Liquid Life: Zygmunt Bauman

This follows up on his other 'liquid' books but is more focused on the effects of 'liquid modernity' on individuals. It reads more as a series of essays than a whole thesis and feels more like a completing of the thesis of Liquid Modernity by tying up various loose ends than adding anything substantially new. However, it can be useful to see the working out of the thesis to confirm the feel that one may already have gained for the ideas. I like the way that Bauman links the individual with the global and the identification of the 'new' classes in a globalised world.

There is a lot about identity in this book, and rightly so. As such it deserves to be read and thought about by people working with others in arenas concerned with growth, development and learning. I certainly found much to think about in respect of spiritual direction and life coaching as well as prospectively thinking about teaching teenagers. It is also important, in my view, in helping us to identify the gospel tasks of proclamation and spiritual formation in a consumer culture. I felt offirmed in my intuition that issues of loyalty in the sense of learning to let ourselves be formed in identity by a primary loyalty to God in Christ are crucial. The consumerist mindset brooks no opposition to the idea that identity is fluid and that all loyalties are therefore provisional. We cannot allow a loyalty to Christ to be seen in that way. This is the fundamental clash, I suspect, between Christ and culture for the west. However, the thing that we can affirm about it is the way that it does provisionalise all other loyalties which I think is a mindset that is helpful as we learn to contextualise our proclamation of Christ.
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