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Intimations of Postmodernity
This thoughtful and illuminating book provides a major statement on the meaning and importance of postmodernity.
264 pages, Paperback
First published December 5, 1991
About the author
Zygmunt Bauman
251 books2,482 followersZygmunt Bauman was a world-renowned Polish sociologist and philosopher, and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds. He was one of the world's most eminent social theorists, writing on issues as diverse as modernity and the Holocaust, postmodern consumerism and liquid modernity and one of the creators of the concept of “postmodernism”.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 3, 2022
I’m not going to be able to cover half of the ideas discussed in this book. It isn’t just that there are so many ideas here. Rather that many of the ideas are ones I’m not totally sure I followed. One of my favourite educational theorists is Vygotsky and he says that we learn the most from people who present material just beyond our current ability. He refers to this as us trying to be being a head taller than we currently are. There were a few things in this book that were much more than a head taller than I currently am.
I’m going to start with ideas from a couple of chapters almost at the end of the book. One of the problems with a book like this is that it is based on a series of his academic papers. This is a standard trick of academics – they write a series of self-contained papers more or less on a consistent theme and then, at some point in the future, they pull some of those papers together into a book. The problem is that sometimes the papers will cover similar ground as others they want to include and so you’ll hear things over and over again. Another problem is that some ideas will only get hinted at in a few of the chapters (seduction is one of those ideas in this book) so you have to pull together all of the various bits on this theme from the various chapters to get a clear idea of what he is really saying. Even then what you are left with feels tentative.
The chapters I want to start with are about the fall of communism.
Now, there’s no question Bauman saw this is a good thing. He had grown up in socialist Poland and left there well before the fall of the Soviet Union. All the same, he saw the collapse of communist states as a good thing because he saw them as the last vestige of the modernist project, something that had outlasted its useful life. He also considered classical capitalism to be little more than another side of the same coin. As such, he sees our current world as postmodernist. Something he spends most of this book explaining.
What made the world ‘modernist’ had been that it sought to provide a baseline or perhaps even an all-encompassing set of social supports – something akin to a welfare state under capitalism, or even what had otherwise been an overarching system of cradle to grave protections in the socialist world. Modernism also provided an all-encompassing narrative, too. The fall of Communism was greeted in the west with triumphalism. There was talk of the end of history and so on. And while Bauman also seems to come close to the idea of an end of history too – his version is postmodern, rather than modernist – and so doesn’t really come to the same conclusions as made by those in the west. That is, he understands the end of history in terms that are quite different from those of the neoliberals who believed history had ended as a complete confirmation of free market economics.
Bauman sees society as being too complex to be understood by a single sociological theory – however expansive. He sees society as being less about change – at least in the previous sense that was ‘progressive’ or ‘developmental’ towards the outcome of some grand narrative. Rather, at one point her compares social interactions to Brownian motion – literally random, literally without pattern. Elsewhere he compares it to chaos theory – where the tiniest differences in initial conditions result in unpredictable outcomes. There never came a time for Kahn’s ‘normal science’ in Sociology – rather there only ever remained a kind of constant revolution, at least in the sense of sociology never reaching anything looking like a settled paradigm. And he makes it clear that a settled paradigm is exactly what most sociology would like to achieve. The problem is that a settled paradigm is a modernist hope, and all such hopes can no longer exist in our post-modernist world.
Sociology was once something feared by those who hold power within society. They burnt books in Nazi Germany, they suppressed reactionary ideas in the Soviet Union, they ruined the careers of ‘fellow travellers’ in McCarthy’s America. But post-modernism has seen sociology’s ability to exercise any power at all reduced to virtually zero. As he says at one point, the price sociology paid for near total freedom of speech, has been that no one listens to sociologists any longer.
But even here there are contradictions and counterforces. People want certainty and experts provide some appearance of that certainty. The problem for the old communist states was that they were unable to move into the postmodernist world in the same way capitalist states had. They were still building tractors and talking in the tonnage of iron being produced, even while capitalist society had moved on to the information age, an age defined more by consumption than by production. And so, young intellectuals in East Germany are discussed, since they felt they wanted to leave, not because they were unhappy with their state supplied doctor – but because in post-modern times, one is defined by the choices one makes – and where there are no choices, there is no identity either.
