Zhou Laishun and Gao Yan: From the Pursuit of Perfect Order to the Practice of Cultural Theory
Based on the crises and dilemmas presented by modernity in the course of its own development, numerous Western thinkers have reflected upon and critiqued the mechanisms of modernity from fields such as philosophy, sociology, ethics, and anthropology, engaging in a relentless exploration of the causes, essence, and paths for transcending these crises. Since the mid-20th century in particular, faced with the deep-seated alienation manifested in modern human society and civilization, scholars such as Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Agnes Heller have conducted productive inquiries into how to overcome this crisis and alienation. Among them, Zygmunt Bauman, drawing on his unique lived experience and theoretical practice, responded to the crisis of modernity and its potential exits. Taken as a whole, Bauman used various metaphorical rhetorical devices to provide a critical analysis of the modern human condition. He attempted, through the theoretical exploration of cultural practice and the manifestation of human creative value, to offer a solution to the crisis of modernity. As Dennis Smith remarked: "If you are a stranger to the fashionable contemporary debates about modernity and postmodernity you could not do better than start by reading Zygmunt Bauman." Influenced deeply by Marxism, existentialism, and structuralism—and particularly by a profound understanding of the essence of the structural transformation of Western society—Bauman used cultural theory as an entry point for his research into social problems. He viewed culture as a form of creative practical activity, an understanding that shares similarities with Antonio Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis. Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis emphasizes transforming the objective world through active practical activity, focusing on the creation of a new culture as the foundation of practical activity, thereby realizing the unity of theory and practice and achieving the actualization of theory. Bauman precisely viewed culture as a specific mode rooted in human practical activity, which led him to realize that the restorative power of culture stems from its internal contradictions. Resonance exists between the inherent ambivalence of cultural concepts and the specific ambivalence of the modern condition. Together, they grant the ability to transcend the extant and allow the individual to exercise creativity within cultural transformation; yet, at the same time, they regulate human social structures as a predestined, unalterable law of nature. This ambivalence is both a true portrayal of the development of modernity and the actual state faced by the modern human condition.
I. The Manifestations and Essence of the Crisis of Modernity
Accompanying the deepening of the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, humanity achieved unprecedented success in both spiritual and material realms. Processes of mechanization, industrialization, and informatization, in particular, have continuously liberated humanity from heavy physical labor. Yet beneath this surface of continuous acquisition of freedom and liberation, "the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant." Just as Enlightenment reason, while enabling humanity to dispel ignorance, break free from shackles, and achieve liberation, simultaneously alienated into a new "Enlightenment myth," so too is modernity a double-edged sword. While greatly improving human living conditions, it has also brought new forms of alienation and challenges. Bauman understood modernity as a new belief emerging in the process of scientific knowledge and technological progress—a belief implying that reason replaces ignorance and faith to become the standard of truth. This means that the transition from traditional to modern society is a shift from a pious religious world to a secular scientific world; it is a process of disenchantment and demystification. This transition brought modern individuals unprecedented freedom of choice, but simultaneously placed them in a state of uncertainty. This is because individual choices are often irrational and unpredictable, symbolizing a potential threat to the stable boundaries imposed by social order. Consequently, the modern society's pursuit of order tends to exclude those things that do not fit the standards of order—for instance, any imperfection, ugliness, or suffering is denied the right to exist. Bauman argued that precisely because modern order is built upon the suppression of chaos and contingency, the contingency of imperfection causes people to fall deep into anxiety even as they pursue perfection. This precisely reflects the inherent contradiction of modernity: the existence of a sustained tension between order and chaos, clarity and ambiguity. "Ambivalence... is the main affliction of modernity and its most worrisome concern."
Bauman pointed out that the essence of modernity is the production of order, which requires the delegitimation of all that is unassimilable. Culture, acting as the self-consciousness of modern society, removes structures that are non-functional or obsolete, replacing them with the construction of a transparent and as near-perfect an order as possible. This perfect order implies the elimination of various uncertain, fragmented ambivalences. Modernity firmly believes that rational planning can be achieved through reason, science, and bureaucratic methods. However, the limits inherent in such orderly planning dictate that the action of pursuing order will inevitably lead to the disordering of the "Other." Under the monitoring, classification, and management of modern order, the Other—as the embodiment of order—is the epitome of chaos and a potential threat to the stable order established by modernity. In Bauman's view, the perfect order pursued by modernity can only be realized through the normalization of action and the breaking of resistance to this order. The "Panopticon" [1] and the "gardening ambitions" are the expressive forms of modernity's pursuit of order, the general consequence of which is the repression of human nature and the imprisonment of thought.
