sociologists-from-poland

"“To imitate Socrates” meant, in other words, to staunchly refuse imitation; refuse imitation of the person “Socrates”—or any other person, however worthy. The model of life Socrates selected, painstakingly composed and laboriously cultivated for himself might have perfectly suited his kind of person, but it would not necessarily suit all those who made a point of living as Socrates did. A slavish imitation of the specific mode of life that Socrates constructed on his own, and to which he remained unhesitatingly, steadfastly loyal throughout, would amount to a betrayal of his legacy, to the rejection of his message—a message calling people first and foremost to listen to their own reason, and calling thereby for individual autonomy and responsibility. Such an imitation could suit a copier or a scanner, but it will never result in an original artistic creation, which (as Socrates suggested) human life should strive to become."

"The average person appreciates a value only “in the course of, and through comparison” with the possessions, condition, plight or quality of other persons. … The awareness that the acquisition and enjoyment of that value is beyond the person’s capacity … triggers two mutually opposite, but equally vigorous reactions: an overwhelming desire (all the more tormenting because of the suspicion that it might be impossible to fulfill); and ressentiment—a rancor caused by a desperate urge to ward off self-deprecation and self-contempt by demeaning, deriding and degrading the value in question, together with its possessors."

"Our vulnerability [to ressentiment], is unavoidable (and probably incurable) in a kind of society in which relative equality of political and other rights and formally acknowledged social equality go hand in hand with enormous differences in genuine power, possessions and education; a society in which everyone “has the right” to consider himself equal to everybody else, while in fact being unequal to them."

"As Christopher Marlowe’s Faust learned the hard way, wishing for a moment of bliss to say “the same” indefinitely is guaranteed to procure indefinite commitment to hell instead of indefinite happiness. … A state of rest would not be a state of happiness but of boredom."

"Until now, neither the distinction between “worthy, since durable” and “vain, since transient,” nor the unbridgeable abyss separating the two, has disappeared for a moment from reflections on human happiness. Nonentity, the demeaning and humiliating insignificance of the individual bodily presence in the world by comparison with the unperturbed eternity of the world itself, has haunted philosophers (and non-philosophers, during their brief spells of falling into and staying in a philosophical mood) for more than two millennia. In the Middle Ages it was raised to the rank of the highest purpose and supreme concern of mortals, and deployed to promote spiritual values over the pleasures of the flesh—as well as to explain (and, hopefully argue away) the pain and misery of the brief earthly existence as a necessary and therefore welcome prelude to the endless bliss of the afterlife. It returned with the advent of the modern era in a new garb: that of the futility of individual interests and concerns, shown to be abominably short-lived, fleeting and vagrant when juxtaposed with the interests of “the social whole”—the nation, the state, the cause."

"A powerful case for that refurbished, secularized response to individual mortality was constructed and extensively argued by Émile Durkheim, one of the founders of modern sociology. He strove to insert and settle “society” in the place vacated by God and by Nature viewed as God’s creation or embodiment—and thereby to claim for the nascent nation-state that right to articulate, pronounce and enforce moral commandments and command the supreme loyalties of its subjects; the right previously reserved for the Lord of the Universe and His anointed earthly lieutenants."

"Avoid the crowd, avoid mass audiences, keep your own counsel, which is the counsel of philosophy—of wisdom you can acquire and make your own."

"Man is in his short sojourn on earth equal to God in His eternity."

"The problem is, eternity is barred to humans, and so humans, all too painfully aware of that and entertaining little hope of appealing against that verdict of fate, seek to stifle and deafen their tragic wisdom in a hubbub of frail and fleeting pleasures. This admittedly being a false calculation—for the same reason which prompted it (that tragic wisdom can never be chased or conjured away for good)—they condemn themselves, whatever their material wealth, to perpetual spiritual poverty: to continuous unhappiness (‘A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself to be’). Instead of seeking the way to happiness within the limits of their predicament, they take a long detour, hoping that somewhere along the route their odious and repulsive destiny may be escaped or fooled—only to land back in the despair that prompted them to start on their voyage of (dearly wished for, yet unattainable) discovery. The only discovery humans can possibly make on that voyage is that the route they have taken was but a detour that sooner or later will bring them back to the starting line."

