The Uncertainty Caused By Liquid Modernity
February 20th 2008 11:56
Since the dawn of time man has been plagued by uncertainty. Throughout history, there are innumerable accounts of civilisations looking towards prophets and visionaries to foretell their future. Ancient civilisations believed that prior knowledge provided them a chance to control and master their future; a chance to shield them against the unknown. Over time, with the aggregation of knowledge which was thought to defend against uncertainty, fear was not alleviated but intensified (Furedi, 2002:55), and with it the need for certainty and control. Modernity tried to form itself as the solution, where the process of modernisation involved the destruction of old beliefs and traditions, and the replacement of these with new ones that would remain forever solid (Bauman 2001:3). Giddens (1990:59) argues that modernity embodies capitalism, surveillance, military power, and industrialisation, where order, obedience and conformity were seen as its main preoccupations (Bauman 2005:111). However, as Bauman (2001:6) implies, what remained permanent was not order and certainty but the cycle of its destruction and rebirth, the permanence of 'melting the solids'. Due to this, modernity became liquid (Bauman 2001:8), knowledge became questionable (Giddens 1990:40) and certainty became transparent (Bauman 1995:106); all of these assisting in the spread of uncertainty and the difficulties in which modern men and women are faced with today.
As Bauman (2001:21) suggests, having modernity liquefied resulted in a loss of absolute certainty. Since liquid modernity meant that everything went under the process of revision and replacement (Bauman, 2001:14), Bauman (2001:21) argues that certainty had to be produced and maintained. Thanks to modernity's gift of capitalism the bureaucratic way of life emerged, where Bauman (2001:20) argues that routine and regimentation ensured the guarantee of certainty. Furthermore, this product which Lefebvre (1987:9) calls the everyday, was assisted by the invention of the mass media, where the mass media took the role of maintaining a sense of order and certainty by keeping people informed and entertained (Silverstone, 1994:19). Couldry (2003:2) suggests that this is due to 'the myth of the mediated centre', where media rituals in everyday life are seen to form a social order, and provide a centre to the social world of a society that seems to be decentralised. Couldry (2003:4) writes: The term 'media rituals' refers to the whole range of situations where media themselves 'stand in', or appear to 'stand in', for something wider, something linked to the fundamental organisational level on which we are, or imagine ourselves to be, connected as members of society.
Having these rituals in place allowed for everyday life to be ordered, which as Silverstone (1994:1) suggests, helped to keep the panic of uncertainty at bay.
In spite of this, the information that the media provided did not help in easing the difficulty people had in coping with uncertainty, but it provided more reason for fear and chaos to grow (Furedi, 2002:55). Ang (1999:378) suggests that "chaotic systems are rich in information," and goes on to say that "the more chaotic a system is, the more information it contains, and the more complex the order established out of it"(Ang, 1999:378). Perhaps this complex order that Ang speaks of could be linked to the way the media not only orders society through its media rituals, but also through fear itself. Musolf (2003:101) provides evidence to this as he writes: Mass communications organisations define the source of fear and manufacture a culture of fear. Thus news agencies share complicity in elevated levels of social control; their fear generation transforms them into proxy social control agencies. State social control agencies manipulate this rampant fear to increase their power over society. 'Directing fear in a society is tantamount to controlling that society'. Fear, therefore, is not only produced by the initial act - whether that is a crime or a once-off case of food poisoning - but is reproduced and distributed, engulfing people's lives with anxieties that were not there in the first place. Garland (2001:154) states that the media institutionalises fear, and because of this life is ordered and structured to keep that fear out.