Compared with previous societies, the typical characteristic of modern social order lies in the construction of a cultural legitimation using reason as its spiritual pillar, taming disorder through rational control and planning. Conversely, the crisis of modern society stems from modernity's pursuit of perfection in order: "The most shattering of the sins of human memory... came not from a failure of order, but from an impeccable, faultless and unchallenged rule of order." In Bauman's view, the construction of order and the expulsion of ambivalence are the eternal dual tasks of modernity. It is the very logic of the idea of creating order that derives new realms of chaos; the opposition and complementarity of the two constitute the unfolding process of modernity. In the reality of modern society, the prerequisite for the creation of order is the centering of state power to arrange the institutionalization of social control agencies that regulate thought; these agencies formulate rules and supervise people's compliance. As Foucault pointed out in his analysis, modern society is characterized by occult suppression and surveillance, the aim of which is to achieve control over individual thought and the right to discourse. To describe the social dilemma brought about by modern order, Bauman followed Foucault in borrowing and deepening the term "Panopticon." Foucault viewed the social structure of the "Panopticon" as a combination of power and knowledge, manifested primarily as an asymmetrical surveillance—that is, everyone is subject to all-around surveillance, while the subject of surveillance is the power apparatus of the modern state. "It is an important mechanism, for it automatizes and disindividualizes power. Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes; in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught." Building on Foucault’s critique of modernity, Bauman used the following metaphor for modern society: the goal of the modern state is to make social space structured and orderly, using order as a means to divide social space into different fields employing specific scientific technologies. Through this structuring, individuals can be controlled within the social space, and the actions and thoughts of the collective can be shaped, thereby forming a universal pattern of human behavior. However, the standardization and predictability of behavior limit the freedom and creativity of modern individuals, turning people into machine-like producers rather than independent individuals. The consequence of this modern orderly monitoring is the homogenization of culture; individuals are integrated through the internalization of surveillance and hegemonic concepts of order, leading to the suppression of individual self-consciousness and value, leaving them to passively submit to the dictates and monitoring of orderly norms. This classic inner logic of the "Panopticon" perfectly interprets the manifestation of the crisis of modernity.
Since the 1970s, with the deepening of the civilizing process and the continuous growth of intellectual authority, the landscape-like construction of social order has accelerated once again, manifesting as "gardening ambitions" that negate all difference. The purpose of this gardening is to create a well-ordered social structure for modern people, thereby limiting or eliminating the uncertainty of events. However, gardening practice also means that modern human freedom and individuality are suppressed and ignored, exacerbating the crises and ambivalence of modern society. The gardening metaphor first proposed by Bauman in his book Legislators and Interpreters can well clarify his understanding of "gardening ambitions." Bauman noted: "The power that presided over modernity (the pastoral power of the state) was patterned on the role of the gardener." The role of the state and power is like that of a gardener, manipulating the things within the plot (in the garden, the nation, or the culture) and defining itself as the designer of the perfect arrangement of the human condition and the ideal life. "The weeds, the uninvited, unplanned, self-propagating plants, enhance the fragility of the man-made order imposed on nature; they remind the gardeners of the need for uninterrupted management and surveillance of the pastoral scene." Metaphorically speaking, modernity's relentless pursuit of constructing order is like the construction of a garden, manipulating modern humans by clearing "weeds" within the garden so that they can only grow, develop, and act within the designed blueprint. In Modernity and the Holocaust, Bauman further pointed out that the grand gardening design of modernity is not merely a tool for pursuing pure order, but a means of perpetuating violence and oppression. His linking of modernity with the Holocaust was not to equate the two, but to demonstrate the necessary connection existing between them. An elective affinity exists between modernity and the Holocaust; modernity, through rational design, provided the necessary conditions for the implementation of the Holocaust, while the Holocaust was an attempt to guarantee the practice of "perfect" order. The Nazi Holocaust was not just a problem concerning the Jewish people, nor just an accidental historical event, but the inevitable result of the logic of modernity. The Holocaust is a problem unimaginable outside of modern culture and technology: "The means of destruction, the camps, the transport system, and the bureaucracy which made it possible to implement were not products of the past, of old traditions, but new products born with modernity." Auschwitz was precisely a necessary extension of the modern engineering system, essentially an industrial killing model that applied the strategies of Fordist factory production to large-scale human destruction. In other words, it was precisely under the interaction of modern "gardening culture" and the modern bureaucratic system that the Holocaust, based on technological forms supported by scientific rationality, physically eliminated the "Other" who symbolized chaos. Therefore, the special nature of the Holocaust lies not in its uniqueness, but in the fact that it was the perfect embodiment of modern engineering, having executed the plan for modern order relatively effectively and efficiently.
