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Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, by Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge, UK: Polity; Malden, MA: Distributed in the USA by Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 162 pp. $52.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-7456-2488-X. $19.95 paper. ISBN: 0-7456-2489-8.
This book is another compelling sequel to Bauman's Liquid Modernity, published in 2000, in which he discusses the radical transformation of modernity into a fluid process. In contrast to early modernity, which imposed strict controls on individual freedoms for attaining and perpetuating social order, liquid modernity offers its "denizens" (p. vii) unlimited opportunities of action by putting them-thanks to the escalating consumerism and globalization-in direct control of managing their relationships with others. Such individualized supervision of one's engagements promises and yet falls short of providing full satisfaction of one's desires, because, in the absence of universal guarantees for the prospects of interpersonal communication, individuals readily break up their commitments at the slightest perception of a probable loss. The highly unpredictable nature of liquid modernity breeds constant feelings of insecurity, vulnerability, and anxiety, which in turn further intensify brittleness, breakability, and ad hoc modality of social bonds.
Bauman elaborates these arguments on the basis of three types of relationships: namely, one's relationship with the beloved, with his/her social being (through sexual activity and in interaction with the members of...