Imagine an old man, with a beautiful bald head, who appears smoking his pipe and says: “Mobile phones help to connect with those who are far away. Do mobile phones allow those who connect? Tombstone of the recently deceased Zygmunt Bauman , who coined the term liquid love, among others “liquid problems” that can define our reality.
Now I offer a guided tour of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid love. Let us try to demystify together whether this issue is really the true reality of love in the century in which we live. What do you think?
- Before proceeding.
- It may be convenient to know a little more about Mr Bauman.
- An accomplished Polish philosopher and sociologist.
- Unfortunately.
- He passed away recently.
However, posterity is left with its enormous work on issues as topical as social classes or postmodernity. After the 1950s, under the influence and echo of such important events as the Nazi Holocaust or the escalation of socialism, his vision focused on current and related problems. late 20th and early 21st centuries.
In his later years, Bauman’s work revolved around postmodernity, globalization, consumerism, and new poverty; hence the concept of liquid modernity that brings us to the subject we are interested in today: liquid love.
Bauman defined the term liquidity to explain how he sees societies in the modern world. For the sociologist, the fragility of the bond is the reality of our relationships. So liquid, due to the malleability of the form and the ease of dividing the elements in the liquid state.
Unfortunately, the quick-wit Polish philosopher saw today’s society as a casual world. Most people who do this are looking for momentary satisfaction: that unique fact that makes us happy for a minute. The next one is over, and a few seconds later it’s forgotten.
According to the essayist, this is because one of the elements of the love relationship, self-esteem, is also liquid. How can we love someone else if we don’t love each other first?What are we going to offer if we don’t love each other?What will we match if they offer us something valuable? Our lack of self-esteem leads us to have relationships that are diluted in seconds.
“If he leaves, like the water that runs through my hands, he goes. -Manuel Alejandro-
Therefore, with Bauman’s unique poetics, the term liquid love, and everything reflected in our present reality, slips out of our hands because we are not able to solidify it and grasp it with the necessary strength, not even love for oneself. We live in a fleeting world of the moment as collectors of liquid events, it becomes increasingly difficult to create a solid reality formed by self-love and real relationships that endure over time with the necessary coherence.
For Bauman, modern humans need strong commitments. And the first must be with yourself. Without self-love, without personal responsibility, without capacity for transcendence, we will rarely be willing to assume strong relationships.
The essayist considered that today, more than relationships, we make connections, just as we talk at the beginning of your sentence on the cell phone, technology allows us to be in touch, however, we do not use it to deepen, but only to connect.
In a very curious way, in this sense, one can see the paradox that the less personally transcendent we are, the more individualistic we become, and it is precisely in this context that we cover the specific needs that meet us momentarily. Fugitive events with beginning and end, including the transition from the real to the virtual.
Today’s liquid love is increasingly unreal, established relationships are immaterial and without content or commitment, yet we cannot be carried away by discouragement and temporality, fortunately we have a powerful tool with which we can fight against the immateriality of liquid love. called education. But to use it and get results, you have to start from childhood.
It is necessary to train children safely, with high self-esteem, self-awareness and the need to establish real and lasting relationships. Free children, able to think and be safe in every project they undertake.
“To love is to open the door to this destiny, the most sublime of human conditions where fear merges with enjoyment into an inseparable alloy, whose elements can no longer be separated. -Zygmunt Bauman-
Otherwise, our children, like many of us, will be trapped in the liquid love of liquid reality in a liquid world. At least Zygmunt Bauman thought.