The endless amount of moral panics designed by 'current affairs' news programs are examples of this. With titles such as: 'how deodorant is giving you cancer ', or 'how eating food is making you fat', stories such as these make people fearful and then compliant to whatever suggestions are made by authorities. In addition, social order is constructed not only through direct communication by media personalities, but by the indirect associations of media consumption. Lefebvre (1987:9) implies that the practice of consumption is an integral part of the everyday, and therefore fear helps to maintain social order by keeping consumption constant. For example, people feel more secure when they are provided with information. To get this information, people purchase televisions to watch the news, or purchase newspapers to keep themselves informed. Then, by watching the news or reading magazines, people are not only kept informed, but are introduced to advertising campaigns boasting high definition screens, or faster information access (the Internet). Since these items act as distractions as well as a source of security, consumption grows. Moreover, for this consumption to be ongoing, people are required to work; to pay for electricity which is required in running the television, or to pay for their newspaper subscriptions. Finally, having done all of this, people are then required to structure their day so that they can consume these products, in efforts not to miss out on some form of information that may one day save their lives from some unknown risk. This intricate design of fear combined with media ritual serves to form a strong social order. Returning to Musolf's (2003:101) theory in which he argues that watching the news makes people fearful, it could be said that fear is perpetual. "Society is an escape from fear; it is also the breeding ground of that fear, and on that fear it feeds and from it the grip in which it holds us draws its strength." (Bauman 1995:14)
An example of a society that is controlled by fear can be seen through M. Night Shyamalan's movie The Village (2004). The movie depicts the lives of a nineteenth-century community governed by the ideas of trust, love and innocence (Stanley, 2005). Whilst life seems good, and everyone is seemingly happy with their simplistic lives, the village is ordered by a concept of fear that is composed through a myth about meat eating creatures situated outside their border. Due to this, the villagers adhere to a strict set of rules which consist of guarding their border, never entering the woods behind that border, and never carrying the forbidden colour of red (the colour of the creatures), which was said to attract them (Stanley, 2005). Since following these rules guaranteed the continuance of the secure life that they had established, people continued their everyday practices without ever questioning the order and rules that were in place.
It is not until the end of the movie that the audience sees the real story behind The Village. Due to an act of violence caused within the village (Clarke, 2004) and the need for medicine located in "the towns" (a place situated past the woods), the leaders are forced to confess that the creatures were, in actuality, fictions that they had created and sustained through costumes and performances (they dressed up like the creatures to evoke fear). What in fact lay behind the border was not a barbaric civilisation, but the modern world itself. The audience is finally introduced to the real fear held by the leaders, who were actual victims of modern day crime. Each of the leaders in The Village had been subjected to a form of modern day violence, and then had encountered each other through their counseling sessions. In the hopes of escaping modernity and its social disintegration, they located themselves in a private sanctuary, deciding to form a village and a lifestyle that was bound up by ideas based on a more certain, pre-modern era. However, for them to contain their peace and security, order was needed, and the only way that they could accomplish this - to stop the villagers from finding the truth about the existing modern world - was to institutionalise fear.
Nearly every aspect of this movie can be related back to the theories of modernity, liquid modernity, and the ways in which people handle liquid modernity's lack of certainty. Furedi (2002:66-67) suggests that modernisation's push for the advancement of capitalism and its promotion of individualism, assisted in the corrosion of the community which Garland (2001:88-90) argues, led to declining moral values and an increase in crime. In the movie, these theories serve as the backbone of The Village's story. In addition, the concept of surveillance with the architecture of fear is also derived by Bauman (2005:74) when he pronounces that public spaces become "closely guarded areas controlled round the clock," comments on the way the people of The Village, who controlled by fear, guarded their borders to keep themselves in and the creatures out. Furthermore, the colour of red that is considered to symbolise ideas of passion, rebellion and action - things that Bauman (2005:111) suggests wants to be exterminated by modernity's drive for obedience and conformity - is seen as forbidden, providing evidence to Furedi (2002:13) and Bauman's (2005:111) theories in which they suggest that the society in liquid modernity wrapped in the culture of fear, glorifies passivity rather than activism. Stanley (2005) also suggests that the colour red tries to signify the warning codes for terrorism, which as Lewis (2006:16) argues, is another product of the system built to promote democracy, liberty and capitalism.
So then, if the people of The Village could be considered as a representation of the society in liquid modernity, the main way they dealt with liquid modernity's lack of certainty was through escape. Clarke (2004) suggests that the characters of The Village had a collective belief that escape was easier than engagement and transformation. Unlike this fictionalised story, modern men and women of today do not have the luxury of escaping into an innocent pre-modern world. Nevertheless, escape is the tool used by people of today to handle uncertainty; they escape into the world of capitalism by submerging themselves in a lifestyle based on consumerism and consumption. "The chronic deficit of certainty may be recompensed by consumers in one way only: by pursuing the avenues laid out and made possible by marketing and shopping" (Bauman, 2002:197). Bauman (1995:106) argues that throughout the ages, the constant principle to alleviate fear was to shift people's attention to something that they could control. Since being in control implies a state of security, Bauman (2001:81) indicates that people in liquid modernity try to capture the elusive concept of certainty by controlling the objects and signs represented as consumer goods of the everyday. Baudrillard (1998:34) agrees with this point as he suggests that having objects and signs as a source of security, shelters people who are "in denial of the real."
According to Baudrillard's (1998:34) theory, the media is said to form a hyperreality in which capitalism, consumerism and individualism are promoted as an escape from the uncertainty caused by liquid modernity. However, as with the previous case, the media did not help to vanquish the threat of uncertainty, but effortlessly assisted in its advancement. Using television as an example, Silverstone (1994:107) suggests that television introduces people to the world of commodity culture. With the combination of television programs and advertising campaigns, people are introduced to choice and freedom, where they become solely responsible for what they consume. Since the continuation of capitalism requires consumption to be constant (Bauman, 1998:26), the media seduces people by offering more products to choose from. Seeing as there is an excess of choice, people are left consuming product after product unable to tell with complete certainty which of them would bring the utmost satisfaction to quell their desire that was initially stimulated by the media. Bauman (2005:36) suggests that individualism's drive for freedom and choice - a concept that was considered to bring certainty - brings, instead, excess and waste; the breeding ground of uncertainty. These are the dynamic tensions of liquid modernity, where certainty and uncertainty are in constant battle with each other.
Seeing as this is the case, where certainty and uncertainty are at continual odds with each other, the vicious cycle of consumerism seems never ending. Furedi (2002:94) argues that the pursuit of a consumerist life to help defend against uncertainty spawns with it the culture of abuse where people are at risk of numerous anxieties and addictions. In relation to consumerism, shopping addictions and the constant process of being immersed in consumption, Baudrillard (1998:81) argues that consumption becomes "a morality, an institution." Goodwin (1982:37) notes that individualism proved to create a virtue out of selfishness, and because of this Bauman (2005:11) suggests that self gratification, and the self serving viewpoint places people into a position where they take things for granted and avoid taking responsibility for many problems that are associated with this type attitude (Bauman 2001:22). As the progression of modernity gives rise to many social, environmental and international problems, people facing the difficulties of liquid modernity are in danger of becoming complacent about their responsibilities and their place in the world order.
Due to the previous concepts, compassion fatigue and terrorism are problems that modern men and women living in Western capitalist societies are faced with. Moeller (1999:9) describes compassion fatigue as a distant, uncaring attitude, which is shaped by the media's relentless attention to spectacles of human suffering. As Ignatieff suggests (1998:29) since culture itself is becoming a "process of market exchange between producers and consumers of images…" the spectacle being commodified (Debord, 1994:33) helps to devalue the essence of human suffering by turning it into another product to manufacture and sell. Moreover, Moeller (1999:14) suggests that the sensationalism in which the media delivers Third World suffering, and in relation to terrorism, the way the media reproduces and sensationalises terrorist activities; modern men and women are faced with the dilemma of the post-modern capitalist human condition in which Freedman (1983:187) implies that the immunisation effect attributed to media consumption is a factor contributing to the condition, where the gradual acceptance and tolerance of violence results in a reduction in people's moral opposition to it. It is perhaps this reason that compassion fatigue ensues. Having people's levels of acceptance to violence and suffering heightened, a spectacle greater than its predecessor is required to incite any sort of reaction. Then, if the immunisation effect has taken over completely, compassion fatigue is the result, where Moeller (1999:14) suggests people turn to the next page or channel, completely ignoring the suffering of others.
Bauman (1995:197) implies that the post-modern capitalist human condition is a symptom of modernity's need for rationality, reason, conformity and most importantly the absence of emotion and concern. "Moral impulses and constraints have not been so much extinguished, as neutralised and made irrelevant. Men and women have been given the opportunity to commit inhuman deeds without feeling in the least inhuman themselves." Bauman argues (1995:197) that this is the most frightening way in which the people faced with liquid modernity cope with their difficulties. In addition, a class being desensitised and saturated with consumer culture to runaway from the fear of uncertainty only serves to call forth fear and uncertainty to come in other forms. Bauman (2002:12) uses September 11th as an example of this when he suggests that "In this global planetary space, one can no longer draw a boundary behind which one could feel fully and truly secure." So unlike the people in The Village, who guarded themselves behind their border, people living in liquid modernity cannot do the same. Escape through other means, whether it is through violence, abuse, or consumerism, will only provide fear to come back in other forms such as terrorism, compassion fatigue, or even neurotic symptoms (Jung, 1969:335). With the help of the media facilitating in both fear and escape, what seems to remain permanent is the constant struggle of certainty against uncertainty; the struggle that is liquid modernity.