This runs the whole way down. He constructs a dualism between seduction and surveillance (Foucault’s panopticon). He says that the main force of social regulation now is seduction. At least this is true for those who matter in society. They are seduced by products – their need to buy is generated by their need to assert and create their own identity – and so, we are all constantly seduced by the images of what we could become if only we added this one more item to our store.
For those who are at the bottom of society, all that is available to them is the minimum necessary to keep their body and soul together. And so, these people must be watched to ensure they do not try anything that might otherwise damage social harmony. Bauman doesn’t say this here, but since these people are essentially failed consumers, all they really want is access to the same kinds of products the comparatively wealthy enjoy, products that would enable them to also construct their own identities. When there were riots in England in 2011, for example, as others have said – including Bauman, I believe – the precariat did not seek to tear down the system, they broke into department stores and stole shoes and wide-screen televisions. The revolution was not a call for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity – but Gucci, Chanel, Calvin Klein.
This book was written a long time before the advent of social media. It would be very difficult to sustain an argument today that surveillance is solely for the underclass. But the surveillance of those further up the social structure hardly means repression in the sense Bauman discusses here either. If anything, surveillance is designed now to better create the needs and wants that produce seduction and desire in ever-wider sections of society.
This seems a particularly bleak vision of post-modernity. But I want to point out in ending that he feels it is too early to do more than map out some of the key features of the post-modern – rather than to provide an full theory. His point, again, is that the solidity of the vision of modernity is what has died – the fact we do not know what has replaced it is summed up by the fact the best we can call our new society is ‘no longer modern’.
Like I said – this book contains endlessly more than this review is capable of covering.
I’m going to start with ideas from a couple of chapters almost at the end of the book. One of the problems with a book like this is that it is based on a series of his academic papers. This is a standard trick of academics – they write a series of self-contained papers more or less on a consistent theme and then, at some point in the future, they pull some of those papers together into a book. The problem is that sometimes the papers will cover similar ground as others they want to include and so you’ll hear things over and over again. Another problem is that some ideas will only get hinted at in a few of the chapters (seduction is one of those ideas in this book) so you have to pull together all of the various bits on this theme from the various chapters to get a clear idea of what he is really saying. Even then what you are left with feels tentative.
The chapters I want to start with are about the fall of communism.
Now, there’s no question Bauman saw this is a good thing. He had grown up in socialist Poland and left there well before the fall of the Soviet Union. All the same, he saw the collapse of communist states as a good thing because he saw them as the last vestige of the modernist project, something that had outlasted its useful life. He also considered classical capitalism to be little more than another side of the same coin. As such, he sees our current world as postmodernist. Something he spends most of this book explaining.
What made the world ‘modernist’ had been that it sought to provide a baseline or perhaps even an all-encompassing set of social supports – something akin to a welfare state under capitalism, or even what had otherwise been an overarching system of cradle to grave protections in the socialist world. Modernism also provided an all-encompassing narrative, too. The fall of Communism was greeted in the west with triumphalism. There was talk of the end of history and so on. And while Bauman also seems to come close to the idea of an end of history too – his version is postmodern, rather than modernist – and so doesn’t really come to the same conclusions as made by those in the west. That is, he understands the end of history in terms that are quite different from those of the neoliberals who believed history had ended as a complete confirmation of free market economics.
Bauman sees society as being too complex to be understood by a single sociological theory – however expansive. He sees society as being less about change – at least in the previous sense that was ‘progressive’ or ‘developmental’ towards the outcome of some grand narrative. Rather, at one point her compares social interactions to Brownian motion – literally random, literally without pattern. Elsewhere he compares it to chaos theory – where the tiniest differences in initial conditions result in unpredictable outcomes. There never came a time for Kahn’s ‘normal science’ in Sociology – rather there only ever remained a kind of constant revolution, at least in the sense of sociology never reaching anything looking like a settled paradigm. And he makes it clear that a settled paradigm is exactly what most sociology would like to achieve. The problem is that a settled paradigm is a modernist hope, and all such hopes can no longer exist in our post-modernist world.
Sociology was once something feared by those who hold power within society. They burnt books in Nazi Germany, they suppressed reactionary ideas in the Soviet Union, they ruined the careers of ‘fellow travellers’ in McCarthy’s America. But post-modernism has seen sociology’s ability to exercise any power at all reduced to virtually zero. As he says at one point, the price sociology paid for near total freedom of speech, has been that no one listens to sociologists any longer.
