Zygmunt Bauman and Pope Francis in Dialogue: The Labyrinth of Liquid Modernity

In a time of reflection on the pre-pandemic past and post-Covid future, the mutual exchange between Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and Pope Francis emerges as one of the most fruitful dialogues in contemporary social thought. Bauman’s analyses on liquid modernity and Francis’s warnings on a globalization of indifference together with his global vision of constructing human fraternity constitute a dialogue-at-a-distance on liquidity and concreteness. This meeting of two very different minds, culminating in a personal encounter in the city of Assisi, now provides us with rich sociological and theological perspectives on the challenges that believers of various religions and non-believers share while navigating the complexities of a liquid society and a dysfunctional globalization. In Zygmunt Bauman and Pope Francis in Dialogue: The Labyrinth of Liquid Modernity, Zeger Polhuijs recounts and analyzes the development of the thought of Bauman and Francis and the role their mutual exchange played in each other’s development. He offers no blueprints for the future, but tools for thought and action to initiate processes of change, dialogue, and concrete solidarity in the face of global disorder.