Undoubtedly, the engineering of modern order, through the "Panopticon" and "gardening ambitions," has caused a comprehensive crisis in modern society; this is essentially the inevitable result of modernity’s pursuit of perfect order. In Bauman's view, all attempts to seek perfection will be tragic, because the world in which perfection is sought is itself imperfect. The real world cannot be equated with the imagined world, because it is guided by contingent events involving human choice. In other words, at the heart of the modern project lies a paradox: this paradox consists in the "obsessive" negation of contradiction, difference, and contingency, whereas contradiction, difference, and contingency are precisely the indispensable products of modern society. However, in its continuous pursuit of certainty, modernity has progressively discovered and revealed the contingency inherent in modern society. It is this contingency that is viewed by modernity as the source of disorder and chaos, rather than having its inherent existence and contradictions accepted. In short, modernity seeks to uproot chaos, difference, and contradiction, yet it reproduces a lifelike replica of them within modern practice and planning.
II. Culture as the Self-Consciousness of Modern Society
Culture, as the internal mechanism for the functioning of human society, exerts a profound influence on the course of human history. It reflects the way humanity perceives and contemplates the world, providing the basis and meaning for human action while simultaneously exerting a decisive structural constraint on the existence of individuals situated within it. The characteristic of culture is that it is immanent in all human practical activities, representing the objectification of the essential activity of the human species. As Marx stated: "It is just in his work upon the objective world, therefore, that man first really proves himself to be a species-being.... through this production, nature appears as his work and his reality." In his relentless critique of modernity, Zygmunt Bauman uses culture as an objective reference point to analyze the existential condition of modern humanity, thereby revealing the true contradictory state of modernity. He inherits Marx's perspective, emphasizing that culture must be interpreted within the framework of social relations; it is social relations that make culture possible and construct its utility. Bauman points out that linking culture to the conditions of social reality—social order, bureaucracy, technological rationality, and economy—allows for the highlighting or reproduction of numerous social facts. In this process, culture is not a passive system of signs; rather, it possesses a profound capacity to expose the dark side of modernity. Specifically, the cultural critique of reality does not simply propose a narrative of social development, but rather reflects on the contradictions existing within the cultural sphere through the evolution and deconstruction of cultural concepts, thereby exploring the possibility of cultural practice resolving the crisis of modernity.
From a historical perspective, culture is the self-consciousness of modern society, a collective of concepts and practices formed by humanity within specific historical and social environments. As a mechanism influencing human motivation, culture is almost always accompanied by an emphasis on the role of the human will. The formation and evolution of cultural concepts are the results of humanity's deepening cognition of its own existential foundations and of the natural and social worlds. In the second half of the 18th century, a cultural concept in the modern sense emerged and took shape in those countries with embryonic modernity, used to distinguish social facts of "human achievement" from natural facts that were "impervious to change." While viewing culture as an activity of rational reflection and critique of reality, people also saw it as a value-creating activity that satisfies various needs. This modern cultural concept was regarded as a sacred hallmark of the 18th-century "turning point," [2] signaling a profound shift in human cognition and understanding of culture. Regarding the human condition, the emergence of modern cultural concepts was accompanied by the awakening of human self-consciousness: "the collective product of a new philosophy... which saw the world as essentially a human creation and a test of human powers. From then on, the world was understood first and foremost as a stage for human striving, choices, success, and failure." The evolution of cultural concepts changed people's perception of their own existence; individuals were no longer secular slaves but began to examine their own life-world (Lebenswelt) as cognitive subjects. From this point, the theological worldview collapsed, and the social system maintained by theology was replaced by a secular social system ruled by reason. Throughout the modern period, there existed a mutual resonance and "elective affinity" [3] between order based on legislation and truth based on reason. These two essentially modern and tightly interwoven concerns focused on a pragmatic approach to the production of order, encompassing the instruction of human action and the shaping of the spiritual will. Bauman points out that the stance of modern culture unhesitatingly joined the camp of order, sparing no effort to influence, shape, and constrain human modes of action. "Action—a coordinated and goal-conscious action—is the dam protecting people from the tide of chaos." It is evident that it is precisely based on the existence and characteristics of culture that humanity creates islands of order out of a chaotic existential environment.