The future of humanity seems rather dark, but there is still hope that all is not lost. Ignatieff (1998:12) advocates that television has helped in the idea of a moral universalism, and it is due to the media that people have recognised that each culture is very similar to the next, and that difference is not something that is to be feared. Television, information and images have enabled people to see that they, universally; laugh, cry, love and bleed in the same sorts of ways. Perhaps this is one of the clear certainties offered by the media. Bauman (2002:12-15) argues that the concept of liquid modernity is not intended to cause fright or fear, but is needed to understand that since certainty might never be possible, the use of violence, coercion, and force will never assist in change, and that change can only be promoted through constant negotiation and compromise.
Bauman (2002:15) states that due to globalisation people are closer than ever before to a life of equality. However, it is the dynamic tensions of modernity that keeps people from this ultimate goal. Garland (2001:198) suggests that the liberating dynamics of modernity's push for freedom, openness, mobility and tolerance always engages itself with its reactionary counterpart: control, closure, confinement and condemnation. Nonetheless, if order is only needed to keep fear and uncertainty out, perhaps there is a chance for liberation by confronting the fear within. Furedi (2002:143) argues that the problem is the lack of trust that people have within themselves. If this is the case, psychoanalyst Jung (1969:95) suggests that it is down to the individual to create a pro-active solution.
Such problems are never solved by legislation or tricks. They are solved by a general change of attitude. And the change does not begin with propaganda and mass meetings, or with violence. It begins with a change in individuals. It will continue as a transformation of their personal likes and dislikes, of their outlook on life and of their values, and only the accumulation of such individual change will produce a collective solution.
If people do not acknowledge their individual responsibility, there will never be a chance for equality and peace. In striving to achieve these things, constant attention is needed, and since fear is the ultimate shackle that holds people from action, fear as well as responsibility must be confronted. Alain Resnais's short documentary film Night and Fog (1955) depicting one of modernity's darkest moments - the Holocaust - questions his audience. He asks people to see that everyone is held responsible. Resnais argues that the responsibility of crimes endured by people of the Holocaust did not fall ultimately on the people who carried out the acts, but also on the people who watched on and did nothing to stop it. Resnais asks "Who is responsible?" A question that is still very relevant for today and his answer, also, still remains true. He suggests that in the end there is a shared responsibility, and it is because of this that everyone has to battle the uncertainties of liquid modernity, both inwardly, outwardly and in all directions.
References
Ang, I (1999) The Media Reader: Continuity and transformation, Editors: Mackay H & O'Sullivan T (eds), London: Sage Publications
Baudrillard, J (1998) The Consumer Society - Myths & Structures, London: Sage Publications
Bauman, Z (1995) Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality, United Kingdom: Blackwell
Bauman, Z. (1998) 'From the Work Ethic to the Aesthetic of Consumption' in Work, Consumerism and the New Poor, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bauman, Z (2001) Liquid Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bauman, Z (2002) Society Under Siege, USA: Polity Press
Bauman, Z (2005) Liquid Life, Cambridge: Polity Press
Couldry, N (2003), 'Media rituals: the short and the long route' in Media Rituals: A Critical Approach, London: Sage
Debord, G (1994) Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books.
Freedman, L.Z (1983) Perspectives on Terrorism, Wilmington, Del Scholarly Resources, Inc
Furedi, F (2002) Culture of Fear - Risk taking and the Morality of low expectation, London: Continuum
.
Garland, D (2001) The Culture of Control - Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Giddens, A (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Great Britain: Polity Press
Goodwin, B (1982) Using Political Ideas, England: John Wiley & Sons.
Ignatieff, M (1998) 'Is Nothing Sacred? The Ethics of Television', The Warrior's
Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience, London: Chatto and Windus
Jung C.G, (1969) Psychology of Religion, Twentieth Printing: USA
Jung C.G (1969) The Collected Works of C.G Jung Vol. 11, Editors Read H, Fordham M, Adler G, Routledge & Kegan Paul: London
Lefebvre, H (1987) 'The Everyday and Everydayness', Yale French Studies, No 73.
Lewis, J (2005) Language Wars: The role of the media and culture in global terror and political violence. London: Pluto Press
Moeller, S (1999) 'Compassion Fatigue', Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell
Disease, Famine, War and Death, New York and London: Routledge
Musolf, G.R (2003) Structure & Agency in Everyday Life: An Introduction to Social Psychology, USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.
Silverstone R (1994) Television and everyday life, London: Routledge
Films
Night and Fog (1955) Directed by Alain Resnais, France
The Village (2004) Directed by M.Night Shyamalan, USA
Websites
Clarke, N (August 2nd, 2004) Intervarsity: Film Review - The Village, viewed: Monday 9th October 2006.
Really Long Link
Stanley, T ( April 19th, 2005) Deconstructing Fear: A Reading of M. Night Shyamalan, viewed: 9th October 2006
Really Long Link
As Bauman (2001:21) suggests, having modernity liquefied resulted in a loss of absolute certainty. Since liquid modernity meant that everything went under the process of revision and replacement (Bauman, 2001:14), Bauman (2001:21) argues that certainty had to be produced and maintained. Thanks to modernity's gift of capitalism the bureaucratic way of life emerged, where Bauman (2001:20) argues that routine and regimentation ensured the guarantee of certainty. Furthermore, this product which Lefebvre (1987:9) calls the everyday, was assisted by the invention of the mass media, where the mass media took the role of maintaining a sense of order and certainty by keeping people informed and entertained (Silverstone, 1994:19). Couldry (2003:2) suggests that this is due to 'the myth of the mediated centre', where media rituals in everyday life are seen to form a social order, and provide a centre to the social world of a society that seems to be decentralised. Couldry (2003:4) writes: The term 'media rituals' refers to the whole range of situations where media themselves 'stand in', or appear to 'stand in', for something wider, something linked to the fundamental organisational level on which we are, or imagine ourselves to be, connected as members of society.
Having these rituals in place allowed for everyday life to be ordered, which as Silverstone (1994:1) suggests, helped to keep the panic of uncertainty at bay.
In spite of this, the information that the media provided did not help in easing the difficulty people had in coping with uncertainty, but it provided more reason for fear and chaos to grow (Furedi, 2002:55). Ang (1999:378) suggests that "chaotic systems are rich in information," and goes on to say that "the more chaotic a system is, the more information it contains, and the more complex the order established out of it"(Ang, 1999:378). Perhaps this complex order that Ang speaks of could be linked to the way the media not only orders society through its media rituals, but also through fear itself. Musolf (2003:101) provides evidence to this as he writes: Mass communications organisations define the source of fear and manufacture a culture of fear. Thus news agencies share complicity in elevated levels of social control; their fear generation transforms them into proxy social control agencies. State social control agencies manipulate this rampant fear to increase their power over society. 'Directing fear in a society is tantamount to controlling that society'. Fear, therefore, is not only produced by the initial act - whether that is a crime or a once-off case of food poisoning - but is reproduced and distributed, engulfing people's lives with anxieties that were not there in the first place. Garland (2001:154) states that the media institutionalises fear, and because of this life is ordered and structured to keep that fear out.
The endless amount of moral panics designed by 'current affairs' news programs are examples of this. With titles such as: 'how deodorant is giving you cancer ', or 'how eating food is making you fat', stories such as these make people fearful and then compliant to whatever suggestions are made by authorities. In addition, social order is constructed not only through direct communication by media personalities, but by the indirect associations of media consumption. Lefebvre (1987:9) implies that the practice of consumption is an integral part of the everyday, and therefore fear helps to maintain social order by keeping consumption constant. For example, people feel more secure when they are provided with information. To get this information, people purchase televisions to watch the news, or purchase newspapers to keep themselves informed. Then, by watching the news or reading magazines, people are not only kept informed, but are introduced to advertising campaigns boasting high definition screens, or faster information access (the Internet). Since these items act as distractions as well as a source of security, consumption grows. Moreover, for this consumption to be ongoing, people are required to work; to pay for electricity which is required in running the television, or to pay for their newspaper subscriptions. Finally, having done all of this, people are then required to structure their day so that they can consume these products, in efforts not to miss out on some form of information that may one day save their lives from some unknown risk. This intricate design of fear combined with media ritual serves to form a strong social order. Returning to Musolf's (2003:101) theory in which he argues that watching the news makes people fearful, it could be said that fear is perpetual. "Society is an escape from fear; it is also the breeding ground of that fear, and on that fear it feeds and from it the grip in which it holds us draws its strength." (Bauman 1995:14)
An example of a society that is controlled by fear can be seen through M. Night Shyamalan's movie The Village (2004). The movie depicts the lives of a nineteenth-century community governed by the ideas of trust, love and innocence (Stanley, 2005). Whilst life seems good, and everyone is seemingly happy with their simplistic lives, the village is ordered by a concept of fear that is composed through a myth about meat eating creatures situated outside their border. Due to this, the villagers adhere to a strict set of rules which consist of guarding their border, never entering the woods behind that border, and never carrying the forbidden colour of red (the colour of the creatures), which was said to attract them (Stanley, 2005). Since following these rules guaranteed the continuance of the secure life that they had established, people continued their everyday practices without ever questioning the order and rules that were in place.
It is not until the end of the movie that the audience sees the real story behind The Village. Due to an act of violence caused within the village (Clarke, 2004) and the need for medicine located in "the towns" (a place situated past the woods), the leaders are forced to confess that the creatures were, in actuality, fictions that they had created and sustained through costumes and performances (they dressed up like the creatures to evoke fear). What in fact lay behind the border was not a barbaric civilisation, but the modern world itself. The audience is finally introduced to the real fear held by the leaders, who were actual victims of modern day crime. Each of the leaders in The Village had been subjected to a form of modern day violence, and then had encountered each other through their counseling sessions. In the hopes of escaping modernity and its social disintegration, they located themselves in a private sanctuary, deciding to form a village and a lifestyle that was bound up by ideas based on a more certain, pre-modern era. However, for them to contain their peace and security, order was needed, and the only way that they could accomplish this - to stop the villagers from finding the truth about the existing modern world - was to institutionalise fear.
Nearly every aspect of this movie can be related back to the theories of modernity, liquid modernity, and the ways in which people handle liquid modernity's lack of certainty. Furedi (2002:66-67) suggests that modernisation's push for the advancement of capitalism and its promotion of individualism, assisted in the corrosion of the community which Garland (2001:88-90) argues, led to declining moral values and an increase in crime. In the movie, these theories serve as the backbone of The Village's story. In addition, the concept of surveillance with the architecture of fear is also derived by Bauman (2005:74) when he pronounces that public spaces become "closely guarded areas controlled round the clock," comments on the way the people of The Village, who controlled by fear, guarded their borders to keep themselves in and the creatures out. Furthermore, the colour of red that is considered to symbolise ideas of passion, rebellion and action - things that Bauman (2005:111) suggests wants to be exterminated by modernity's drive for obedience and conformity - is seen as forbidden, providing evidence to Furedi (2002:13) and Bauman's (2005:111) theories in which they suggest that the society in liquid modernity wrapped in the culture of fear, glorifies passivity rather than activism. Stanley (2005) also suggests that the colour red tries to signify the warning codes for terrorism, which as Lewis (2006:16) argues, is another product of the system built to promote democracy, liberty and capitalism.
So then, if the people of The Village could be considered as a representation of the society in liquid modernity, the main way they dealt with liquid modernity's lack of certainty was through escape. Clarke (2004) suggests that the characters of The Village had a collective belief that escape was easier than engagement and transformation. Unlike this fictionalised story, modern men and women of today do not have the luxury of escaping into an innocent pre-modern world. Nevertheless, escape is the tool used by people of today to handle uncertainty; they escape into the world of capitalism by submerging themselves in a lifestyle based on consumerism and consumption. "The chronic deficit of certainty may be recompensed by consumers in one way only: by pursuing the avenues laid out and made possible by marketing and shopping" (Bauman, 2002:197). Bauman (1995:106) argues that throughout the ages, the constant principle to alleviate fear was to shift people's attention to something that they could control. Since being in control implies a state of security, Bauman (2001:81) indicates that people in liquid modernity try to capture the elusive concept of certainty by controlling the objects and signs represented as consumer goods of the everyday. Baudrillard (1998:34) agrees with this point as he suggests that having objects and signs as a source of security, shelters people who are "in denial of the real."
