Moral Blindness Quotes

“The updated version of Descartes’s Cogito is ‘I am seen, therefore I am’ – and that the more people who see me, the more I am…”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“A consumerist attitude may lubricate the wheels of the economy; it sprinkles sand into the bearings of morality.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“globalization is the last failed hope that, somewhere, there still exists a land where one can escape and find happiness. Or the last failed hope that, somewhere, there still exists a land different from yours in terms of being able to oppose the sense of meaninglessness, the loss of criteria and, ultimately, moral blindness and the loss of sensitivity.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“The relations individuals enter into with other individuals nowadays have been described as ‘pure’ – meaning ‘no strings attached’, no unconditional obligations assumed and so no predetermination, and therefore no mortgaging, of the future. The sole foundation and only reason for the relationship to continue is, it has been said, the amount of mutual satisfaction drawn from it.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“Robbing humans of their faces and individuality is no less a form of evil than diminishing their dignity or looking for threats primarily among those who have immigrated or harbour different religious beliefs.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“the notion that we know all there is to know about people and their needs and that all these data are pinned down exactly and fully explained by the market, the state, sociological surveys, ratings, and everything else that turns people into the Global Anonymous.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“Seja como for, a questão agora considerada mais importante é como não causar pânico nos mercados e enviar os sinais corretos aos investidores. Algumas vezes, morre-se a rir. Outras vezes, o riso afugenta a dor. Vivemos num período em que as nossas palavras enviam uma mensagem ao Santo Mercado. É possível que ele aprecie o nosso humor. Talvez ele veja nele sinais de recuperação e energia.”
― Leonidas Donskis, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“to the question of ‘how’: to the technology of evildoing. Answers suggested to that question fell roughly under two rubrics: coercion and seduction. Arguably the most extreme expression was found for the first in George Orwell’s 1984; for the second, in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Both types of answer were articulated in the West; in Orwell’s vision, however, painted as it was in direct response to the Russian communist experiment, an intimate kinship can easily be traced with Eastern European discourse,”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“The Devil can strip a human being, doomed to be confined to non-person and nonentity, of their memory. By losing their memory, people become incapable of any critical questioning of themselves and the world around them. By losing the powers of individuality and association, they lose their basic moral and political sensibilities. Ultimately, they lose their sensitivity to another human being. The Devil, who safely lurks in the most destructive forms of modernity, deprives human beings of the sense of their place, home, memory and belonging.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“Na sociedade de produtores que estamos a deixar para trás (pelo menos na nossa parte do planeta), o conselho num caso como esse seria "esforçar-se ainda mais". Mas isso não acontece na sociedade de consumidores. Aqui, as ferramentas que falharam devem ser deitadas para o lixo, e não afiadas e novamente utilizadas com mais habilidade e dedicação, de modo a obter um melhor efeito. Essa regra aplica-se também a instrumentos e artifícios que não proporcionaram a "satisfação total" prometida, assim como aos relacionamentos humanos que tenham produzido um bang não tão big quanto se esperava. A urgência deve atingir a sua intensidade máxima quando se está a correr de um ponto (abortado, prestes a abortar ou a começar a abortar) para outro (ainda não vivido). Devemos ficar atentos à amarga lição de Fausto, que foi lançado no inferno como castigo por desejar que um único momento - só porque era particularmente agradável - durasse para sempre...”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“L.D: los políticos intentan mantener a la academia en una posición de incertidumbre y precariedad transformándola, o <>, en una rama del mundo empresarial. Por lo general, la idea de la necesidad de racionalizar, cambiar, reformular, restaurar y renovar el mundo académico es un simulacro. Oculta el hecho de que precisamente es la clase política y la mala gestión, también política, lo que hay que cambiar y reconducir con urgencia. Sin embargo, habla el poder: si no te cambio, tú me cambiarás a mí.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“Z.B.: por adiaforización entiendo estratagemas para situar, a propósito o por defecto, ciertos actos y/o actos omitidos respecto a ciertas categorías de seres humanos fuera el eje moral-inmoral, es decir, fuera del <> y a margen del ámbito de los fenómenos sujetos sujetos a evaluación moral; estratagemas para declarar esos actos o esa inacción, de una forma implícita o explícita, como <> y evitar que las opciones entre ellos se sometan a un juicio ético, lo que significa eludir el oprobio moral.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“Z.B: Hannah Arendt observó que el verdadero genio entre los seductores nazis era Himmler, que organizó a las masas en un sistema de dominación total, gracias a su (correcta!) suposición de que en su gran mayoría los hombres no son vampiros o sádicos, sino empleados y miembros de una familia.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity

“The liquid modern variety of adiaphorization is cut after the pattern of the consumer–commodity relation, and its effectiveness relies on the transplantation of that pattern to interhuman relations.”
― Zygmunt Bauman, Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity