Retrotopia

The book is very approachable and pertinent. There are so many routes in here for future investigations it is unreal. So much "hits home" is here is is hard to know where to begin.

As all Bauman wrotte.

I can't recommend this word salad of a book, despite it sharing the same title as JM Greer's excellent novel. The author seems more intent on impressing the reader with his use of words, rather than actually conveying ideas.

Genial

I personally did not find much to like in this book. My own preferences lean to Stephen Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature, or The World After GDP. However, there is good food for thought here, though I found the writing style to be tedious and wordy. Also, there is a difference between wanting the repeat the past and looking at the past to better understand things to make the future better.To better help you judge whether the topic and the author’s writing style suit you, here is the author’s definition of retrotopia from the Introduction:“What I call ‘retrotropia’, is a derivative of the aforementioned second degree of negation – negation of utopia’s negation, one that shares with Thomas More’s legacy its fixity on a territorially sovereign topos: a firm ground thought to provide, and hopefully guarantee, an acceptable modicum of stability and therefore a satisfactory legacy in approving, absorbing, and incorporating the contributions/corrections supplied by its immediate predecessor: namely, the replacement of the ‘ultimate perfection’ idea with the assumption of the non-finality and endemic dynamism of the order it promotes, allowing thereby for the possibility (as well as desirability) of an indefinite succession of future changes that such an idea a priori de-legitimizes and precludes. True to the utopian spirit, retrotopia derives it stimulus from the hope of reconciling, at long last, security with freedom: the feat that both the original vision and its first negation didn’t try – or, having attempted, failed – to attain. I intend to follow this brief sketch of the most notable meanders of the post-More, 500-years-long history of modern utopia, with an exercise in unraveling, portraying and putting on record some of the most remarkable ‘back to the future’ tendencies inside the emergent ‘retrotopian’ phase in utopia’s history – in particular, rehabilitation of the tribal mode of community, return to the concept of a primordial/pristine self predetermined by non-cultural and culture-immune factors, and all in all retreat from the presently held (prevalent in both social science and popular opinions) view of the essential, presumably non-negotiable and sine qua non features of the ‘civilized order’.”I believe that this passage should let you know whether this book is for you or not.

I understand a couple of the bad reviews for this book - but honestly, it's published by "Polity," and even from the start, one should be able to tell that this is heavy-duty philosophical research and is not for a casual reader, so do your due diligence.I will not claim that I completely understood it or could grasp large chunks of what Bauman was saying - it is a level above me. However, I can absolutely grasp and agree with his primary theory which is that this modern age has turned on its heel and now sees the utopia as our past. It's pretty depressing when you think about it, and "retropia" is a great term. When I was growing up, it was the future we were looking toward - but now, the past seems so much better. The future seems awful.Bauman lays out why and how that happened, and much of that argument can be made using Hobbes and other writers of the past. Our relationships are growing ever more narrow as our insecurity grows - we reenter the world of nasty, brutish and short (or the illusion of it).Very complex book - and it's not for a lay reader to skim through at one sitting. But if you're willing to give it a hard read, you will find a lot of gems of observation here. A lot over my head, but I still grasped and appreciated the thesis. The right reader - probably somebody with a degree in philosophy - is going to appreciate this quite a bit.

Zygmunt Bauman has noticed that in 2017, we no longer look to the future with any kind of optimism. Mostly, we look to it with fear. For reassurance, we look fondly backward, to some imaginary time when everything was great, especially the future.Retrotopia is an entire book reinforcing this point. Bauman cites hundreds of people in tracts, speeches, papers and books to show western society is crumbling, and taking our hopes with it. We are now all rivals, we are all on our own, and our best friends are guns. It’s a regurgitation of all the usual suspects: nationalism, globalization, automation, safety net removal, lack of community, loneliness, inequality…. The future just ain’t what it used to be for western society.Bauman limits his research to the societal. The elephant in the room however, is the environment. While societies might be able to adapt to the Me era, the destruction of the ecosphere can no longer be overcome, and that has billions of people more than also a little concerned about the future. Lower pay, fewer protections and more solo battles are as nothing compared to an inhospitable planet.Retrotopia just keeps making its one point, over and over, from different angles and sources. If you met Bauman at a party and he went on and on like this, you would consider him the biggest bore in the world. In a book you can put down, it is not nearly as bad, but really, beyond the introduction, there is little to recommend it.David Wineberg

Great!

Bauman foi e será sempre um provocador. A ele muitos dos créditos pelos nomes a coisas que todos percebemos e sentimos, mas não conseguimos nominar. O futuro, o desconhecido, parece mesmo ser o inferno, de onde sairá tudo aquilo que ainda não é, ou "aquele de quem não se pode dizer o nome". Fato é que vimos tendendo a enxergar o futuro como apocaliptico antes que ele exista, ao invés de imaginarmos como ele poderia ser construído, como nostalgicamente gememos "se fosse antigamente..."

Bauman is knocking the books out these days despite [or because of?] his advancing age, and unlike a number of recent books, this one hasn't been written in conjunction with anyone else, and is pegged up to him alone.It's standard Bauman- no real surprises, usual erudition and clear thought obscured a little by a sometimes stilted but always digestible prose style. The theme here is based on the common [mis]conception of endless progress and the march towards utopia, but the reality in our current culture is more one of a back to the future, as we on one hand cling to the last vestiges of modernism and want to dismiss history as being incapable of telling us anything of value, and yet at the same time postmodernism grips us as we begin to look to our past in order to create a legible and realistic future.The contradiction is glaringly evident and that is of course the character of our times, and why the managerial political elite are becoming adrift of the wider body politic. There are also hints here of the growing 21st century alternative right ideology of respecting and utilising established tradition and arcane culture, on which is to build a new, non-liberal future. Bauman touches on these ideas but seems to skit around them a bit, and the whole book, as much as I like his thinking, on the whole seems a bit vague and ill-focused. One simple idea, seems to be taken out for too much of a run. That said there's ideas aplenty here to mull over and although it is not ultimately a satisfying read, you feel you have gained at least a little something by the end of it. Not a Bauman classic, but there again, he already set his own bar high many years ago.

Not for a casual read - this is a densely argued sociological thesis as to why so much of modern politics seems to be moving towards (if that's not an obvious tautology!) the past. Bauman has written extensively on the theme of 'liquid modernity'; here he dissects the zeitgeist of contemporary nation states, the longing for a past that never existed - and it's quite fascinating. However, you really do have to focus when reading - it took me at least 20 pages to get into the language almost like reading a Shakespearean play. But if you want to enjoy a thoroughly serious and densely argued analysis of current day events, then this is an excellent guide.

The author is a professor of sociology and this is almost an academic read. It has a very intense and colourful use of language that takes some getting used to.However the subject is a very interesting and relevant for the times we are going through now and it is worth making the effort. Our hope for the future has, over recent times, become more of a nostalgia for the past - a past that is more perfect in hindsight than it was in reality. If you can get used to the florid language, this book presents a very interesting analysis of the history, philosophy, politics and sociology around the idea. Bearing in mind all the 'back to basics' tub thumping that seems to go on whenever there is an election, this book is an excellent resource to help you get behind the PR and see the reality. A great read and resource for any student interested in the field - or any enthusiastic lay person.