Interview with Zygmunt Baumann/3

Part 3: Western consumerism, a common idea of consumption which requires more and more resources, and some interesting questions about the existence of a motivation to commit ourselves to save our planet. 

Zygmunt Bauman is one of the most famous sociologists of the world. Born in Poland in 1925 to a Jewish family, he emigrated to England in 1971, where he taught until 1990; he is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Leeds and Warsaw. Especially known for his studies and books on consumerism, postmodernism and globalization, Bauman analyzes the fears of our social situation, less and less definable and more and more pervasive. 

We interviewed him at the Philosophy Festival in Modena, on the 15th of September 2012, after the "Black Friday" (September 14th), one of the worst days in the crisis between radical Islam and the West. 
A blasphemous film produced in the USA, "Innocence of Muslims", has led to violence and clashes broke out on the 11th of September in Benghazi with the death of the U.S. Ambassador Stevens and continued on Friday the 14th with many attacks on American targets and embassies in Khartoum, Cairo, Tunis (with several deaths), Chennay, Dhaka, London, Berlin, Sana'a, Jakarta, Tripoli in Lebanon, and in the Sinai. 

In the first part of the interview, we asked him an opinion about these dramatic events. 

In the second part of the interview, professor Bauman talks about the issues of groundlessness, uncertainty, and the question of the lack of sense that modernity, and especially its young people, is living. 

Here he speaks about Western consumerism, about our warped idea of consumption and "growth" which requires more and more resources: in 2050 we will need 5 Earth planets to meet these needs, and they do not exist! Here then a pressing issue to which Zygmunt Bauman answers with great awareness: if it is urgent to do something to save the planet, where could we find the motivation to commit ourselves? Which are the roots of a right, moral, and oriented to the common good behaviour? Is there a rational argument useful to convince someone to behave as a better person, which is able to shape a better world?

Enjoy the video! 

Interviewers: Roberto Ferrari, Stefano Poletti 

Translated from the Italian version by Marianna Turriciano 

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