"We need to rethink our lifestyles" (Zygmunt Bauman)

LIFESTYLES ZYGMUNT BAUMAN –

It is difficult, if not impossible, to retrace in a few lines the quantity and depth of the ideas that the sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman he put into practice in his long life (he died at 91 years old). It was the witness, the interpreter, the narrator of the greatest changes in the world at the turn of the century and the change of era, which we are still going through. And He exercised this role without any trace of pomposity, with a simple language, accessible to all, understandable.. Lightened by a lively irony and by the ability, which only great men have, to never present themselves as such.

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ZYGMUNT BAUMAN LIQUID COMPANY –

Bauman, for example, he described all the contradictions and dark sides of globalization, with the related and unbearable social injustices, with a modernity that cannot be considered an absolute value, and with the extraordinary photographic synthesis of the current society defined as "liquid". Where everything becomes precarious, uncertain, nebulous, clouded by a dull and unbridled individualism: work, individual affections, community relationships, being together as a collective. Democracy.

I CONSUME, THEREFORE, I AM ZYGMUNT BAUMAN –

Ma Bauman was also the world's forerunner of a philosophy, an economy, a politics, inspired by the idea of ​​Do not waste.. In a very far-sighted book of his, I consume, therefore I am, published by Laterza, like all of Bauman's most important books, he writes: "We consume every day without thinking, without realizing that consumption is consuming us and the substance of our desire. It's a silent war, and we're losing it." He then adds: "An economy based on deception, exaggeration, and waste cannot sustain itself. The consumerist syndrome is based on speed, excess, and waste. I buy and I throw away. The final destination of my purchases? The garbage can."

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And along the thread of his reasoning, Bauman urged us, in times of no suspicion, to "change our lifestyles." Lightly, without obsession, but with awareness and responsibility.: the stakes, the beacons, that guide the editorial line of Non sprecare.

FIGHTING WASTE AS A LIFESTYLE:

• The food we throw away is as if we had stolen it from the tables of the poor, the hungry! (Pope Francis)
• "Banks are saved, but not people. Shame!" (Pope Francis)
• “Kindness is the strong chain that binds men together” (Johann Wolfgang Goethe)
• “The problem of others is the same as mine” (Don Lorenzo Milani)
• It's altruism that makes the world better, let's try it (Peter Singer)

(Cover image credits: andersphoto / Shutterstock.com)