Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?
Zygmunt Bauman (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), 272 pp., $25.95 cloth. A pearl perched on a half shell adorns the cover of Zygmunt Bauman’s Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? His questioning title paired with a classic symbol of avarice might lead one to expect a strident sociology of the shopping mall. Rather, Bauman’s latest effort is a meandering collage of reflections on the pulse and psyche of contemporary society. The short answer to his question is, “No.” The consumer is the enemy of the citizen: Consumerism has eroded Politics. The emancipatory project of modernity is no longer believed to be finishable, and most people do not particularly care. Bauman describes the pendulum of history as swinging toward fear and retrenchment, moving from Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood to Security, Parity, and Network. Parity is “the emergent avatar of the idea of fairness,” where the right to participate replaces the quest for socioeconomic equality (p. 1
