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You will prepare and submit a term paper on Bauman, Modernity, and Holocaust

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You will prepare and submit a term paper on Bauman, Modernity, and Holocaust. Your paper should be a minimum of 1250 words in length. Out of job, Bauman had enough spare time in his hands and completed his masters in philosophy from Warsaw University where he remained as a lecturer till 1968. With the outbreak of public protests in Poland against the ruling communist government and subsequent fanning of anti-Semitic sentiments by the government to deflect public criticism, Bauman shifted to Leeds University after briefly teaching in Tel Aviv University.

Bauman faced anti-Semitic sentiments twice in his life and both were from non-Nazi state machinery. This experience led him to form an opinion that modernity, bureaucracy, and social exclusion creates a situation where an extreme phobia against those social groups that cannot be neatly categorized and slotted into predetermined and well-established hierarchical superstructure prevalent in the society. This, in essence, is the beginning of a potential holocaust that will inevitably result if this xenophobic attitude towards those social subgroups that cannot be effectively analyzed according to existing social norms, is not brought under control. Such social mores can be brought under control only if the authority is aware of the potential dangers and initiates strong measures to counter such a mass phobia against so-called outsiders. History, however, has witnessed several instances of cynical exploitation of the deep-seated distrust among Europeans against so-called killers of Christ by governments of several European nations, Poland and Soviet Russia, being the main culprits, to further their narrow and selfish class interests. Bauman has worked extensively on these issues where he has laid bare the intrinsic interconnection between a modern society where people wilfully forego several facets of personal freedom (both in the realm of actions and in thoughts) and the inherent distrust of the ‘outsider’ who does not conform to the established mores of the society. He contends that mass extermination of ‘outsiders’ is an inbuilt mental precondition of modern man.