According to Baudrillard's (1998:34) theory, the media is said to form a hyperreality in which capitalism, consumerism and individualism are promoted as an escape from the uncertainty caused by liquid modernity. However, as with the previous case, the media did not help to vanquish the threat of uncertainty, but effortlessly assisted in its advancement. Using television as an example, Silverstone (1994:107) suggests that television introduces people to the world of commodity culture. With the combination of television programs and advertising campaigns, people are introduced to choice and freedom, where they become solely responsible for what they consume. Since the continuation of capitalism requires consumption to be constant (Bauman, 1998:26), the media seduces people by offering more products to choose from. Seeing as there is an excess of choice, people are left consuming product after product unable to tell with complete certainty which of them would bring the utmost satisfaction to quell their desire that was initially stimulated by the media. Bauman (2005:36) suggests that individualism's drive for freedom and choice - a concept that was considered to bring certainty - brings, instead, excess and waste; the breeding ground of uncertainty. These are the dynamic tensions of liquid modernity, where certainty and uncertainty are in constant battle with each other.
Seeing as this is the case, where certainty and uncertainty are at continual odds with each other, the vicious cycle of consumerism seems never ending. Furedi (2002:94) argues that the pursuit of a consumerist life to help defend against uncertainty spawns with it the culture of abuse where people are at risk of numerous anxieties and addictions. In relation to consumerism, shopping addictions and the constant process of being immersed in consumption, Baudrillard (1998:81) argues that consumption becomes "a morality, an institution." Goodwin (1982:37) notes that individualism proved to create a virtue out of selfishness, and because of this Bauman (2005:11) suggests that self gratification, and the self serving viewpoint places people into a position where they take things for granted and avoid taking responsibility for many problems that are associated with this type attitude (Bauman 2001:22). As the progression of modernity gives rise to many social, environmental and international problems, people facing the difficulties of liquid modernity are in danger of becoming complacent about their responsibilities and their place in the world order.
Due to the previous concepts, compassion fatigue and terrorism are problems that modern men and women living in Western capitalist societies are faced with. Moeller (1999:9) describes compassion fatigue as a distant, uncaring attitude, which is shaped by the media's relentless attention to spectacles of human suffering. As Ignatieff suggests (1998:29) since culture itself is becoming a "process of market exchange between producers and consumers of images…" the spectacle being commodified (Debord, 1994:33) helps to devalue the essence of human suffering by turning it into another product to manufacture and sell. Moreover, Moeller (1999:14) suggests that the sensationalism in which the media delivers Third World suffering, and in relation to terrorism, the way the media reproduces and sensationalises terrorist activities; modern men and women are faced with the dilemma of the post-modern capitalist human condition in which Freedman (1983:187) implies that the immunisation effect attributed to media consumption is a factor contributing to the condition, where the gradual acceptance and tolerance of violence results in a reduction in people's moral opposition to it. It is perhaps this reason that compassion fatigue ensues. Having people's levels of acceptance to violence and suffering heightened, a spectacle greater than its predecessor is required to incite any sort of reaction. Then, if the immunisation effect has taken over completely, compassion fatigue is the result, where Moeller (1999:14) suggests people turn to the next page or channel, completely ignoring the suffering of others.
Bauman (1995:197) implies that the post-modern capitalist human condition is a symptom of modernity's need for rationality, reason, conformity and most importantly the absence of emotion and concern. "Moral impulses and constraints have not been so much extinguished, as neutralised and made irrelevant. Men and women have been given the opportunity to commit inhuman deeds without feeling in the least inhuman themselves." Bauman argues (1995:197) that this is the most frightening way in which the people faced with liquid modernity cope with their difficulties. In addition, a class being desensitised and saturated with consumer culture to runaway from the fear of uncertainty only serves to call forth fear and uncertainty to come in other forms. Bauman (2002:12) uses September 11th as an example of this when he suggests that "In this global planetary space, one can no longer draw a boundary behind which one could feel fully and truly secure." So unlike the people in The Village, who guarded themselves behind their border, people living in liquid modernity cannot do the same. Escape through other means, whether it is through violence, abuse, or consumerism, will only provide fear to come back in other forms such as terrorism, compassion fatigue, or even neurotic symptoms (Jung, 1969:335). With the help of the media facilitating in both fear and escape, what seems to remain permanent is the constant struggle of certainty against uncertainty; the struggle that is liquid modernity.
The future of humanity seems rather dark, but there is still hope that all is not lost. Ignatieff (1998:12) advocates that television has helped in the idea of a moral universalism, and it is due to the media that people have recognised that each culture is very similar to the next, and that difference is not something that is to be feared. Television, information and images have enabled people to see that they, universally; laugh, cry, love and bleed in the same sorts of ways. Perhaps this is one of the clear certainties offered by the media. Bauman (2002:12-15) argues that the concept of liquid modernity is not intended to cause fright or fear, but is needed to understand that since certainty might never be possible, the use of violence, coercion, and force will never assist in change, and that change can only be promoted through constant negotiation and compromise.