But even here there are contradictions and counterforces. People want certainty and experts provide some appearance of that certainty. The problem for the old communist states was that they were unable to move into the postmodernist world in the same way capitalist states had. They were still building tractors and talking in the tonnage of iron being produced, even while capitalist society had moved on to the information age, an age defined more by consumption than by production. And so, young intellectuals in East Germany are discussed, since they felt they wanted to leave, not because they were unhappy with their state supplied doctor – but because in post-modern times, one is defined by the choices one makes – and where there are no choices, there is no identity either.
This runs the whole way down. He constructs a dualism between seduction and surveillance (Foucault’s panopticon). He says that the main force of social regulation now is seduction. At least this is true for those who matter in society. They are seduced by products – their need to buy is generated by their need to assert and create their own identity – and so, we are all constantly seduced by the images of what we could become if only we added this one more item to our store.
For those who are at the bottom of society, all that is available to them is the minimum necessary to keep their body and soul together. And so, these people must be watched to ensure they do not try anything that might otherwise damage social harmony. Bauman doesn’t say this here, but since these people are essentially failed consumers, all they really want is access to the same kinds of products the comparatively wealthy enjoy, products that would enable them to also construct their own identities. When there were riots in England in 2011, for example, as others have said – including Bauman, I believe – the precariat did not seek to tear down the system, they broke into department stores and stole shoes and wide-screen televisions. The revolution was not a call for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity – but Gucci, Chanel, Calvin Klein.
This book was written a long time before the advent of social media. It would be very difficult to sustain an argument today that surveillance is solely for the underclass. But the surveillance of those further up the social structure hardly means repression in the sense Bauman discusses here either. If anything, surveillance is designed now to better create the needs and wants that produce seduction and desire in ever-wider sections of society.
This seems a particularly bleak vision of post-modernity. But I want to point out in ending that he feels it is too early to do more than map out some of the key features of the post-modern – rather than to provide an full theory. His point, again, is that the solidity of the vision of modernity is what has died – the fact we do not know what has replaced it is summed up by the fact the best we can call our new society is ‘no longer modern’.
Like I said – this book contains endlessly more than this review is capable of covering.
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September 3, 2026
I am a post-structuralist who does not like postmodernism. What do I mean by this? Post-structuralism is the philosophy of language, which involves analysing and deconstructing language to interpret it in many ways. Hermeneutics is an important way to interpret language and the written word. Post-modernism, which is the implementation of post-structuralism outside the philosophy of language, I think, has been a problem for post-structuralism. Post-modernism seeks to reject the notion that there is any form of objective knowledge, viewing institutions with suspicion and rejecting the notion of progress.
Intimations of Post-modernism by Zygmunt Bauman is a reflection of post-modernism within the sociology profession. Post-modernism views the world as a world without a collective utopia, due to the collapse of Communism (page xxv). Post-modernism no longer has the assumption of certainty and objectivity (page 24), a culture of pluralism and levelling of hierarchies (page 31), post-modern world view entails the dissipation of objectivity (page 35), a capitalist realist assumption with capitalism being secure for the future (page 51), a rejection of scientific expertise and specifically rejection of the monopoly of scientific expertise (page 72), pluralism of cultures (page 102) and Baudrillard’s hypersimulation of reality (page 151). The collapse of Communism and modernism brings an end to the idea of progress as we know it.
Post-modernism in sociology, according to Bauman, is reflected in its relationship with philosophy. Kant, with his Critique of Pure Reason, allows man to be the ultimate lawgiver through human reason (page 116). Through the philosophical developments of people Gadamer and Derrida, the transformation of philosophy has had profound impacts within the sociology speciality. I do think that the chapter on philosophy and sociology is one of the stronger parts of the book. It is important to recognise that sociology, like all other disciplines before it, has its roots within philosophy. Philosophy is the mother of all knowledge found in Western civilisation.
Why do I consider myself a post-structuralist who dislikes postmodernism? The post-structuralist view of language offers an incredibly useful and interesting view of language. Hermeneutics as a discipline is essential for Bible scholarship and theology. However, the limits of postmodernism can be found within the pages of the book. Intimations of Postmodernism does not convince me of postmodernism.