"Marcus Aurelius appoints personal character and conscience the ultimate refuge of happiness-seekers: the only place where dreams of happiness, doomed to die childless and intestate anywhere else, are not bound to be frustrated."

"Pascal suggests that people avoid looking inwards and keep running in the vain hope of escaping a face-to-face encounter with their predicament, which is to face up to their utter insignificance whenever they recall the infinity of the universe. And he censures them and castigates them for doing so. It is, he says, that morbid inclination to hassle around rather than stay put which ought to be blamed for all unhappiness. One could, however, object that Pascal, even if only implicitly, does not present us with the choice between a happy and an unhappy life, but between two kinds of unhappiness: whether we choose to run or stay put, we are doomed to be unhappy. The only (putative and misleading!) advantage of being on the move (as long as we keep moving) is that we postpone for a while the moment of that truth. This is, many would agree, a genuine advantage of running out of rather than staying in our rooms—and most certainly it is a temptation difficult to resist. And they will choose to surrender to that temptation, allow themselves to be allured and seduced—if only because as long as they remain seduced they will manage to stave off the danger of discovering the compulsion and addiction that prompts them to run, screened by what is called “freedom of choice” or “self-assertion.” But, inevitably, they will end up longing for the virtues they once possessed but have now abandoned for the sake of getting rid of the agony which practicing them, and taking responsibility for that practice, might have caused."

"[Referring to his father] In fact, we almost lost our lives because of his honesty. In 1939, we were running away from Posnan as the Germans were invading - the town was almost on the German border. We took the last train east, but we were stopped at a station which was being bombed by the Germans. We should have run away from the station because that was the object of the bombing, but he wanted to find a ticket inspector to pay for our tickets."

"[Following the second world war] If you looked at the political spectrum in Poland at that time, the Communist party promised the best solution. Its political programme was the most fitting for the issues which Poland faced. And I was completely dedicated. Communist ideas were just a continuation of the Enlightenment."

"[After an article by Bogdan Musiał was published in Poland alleging Bauman had worked for the Polish secret service] The fact that I for three years cooperated with intelligence - well, that's the only thing I never said."

"[Asked "Did counter-espionage mean informing on people who were fighting against the communist project?"] That's what would be expected from me, but I don't remember doing [anything like that]. I had nothing to do - I was sitting in my office and writing - it was hardly a field in which you could collect interesting information."

"[Asked "What did that involve, exactly?"] Well, it's counter-espionage. Every good citizen should participate in counter-espionage. That was one thing that I kept secret, because I signed an obligation that it would be kept secret ... So that's the only thing."

"[G]radually, like so many others in my position, I came to the conclusion that there was a yawning gap between the official word and the practice ... so I became a revisionist, rejecting the official version of Marxism."

"A good society is a society which believes that it is not good enough; that it is the task of the collectivity to insure individuals against individually suffered misfortune; and that the quality of society is measured by the quality of life of its weakest, just like the carrying power of a bridge is measured by its weakest pillar."

"Once governments exclude people you can stop them from being protected. Societies begin to manipulate fears about groups. When the welfare state is in crisis we have to be concerned about such a feature of [society]"

"The task for sociology is to come to the help of the individual. We have to be in service of freedom. It is something we have lost sight of."

"[On the Polish government in the 1950s] My analysis was that the only wish of Communism was the need to stay in power."

"[T]he reason why human understanding has been able to advance in the past, and may do so in the future, is that true insights are cumulative and retain their value regardless of what happens to their discoverers; while fads and stunts may bring an immediate profit to the impresarios, but lead nowhere in the long run, cancel each other out, and are dropped as soon as their promoters are no longer there (or have lost the power) to direct the show. Anyway, let us not despair."