Bauman (2002:15) states that due to globalisation people are closer than ever before to a life of equality. However, it is the dynamic tensions of modernity that keeps people from this ultimate goal. Garland (2001:198) suggests that the liberating dynamics of modernity's push for freedom, openness, mobility and tolerance always engages itself with its reactionary counterpart: control, closure, confinement and condemnation. Nonetheless, if order is only needed to keep fear and uncertainty out, perhaps there is a chance for liberation by confronting the fear within. Furedi (2002:143) argues that the problem is the lack of trust that people have within themselves. If this is the case, psychoanalyst Jung (1969:95) suggests that it is down to the individual to create a pro-active solution.
Such problems are never solved by legislation or tricks. They are solved by a general change of attitude. And the change does not begin with propaganda and mass meetings, or with violence. It begins with a change in individuals. It will continue as a transformation of their personal likes and dislikes, of their outlook on life and of their values, and only the accumulation of such individual change will produce a collective solution.
If people do not acknowledge their individual responsibility, there will never be a chance for equality and peace. In striving to achieve these things, constant attention is needed, and since fear is the ultimate shackle that holds people from action, fear as well as responsibility must be confronted. Alain Resnais's short documentary film Night and Fog (1955) depicting one of modernity's darkest moments - the Holocaust - questions his audience. He asks people to see that everyone is held responsible. Resnais argues that the responsibility of crimes endured by people of the Holocaust did not fall ultimately on the people who carried out the acts, but also on the people who watched on and did nothing to stop it. Resnais asks "Who is responsible?" A question that is still very relevant for today and his answer, also, still remains true. He suggests that in the end there is a shared responsibility, and it is because of this that everyone has to battle the uncertainties of liquid modernity, both inwardly, outwardly and in all directions.
References
Ang, I (1999) The Media Reader: Continuity and transformation, Editors: Mackay H & O'Sullivan T (eds), London: Sage Publications
Baudrillard, J (1998) The Consumer Society - Myths & Structures, London: Sage Publications
Bauman, Z (1995) Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality, United Kingdom: Blackwell
Bauman, Z. (1998) 'From the Work Ethic to the Aesthetic of Consumption' in Work, Consumerism and the New Poor, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bauman, Z (2001) Liquid Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bauman, Z (2002) Society Under Siege, USA: Polity Press
Bauman, Z (2005) Liquid Life, Cambridge: Polity Press
Couldry, N (2003), 'Media rituals: the short and the long route' in Media Rituals: A Critical Approach, London: Sage
Debord, G (1994) Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books.
Freedman, L.Z (1983) Perspectives on Terrorism, Wilmington, Del Scholarly Resources, Inc
Furedi, F (2002) Culture of Fear - Risk taking and the Morality of low expectation, London: Continuum
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Garland, D (2001) The Culture of Control - Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Giddens, A (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Great Britain: Polity Press
Goodwin, B (1982) Using Political Ideas, England: John Wiley & Sons.
Ignatieff, M (1998) 'Is Nothing Sacred? The Ethics of Television', The Warrior's
Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience, London: Chatto and Windus
Jung C.G, (1969) Psychology of Religion, Twentieth Printing: USA
Jung C.G (1969) The Collected Works of C.G Jung Vol. 11, Editors Read H, Fordham M, Adler G, Routledge & Kegan Paul: London
Lefebvre, H (1987) 'The Everyday and Everydayness', Yale French Studies, No 73.
Lewis, J (2005) Language Wars: The role of the media and culture in global terror and political violence. London: Pluto Press
Moeller, S (1999) 'Compassion Fatigue', Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell
Disease, Famine, War and Death, New York and London: Routledge
Musolf, G.R (2003) Structure & Agency in Everyday Life: An Introduction to Social Psychology, USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.
Silverstone R (1994) Television and everyday life, London: Routledge
Films
Night and Fog (1955) Directed by Alain Resnais, France
The Village (2004) Directed by M.Night Shyamalan, USA
Websites
Clarke, N (August 2nd, 2004) Intervarsity: Film Review - The Village, viewed: Monday 9th October 2006.
Really Long Link
Stanley, T ( April 19th, 2005) Deconstructing Fear: A Reading of M. Night Shyamalan, viewed: 9th October 2006
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