From the perspective of the formation of social order, culture embodies humanity's transcendence over nature and instinct, demonstrating the human species-essence [4] and constituting the core of social existence. Creating a man-made existential environment through cultural creation—that is, constructing a social order—is the prerequisite for humanity to survive in a contingent world. Humans cannot live in a naturally preset order like animals; instead, they must establish a unique social order of their own, creating a "second nature." In Bauman's view, order, as the antithesis of chaos, represents a reduction in the range of uncertainty. Creating social order means controlling the probability of events occurring, "so as to make the proximate world in which we live subject to rules, measurable, and controllable." It is thus clear that the construction of cultural order is a process of continuously pursuing certainty, but as each social sphere is determined, new contradictions and disorder are also brought about. Humanity gains order through culture, yet "the logical contradictions of the idea of creating order in turn reflect the true social contradictions constructed through the practice of creating order," which constitutes the inherent ambivalence [5] of culture. Contradiction is inherent to cultural order; in every different social sphere, there exist excluded objects, which Bauman understands as the "Other" of order. In this sense, culture, as the deep-seated, mechanistic element inherent in social order, governs the internal and external behavioral rules of social members and represents a transformation in the fundamental human mode of existence. Through culture, people acquire the capacity to construct social order and autonomously participate in its construction. However, while creating order through culture, people inevitably limit themselves, as the cognitive mode through which they understand and interpret the world is essentially determined by culture. In other words, humanity constructs its own social world through culture, but is simultaneously bound by the social structures it creates. The contradictory attitude reflected in cultural concepts stems from the fact that the concept of culture provides humanity with a space for self-determined freedom, yet it is precisely this self-determined freedom that restricts people within a limited, comprehensive, and operational model.
From the perspective of cultural ambivalence, culture is the representation of modern society, reflecting and exposing the true contradictory state of modernity. Bauman attempted to incorporate the concept of culture into three independent yet interrelated "worlds of discourse," clarifying the confusion of the term "culture" across different categories by distinguishing its differences in various contexts. However, Bauman gradually realized that such efforts could not remove the contradictions contained within cultural discourse. More importantly, he argued that removing the inherent contradictions of cultural concepts was not a good thing, because "this ambivalence faithfully reflects the ambiguity of the historical situation that the concept seeks to grasp and narrate, which is precisely what makes the concept a productive and lasting cognitive and intellectual tool." It is the ambivalence of cultural concepts that reflects the contradictions in the idea of creating order, enabling it to reveal the pervasive contradictions and structural dilemmas of modern society. Within the composite concept of culture, "modernity itself contains necessary contradictions." This contradiction is based on the conflict between "creativity" and "regulation," a conflict that modernity cannot evade in its idea of creating order. "Creativity" and "regulation" can no longer be further separated and are not easily reconciled; their sharp opposition develops in different directions, causing the condition of modern human life to manifest as a contradictory state oscillating between two poles. The conflict between the two stems from their different value orientations toward human life and social order, manifesting as a contradiction between the pursuit of individual freedom and creativity and the constraints of social norms and institutions. Specifically, "creativity" refers to a cultural concept that resists norms and breaks established boundaries, inspiring a mindset that transcends social reality, critiques the social status quo, and reflects on social problems. In contrast, "regulation" signifies a cultural concept of routinization and pattern-making, which stifles human subjective agency in the pursuit of modern norms. In essence, "one discourse treats the cultural concept as a site of free-roaming spiritual activity, and of creation, invention, self-criticism, and self-transcendence; the other discourse assumes culture to be an instrument of routinization and continuity—that is, a handmaiden of social order." Thus, culture is a two-way process of continuous change; it can both pose a creative challenge to established and fixed things and provide pattern maintenance and conflict management for specific social forms to guarantee the orderliness of social life.
In summary, Bauman’s investigation into the inherent ambivalence of culture aims to break the common-sense barriers of modern human thinking and stimulate critical, transcendent, and creative thought. The foundation of being human lies precisely in human cultural creation. As cultural beings, humans not only construct their own social world but are also constrained by social structures. Therefore, as the self-consciousness of modern society, the "creativity" and "regulation" presented by culture are two indispensable aspects of the human existential condition. Or, more accurately, culture is both about following norms and about transcending them; it is both an instrument of order and a cause of disorder. The core contradiction of the "culture" concept reflects the ambivalence of the idea of creating order, and order is the pivot of the development of modernity. In Bauman's view, the essence of the crisis in modern society stems precisely from the inverse reaction to modernity's pursuit of order. Only within culture as practice is there a possibility of resolution, as both the imagery of order and the practices of creativity are endowed by culture.
III. Cultural Practice and the Resolution of the Crisis of Modernity
After analyzing the asymmetry and contradictory state involved in modern society, Bauman turned his research perspective toward cultural practice—that is, culture as practice. In the realm of modernity, the functionalist concept of "culture" is widely applied, viewing culture as a tool for regulating and constraining individual behavior. Consequently, Bauman condemned the concept of culture appropriated and used by the social sciences on the grounds that it had been inappropriately reduced to covering only the predictable, routinized, and institutional-instrumental aspects of human behavior. This modern culture is an adaptation to a rigid, immutable reality; it becomes "useful" only when adapted to. In Bauman's view, culture should be a creative practice that transcends modern norms: "Culture is presented not in its existing form, but in the form of what ought to be, some ideal standard—that is, in the results of its own 'task,' rather than its 'reality.'" In this sense, culture is no longer an abstract concept but a concrete practice. This practice provides tangible and feasible ways and means for culture, transforming it from a passive yardstick into an active force for change. It is precisely the creativity and innovativeness of cultural practice that makes it an effective path for resolving the crisis of modernity. Bauman points out that the dilemmas faced by modern society cannot be resolved merely through reflection on and reconciliation with reality; rather, they require creative cultural practice to drive social transformation. The essence of cultural practice lies in resolving the crisis of modernity, which depends on whether modern individuals can be liberated from the determinism of structures and norms.
Building on this, Bauman conducted an in-depth exploration and analysis of culture as "structure" and culture as "practice." "Culture as structure" represents a traditional structural-functionalist view, where culture consists of an ordered, patterned system of symbols. Under this cultural concept, the primary purpose of culture is to maintain the status quo and avoid the destruction of social structures or anomie. Contrary to this view, and drawing on the perspectives of Marx, Georg Simmel, and Gramsci, Bauman treats "culture as practice" as an active practical activity participating in structuring activities that can create and reshape the life-world of modern humanity. Within this practice, "there emerges a proposition important to Marx: the transition from the 'realm of necessity' to the 'realm of freedom,' which is directly related to his understanding of culture." It is based on this understanding and emphasis on culture that Bauman explicitly takes the side of "culture as practice" against the concept of "culture as structure." The former elucidates the creativity and criticality of culture, while the latter removes human subjectivity and the possibility of transformation from culture. Therefore, facing the existential dilemmas and the crisis of modernity for contemporary humanity, Bauman focuses on cultural practice as a mechanism for generating social change—a mechanism that gives due weight to human agency.
First, structured cultural practice. "Structuration" is the term Bauman uses to summarize cultural practice, understood as the space for human beings to construct innovation upon the foundation of infinite possibilities; this understanding is entirely consistent with the basis for awakening human critical thinking. The hallmark of human life is a world-building practice: "continuous and unending structuring activity constitutes the core of human praxis, that is, the mode of human existence in the world." Bauman strongly opposes viewing "society" or "culture" as fixed structural systems, advocating instead for using structured cultural practice to stimulate the inherent human capacity to question the status quo and seek alternatives. In 2016, in the postscript he wrote for the book Sketches in the Theory of Culture, Bauman looked back on the inspiration he drew from structuralism: "I regarded Lévi-Strauss’s work as—in terms of grasping and researching culture—a path from utopia to praxis, or more specifically, a path from 'structure' to 'structuration.' Since then, the compulsive impulse of structuration in the human mode of existence in the world has seemed to be a mode of existence for cultural phenomena—and this quality does not keep culture constant, nor does it become a force for consolidating the 'system,' but quite the opposite: it is a tool that constantly, persistently, and irreversibly vitalizes the human condition." It is precisely because Claude Lévi-Strauss viewed structuration as a praxeological activity that Bauman was able to transform the concept of structure from a weapon of identity into a tool of diversity; from a protective shield of stability into an engine of ceaseless change. Cultural practice as structuration implies that theoretical reflection related to culture should align with the essence of culture, which is "a permanent revolution," a never-ending structuring activity, or a resistance against any attempt to permanently maintain the order of social reality. In other words, "culture, which shares the same meaning as a specific human existence, is a courageous assault carried out to gain freedom from necessity and to create freedom." Culture as a structured practical activity represents the tension or struggle between freedom and necessity, creativity and regulation. This tension highlights two aspects of human cultural practice: on the one hand, modernity's pursuit of order leads to the erasure and suppression of human subjectivity [6], which is the essence of the crisis of modernity; on the other hand, culture as a creative structuring activity emphasizes the active role of modern humans in shaping reality.
Culture is a continuous creative process, or a constantly changing structural force, but it is by no means something that "serves the self-reproduction of social order by eliminating human internal diversity and the spontaneity of self-creation." From a praxeological dimension, Bauman understands structured cultural practice as an actively creative state of existence, "a continuous, essentially goalless process of change that affects all structures, especially those that are firm and coercive—rather than contributing to the generation and survival of these structures." The capacity of culture as a structured practice originates from endless choice and innovation, representing a discourse of transformation, self-criticism, and self-transcendence. It can be seen that the structured cultural practice Bauman advocates is "the idea of innovation, the idea of actively assimilating the universe, and the idea of imposing the ordered structure of human intelligent action upon a chaotic world—these ideas are permanently embedded within the concept of praxis—and are truly intelligible only when seen as attributes of a community, as the capacity to transcend nature or 'naturalized' [7] orders and to create new and different orders." The social reality created by structured cultural practice is a fluid, dynamic form because it no longer refers to a structure that imposes boundaries, but is rather seen as the key factor for human individuals to transcend boundaries. In other words, this practice symbolizes a structure infinitely open to the future; it is the source of life for the continuous creativity of human practical activity and the foundation of social change, rather than being based on monotonous replication and reproduction. Therefore, Bauman believes that when culture is grasped as structured practice, it can provide a feasible solution for the dissipation of the crisis of modern society.
Second, utopian cultural practice. In his critique of positivist/functionalist concepts of culture, Bauman points out the potential of culture as a utopian practice. Since positivism "is based on the temporary historical suppression of the creativity of the subject diverted from control, and on the reduction of creativity to the pure technicality that results from such suppression," Bauman emphasizes the transcendence of existing reality and the creative role of the individual in the transformation of cultural reality. That is, he attempts to use utopian cultural practice as a critique of the modern human condition and of the world that humans unthinkingly take for granted. In the book Socialism: The Active Utopia, Bauman views socialism as a utopian practical vision, comprehensively expounding on the various forms in which utopia persists, and attempting to demonstrate that utopia is a force that actively shapes the human life-world, particularly providing a cultural orientation against capitalist exploitation, alienation, and inequality. Utopianism is not a hollow idealism, but an active, critical, and tradition-breaking practice aimed at exploring future possibilities within a fixed, rigid, and necessitated society. This means that utopianism is a challenge to and transcendence of social reality; it awakens people's reflection on reality and stimulates their vision for the future. Consequently, Bauman believes that "only by giving due attention to the enormous role of utopia can social life be truly understood. To paraphrase Santayana's explanation, utopia shares a quality with the whole of culture: it is a knife-edge pressed against the future." In essence, utopia is an active existence because it constantly and uncompromisingly aims to criticize the modern human condition, providing a programmatic possibility for humanity to envision a better future. It is precisely this utopian mentality of Bauman’s—emphasizing possibility and potential in cultural practice rather than naturalness and necessity—that makes it possible to resolve existing social crises and liberate humanity from shackles. Therefore, utopian cultural practice has a dual significance: on the one hand, it is a creative practical activity that inspires modern humans to think about how to create a social form fundamentally different from the current one; on the other hand, it is committed to recovering the critical and transcendent thinking of modern humans from modern norms, exploring the possibility of constructing a future world.
