The first one concerns the presence of the Other in his thought. It means this type of presence that after different catastrophes, conflicts and broken bridges, begins to perceive the need for a meeting with the Other. It is an idea born from the most tragic of experiences - the Holocaust and totalitarian regimes, or from the experience of those entitled to say: it is not worth building bridges because it must end in a tragedy, we’d better hide behind the walls of our private fortresses and care for our own safety. The lesson drawn from such an experience is different: without nestling in a nest of our own, and so without a bridge which could lead to the other side, towards the presence of the Other, it is not going to be possible to build an authentic community and security for man in this world. (...) The second thing that became important to me, has been the way he comprehended culture, introducing the concept of the auctor, i.e. someone who is not merely the author of an idea but one who implements it. The contemporary man seeks for himself space that would be both creative and contributory. The thing that has assisted in the formation of my thinking was his quest for a possibility to cross over the borders and understand culture as a long term interpersonal co-creation and co-participation. The third issue, the most dramatic one in the biography of Zygmunt Bauman’s life and creativity, is perceiving him as a borderlander, a man changing himself, one always on the road. I mean here crossing the borders running inside of him, caused by the way his life developed, through the dark pages of his own life story. He was able to draw conclusions from it, as if paying his debt back to people by giving away everything he had. His diligence stemmed from the continuous process of transformation of himself. From an officer of a communist regime, he turned a sage with a pipe, an empathetic man with an open heart, all the time on the lookout of how he could be of assistance to others.
ZYGMUNT BAUMAN – A FAREWELL 9 I 2017
Feb. 2, 2017, 1:02 p.m.
Krzysztof Czyżewski on Zygmunt Bauman. When I think about Zygmunt Bauman in the context of the activities of Borderland: about our meetings and conversations with him, I come to think about the three pillars of his thought which for me, a practician of the idea, have been of utmost importance.