Where do I agree with postmodernism? Firstly, I agree with the pluralistic vision that is put forward by postmodernism in this book. There are many interpretations of the world and it is important to recognise this. I also agree with the view of the removal of hierarchies. Where do I think that postmodernism is wrong? The first problematic feature of postmodernism is that postmodernism has a completely dismissive attitude of science. The scientific method lies at the heart of understanding the world and postmodernism sees objectivity as non-existent. This, I think, is a highly flawed and dangerous outlook. Postmodernism's dismissiveness of the scientific method and its post-truth view of reality allows people to reject the scientific method. It is worth pointing out, though, that rather than oppressed minorities being the ones rejecting the scientific method, it is fundamentalist Christian-aligned people in the US who reject it the most. Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christianity are not postmodern movements but are instead Conservative Christian interpretations of modernity. In the book Interpreting Philosophy: The Elements of Philosophical Hermeneutics, Nicholas Reacher’s strongest argument against post-structuralism is that, in scientific disciplines, once terms are defined, there is no further deeper deconstruction or interpretation of the language required. Therefore, postmodernism can only be a discipline of the humanities and is outright dangerous when considering the sciences.
The second criticism of postmodernism is linked to the previous criticism in that postmodernists have nothing useful to offer when discussing climate change. Climate change, being a phenomenon caused directly by human activity, cannot be properly interpreted or solved by postmodernism. Post-modernism only works in an abundant world of post-Communism; the rejection of utopianism found in centrism has no antidote to the climate crisis. As society faces the abyss brought on by the fossil-fuel economy of neo-liberal capitalism, the absolute bankruptcy of post-modern social analysis is brought into view. It is worth pointing out that there is nothing marked in the index for climate change. As the world burns, post-modernists will embrace a lack of objectivity. Is climate scepticism a post-modernist phenomenon? After all, if there is no objectivity, scientists do not have a monopoly on truth and so we should allow climate sceptics to contribute to the debate. This false conflict has allowed climate scepticism to proliferate and provides a continual existential threat to human existence.
The third criticism is that the lack of progress within postmodernism makes postmodernism a profoundly conservative movement. Whilst there is a promise of a post-hierarchical viewpoint, there is no attempt to transform the current society to one that has fewer hierarchies. The conservatism of postmodernism is not entirely obvious; after all, conservatives would oppose many of the ideas of postmodernism. Why postmodernism is profoundly conservative is that it does not reject the fundamental structures of the economy. It wants a post-hierarchy in society without the struggle for it. As a result, postmodernism is profoundly capitalist realist in its assumptions. It has a contradiction at the heart of its ideas; it seeks a world without hierarchies but does not seek to remove the status quo.
Intimations of Postmodernity is a book from the 1990s, when Communism had ended. As I have outlined, postmodernism lacks the strength of other viewpoints. I think that my post-structuralist views of postmodernism are because I am post-postmodern. Whilst it offers an analysis of modernism, it is firmly rooted in the turn of the 21st century. Likewise, Intimation of Postmodernity does not offer a solution to the problems of current affairs. With the rise of populism, the existential threat of climate change and the threat of war, postmodernism lacks all of the analyses for understanding this period of time. I am a post-structuralist in the philosophy of language but do not see the usefulness of postmodernism.
Intimations of Post-modernism by Zygmunt Bauman is a reflection of post-modernism within the sociology profession. Post-modernism views the world as a world without a collective utopia, due to the collapse of Communism (page xxv). Post-modernism no longer has the assumption of certainty and objectivity (page 24), a culture of pluralism and levelling of hierarchies (page 31), post-modern world view entails the dissipation of objectivity (page 35), a capitalist realist assumption with capitalism being secure for the future (page 51), a rejection of scientific expertise and specifically rejection of the monopoly of scientific expertise (page 72), pluralism of cultures (page 102) and Baudrillard’s hypersimulation of reality (page 151). The collapse of Communism and modernism brings an end to the idea of progress as we know it.
Post-modernism in sociology, according to Bauman, is reflected in its relationship with philosophy. Kant, with his Critique of Pure Reason, allows man to be the ultimate lawgiver through human reason (page 116). Through the philosophical developments of people Gadamer and Derrida, the transformation of philosophy has had profound impacts within the sociology speciality. I do think that the chapter on philosophy and sociology is one of the stronger parts of the book. It is important to recognise that sociology, like all other disciplines before it, has its roots within philosophy. Philosophy is the mother of all knowledge found in Western civilisation.
