, exposed". Being unsuitable means not to feel any longer in line "with the standards", and as a consequence we think that we are "what we deserve" and "when luck turns we admit that it is all our fault".

The existential insecurity is another great fear of our times. It is "an atavic fear that rises from the awareness to be all mortal". Human nature is more bearable compared to the animal world as compensation for the fact that "we live knowing to be mortal". But nature also gave us the "means to overcome this primordial fear: link mortality with "mortalities, to think about a life after death". Therefore we live a "virtuous life", thinking that this way we will have "a place in paradise". And then there is the possibility to "be remembered positively by future generations with our actions". Contemporary culture, says Bauman, "does not worry about mortality, it tries to deal with and live in the present, going from one project to the next in order not to leave any time to think about death.

And then there is social insecurity derived from the awareness that "the same way that a place in the society is given to us, sometimes it can be taken". The more we go on, we remain "attached to this social position because we fear to lose it". The promise of governments and organized societies, says Bauman, "consisted in free people from this type of fear deriving from social insecurity". This principle is at the basis of Roosevelt's though: "render the position of a citizen safe, respected, worthy, justified and of which to be proud". This is the project of the "welfare state, studied to free people from the fear of being safe". For example society "would have thought about the weakest in case of illness" and this social aspect was guaranteed for every human being", says Bauman. It was a system that allowed citizens "to go on, to think that it was fair to run risks and be courageous", says the sociologist. Today "not only we lost personal safety, but also the ability to think in terms of society" facing "problems that concern individual safety".

The peculiarity of contemporary society is that fears are used economically and politically. "Politicians offer their help by proposing to fight against this animal insecurity". And thus "they teach how to defend ourselves from pick-pockets, from physical threats towards the body and personal objects". Despite we hear talking about the protection of personal integrity, "protection from who tries to attack us", we still did not find the path to make these matters a priority".