In Bauman's view, "culture is the enemy of alienation," and utopian cultural practice is an imaginative vision that highlights the possibility of overcoming alienation. As Dariusz Brzeziński pointed out, "Bauman focuses on current and future risks and threats, and encourages people to create and implement new, alternative solutions. In other words, utopian thought permeates his view of culture as a 'permanent revolution'." In this sense, Bauman summarizes three dimensions of utopian cultural practice: as a comprehensive revolt against alienation, historical necessity, and naturalized reality. First, utopia exists in relation to the present: "By exposing the one-sidedness of current reality and by examining the field of possibilities—of which reality occupies only a small part—utopia paves the way for critical attitudes and critical activities; only in this way can the plight of human beings in modern society be changed." Thus, utopian cultural practice acts as a catalyst for social change and creativity and can be seen as a necessary condition for historical transformation—providing alternative solutions to the increasing deterioration of modern society. Second, utopia is driven by hope, evoking future possibilities for humanity. The significance of hope lies in its allowance for the creation of new forms of life and the development of inherent potential, such that everything fundamentally different from the modern social order and historical necessity will be viewed as carrying unrealized utopian potential. Finally, utopian cultural practice is a creative transcendence of reality and a guide for action oriented toward the future. By uncovering and presenting alienated social structures, it provides an imaginative blueprint of a future world for the human condition. These three dimensions are interrelated and constitute the core of utopian cultural practice, representing the inherent attitude of humanity toward shaping and improving the world. However, it must be noted that utopian cultural practice should not be understood as a specific society waiting to be realized; after all, Bauman does not provide a detailed description of this future. If Bauman were to provide a specific utopia in advance, it would be equivalent to turning the future into an a priori object, thereby denying the possibility and potential of humanity to create the world through cultural practice. In short, Bauman's utopian thought is critical and humanistic, "symbolizing a praxis of possibility that critically seeks an open world to resist the rigidity of reality caused by universal cognition, alienation, and barbaric violence."
Undoubtedly, in the process of resolving the crisis of modernity, Bauman emphasizes culture as a creative practical activity. Its significance lies not only in the critique of the modern "ordering project" but also in the concern for the existential condition of modern human individuals, aiming to provide a new humanistic path of transcendence for humanity to break free from shackles. It can be said that Bauman's exploration of cultural practice is always anthropological, and specifically Marxist anthropological. Bauman's research maintains the dual focus of Marxism on anthropology: on the one hand, in the field of cultural anthropology, he focuses on how humans express and realize themselves through cultural practice, especially the creation and destruction within the process of modernity; on the other hand, in the field of philosophical anthropology, he seeks reflection on human capacity, character, autonomy, and dependence. Based on this, Bauman integrates the resolution of the modern social crisis into the view that cultural practice is a continuous social change, restoring modern human subjectivity and creativity through a creative structuring activity and a utopian ideal vision. However, it is worth noting that Bauman's utopian cultural practice has certain limitations. Utopia is always in the "not yet" that lies ahead; it cannot provide a specific panacea for solving the crisis of modern society, but only serves as a beautiful vision and spiritual faith, granting legitimacy to "possibility" within effective practice. If the utopian vision were to be positivized, empiricized, or specified—put into practice according to a particular social plan or model—the result would be extremely dangerous. From this, we can see that while exploring schemes to overcome and resolve the crisis of modernity, Bauman also attempts to awaken the utopian spirit deep within people’s hearts and the transcendent power of cultural practice, inspiring modern people to realize, pursue, and shape a "freedom of self-determination."
(Author Bios: Zhou Laishun and Gao Yan, School of Philosophy and Center for Russian Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Heilongjiang University) (This article is a processed result of the National Social Science Fund of China Major Project "Research on Frontier Issues of Contemporary Russian Marxist Philosophy" and the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Project "Research on the Contemporary Russian ‘Innovative School of Marxism’") Web Editor: Tongxin Source: Foreign Theoretical Trends (Guowai Lilun Dongtai), Issue 3, 2023