"...do not be impressed by the imprint of a famous publishing house or the volumes of an author's publications. Bear in mind that Einstein needed only seventeen pages for his contribution which revolutionized physics, while there are graphomanics in asylums who use up mounds of paper every day. Remember that publishers want to keep the printing presses busy and do not object to nonsense if it can be sold."

"Every human society which has endured long enough to leave records has had elaborate customs and institutions which were effective in instilling into the young the sentiments necessary for its perpetuation. Now for the first time in recorded history Western capitalism offers us a spectacle of a system which not only has given up altogether the task of moral education, but actually employs vast resources and the means of persuasion of unprecedented power to destroy the customs, norms and ideals indispensable for its survival; and to implant fundamentally anti-social attitudes which are incompatible with any reasonable social order. It would be miraculous if a social order which permits such massive anti-socialisation could fail to destroy itself."

"Laughter is a mental mechanism which enables us to face reality without falling into despondency or delusion. As people who have sunk in apathy seldom bother us by rushing into print, delusion (leaving aside deceit) constitutes the chief obstacle to the progress of our understanding of society, and in this context is usually assumes the form of doctrinairism couched in a mystifying jargon. A sense of humour is the most reliable external indicator of the likelihood of immunity from this folly, and of the ability to appraise social situations realistically."

"So long as authority inspires awe, confusion and absurdity enhance conservative tendencies in society. Firstly, because clear and logical thinking leads to a cumulation of knowledge (of which the progress of the natural sciences provides the best example) and the advance of knowledge sooner or later undermines the traditional order. Confused thinking, on the other hand, leads nowhere in particular and can be indulged indefinitely without producing any impact upon the world."

"Sacrifice has always been regarded as the most convincing proof of loyalty; and its most common form involves a foregoing of the use of some organic function, as in the case of celibacy or fasting. Of at least equal significance, however, is a sacrifice of the use of reason - credo quia impossibile - and the more incredible the assertion, the stronger the proof of the devotion manifested by its acceptance. The Catholic theologians are quite explicit about this, and openly say that by affirming what to the human reason appears absurd, a believer proves his love for God. Although they are never so frank about it, the secular sects make similar demands."

"The natural sciences did not advance in virtue of the universal appeal of rationality. Their theological, classicist and metaphysical opponents were not converted but displaced. All the ancient universities had to be compelled by outside pressure to make room for science; and most nations began to appreciate it only after succumbing to the weapons produced with its aid. To cut a long story short, scientific method has triumphed throughout the world because it bestowed upon those who practised it power over those who did not. Sorcery lost not because of any waning of its intrinsic appeal to the human mind, but because it failed to match the power created by science. But, though abandoned as a tool for controlling nature, incantations remain more effective for manipulating crowds than logical arguments, so that in the conduct of human affairs sorcery continues to be stronger than science."

"Instead of entertaining visions of a final victory of reason over magic and ignorance, we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that the norms and ideals which permit the advancement of knowledge have to be defended in every generation against new enemies, who reappear like the heads of the Hydra as soon as others are decapitated, and who employ ever-new labels, catchwords and slogans to play on the perennial weaknesses of mankind. Whatever happens in the instrumental exact sciences, we can be sure that in matters where intellectual and moral considerations mesh, the struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness will never end."

"A reduction of the criteria of status allocation to one -- money under pure capitalism or power in a stalinist state -- embitters the game of status-seeking for another, though related, reason as well: namely because a plurality of criteria permits a segregation of the players into non-competitive groups. If one man prides himself on his descent, another on wealth, the third on knowledge, the fourth on convivial graces, they cannot directly challenge each other's claims; just as a mathematician cannot compete directly with an archaeologist in who is better at his job. Thus the sophistication of culture can contribute to social peace by multiplying the number of non-comparable goals."

"The most deadly agents of cultural infections are not the brazen cynics, but the sectarians prone to self-delusion and the timorous organization men anxious not to miss the band-waggon, who unquestioningly equate popularity and worldly success with intrinsic merit."