Why do I consider myself a post-structuralist who dislikes postmodernism? The post-structuralist view of language offers an incredibly useful and interesting view of language. Hermeneutics as a discipline is essential for Bible scholarship and theology. However, the limits of postmodernism can be found within the pages of the book. Intimations of Postmodernism does not convince me of postmodernism.
Where do I agree with postmodernism? Firstly, I agree with the pluralistic vision that is put forward by postmodernism in this book. There are many interpretations of the world and it is important to recognise this. I also agree with the view of the removal of hierarchies. Where do I think that postmodernism is wrong? The first problematic feature of postmodernism is that postmodernism has a completely dismissive attitude of science. The scientific method lies at the heart of understanding the world and postmodernism sees objectivity as non-existent. This, I think, is a highly flawed and dangerous outlook. Postmodernism's dismissiveness of the scientific method and its post-truth view of reality allows people to reject the scientific method. It is worth pointing out, though, that rather than oppressed minorities being the ones rejecting the scientific method, it is fundamentalist Christian-aligned people in the US who reject it the most. Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christianity are not postmodern movements but are instead Conservative Christian interpretations of modernity. In the book Interpreting Philosophy: The Elements of Philosophical Hermeneutics, Nicholas Reacher’s strongest argument against post-structuralism is that, in scientific disciplines, once terms are defined, there is no further deeper deconstruction or interpretation of the language required. Therefore, postmodernism can only be a discipline of the humanities and is outright dangerous when considering the sciences.
The second criticism of postmodernism is linked to the previous criticism in that postmodernists have nothing useful to offer when discussing climate change. Climate change, being a phenomenon caused directly by human activity, cannot be properly interpreted or solved by postmodernism. Post-modernism only works in an abundant world of post-Communism; the rejection of utopianism found in centrism has no antidote to the climate crisis. As society faces the abyss brought on by the fossil-fuel economy of neo-liberal capitalism, the absolute bankruptcy of post-modern social analysis is brought into view. It is worth pointing out that there is nothing marked in the index for climate change. As the world burns, post-modernists will embrace a lack of objectivity. Is climate scepticism a post-modernist phenomenon? After all, if there is no objectivity, scientists do not have a monopoly on truth and so we should allow climate sceptics to contribute to the debate. This false conflict has allowed climate scepticism to proliferate and provides a continual existential threat to human existence.
The third criticism is that the lack of progress within postmodernism makes postmodernism a profoundly conservative movement. Whilst there is a promise of a post-hierarchical viewpoint, there is no attempt to transform the current society to one that has fewer hierarchies. The conservatism of postmodernism is not entirely obvious; after all, conservatives would oppose many of the ideas of postmodernism. Why postmodernism is profoundly conservative is that it does not reject the fundamental structures of the economy. It wants a post-hierarchy in society without the struggle for it. As a result, postmodernism is profoundly capitalist realist in its assumptions. It has a contradiction at the heart of its ideas; it seeks a world without hierarchies but does not seek to remove the status quo.
Intimations of Postmodernity is a book from the 1990s, when Communism had ended. As I have outlined, postmodernism lacks the strength of other viewpoints. I think that my post-structuralist views of postmodernism are because I am post-postmodern. Whilst it offers an analysis of modernism, it is firmly rooted in the turn of the 21st century. Likewise, Intimation of Postmodernity does not offer a solution to the problems of current affairs. With the rise of populism, the existential threat of climate change and the threat of war, postmodernism lacks all of the analyses for understanding this period of time. I am a post-structuralist in the philosophy of language but do not see the usefulness of postmodernism.
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February 17, 2023Much of this is very persuasively argued, and the concepts are mind-bending in a good way. But I can't help but think that a lot of this is basically unscientific, and a product of Bauman's imagination, or his understanding of other unscientific postmodern thinkers.
Sociology is in desperate need of an overhaul, and postmodernity isn't it.
I think this book is worth reading, but you need to go into it with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Sociology is in desperate need of an overhaul, and postmodernity isn't it.
I think this book is worth reading, but you need to go into it with a healthy dose of skepticism.
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