The Right to Inconsistency
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2354136 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pieter Nijhoff (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 87-112 |
| Publication date | 1998-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Theory Culture & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0263-2764 • E-ISSN: 1460-3616 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/026327698015001009 |
| OpenAlex | W2164309236 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 5 |
To Bauman the incongruities of life are best reflected in an analytical effort that moves between perspectives without forcing them into a synthesis. He seems to arrogate the right to inconsistency when operating from points of view. This violates a curious requirement of scholarly discourse: an author is free to select his conceptual framework and method - but once they are selected, he must stick to them. This practically inviolable rule of consistency might come (as Bauman himself suggests) from the juridical pretensions sociology had from its birth. Consistency gives an aura to academicians who feel called to legislate, judge and legitimize. To Bauman, however, truth in judgement, reality in empirical studies and responsibility in practical affairs are approached by a constant movement between incongruous points of view. These ambitions make heavy demands on the composition of his writing. In many stretches of linear argument, imagery is interjected, showing lateral connections and complications - conversely, in many pieces of interpretation causal explanations intrude. A discourse with all these boundary violations is rather suspect in modern eyes. When Bauman contaminates the purity of analytical lines with terminology from other branches, he is demonstrating in a stylistic way that our reality is multitudinous - be it premodern enchantment, ambivalence in modernity or liberated postmodern polyvalence
Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Argument (complex analysis · Consistency (knowledge bases · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Judgement · Linguistics · Modernity · Postmodernism · Psychoanalysis · Reflexive pronoun · Sociology · Suspect · Terminology · Computer Science · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Zygmunt Bauman's Sociology
Unannihilable – Zygmunt Bauman as Analyst and Ambassador of Ambivalence
Liquid methodology - metaphor as a method
Bauman’s metaphors in motion
Zygmunt Bauman
Sixty-three years of thinking sociologically
Bauman, strangerhood and attitudes towards immigrants among the Australian population
Intellectual Itinerary and Reception of Zygmunt Bauman's Liquid Sociology in France
Bauman's Metaphors
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2002 - 2025 (24) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |