Liquid Life

'Liquid life' is the kind of life commonly lived in ourcontemporary, liquid-modern society. Liquid life cannot stay oncourse, as liquid-modern society cannot keep its shape for long.Liquid life is a precarious life, lived under conditions ofconstant uncertainty. The most acute and stubborn worries that haunt this liquid lifeare the fears of being caught napping, of failing to catch up withfast moving events, of overlooking the 'use by' datesand being saddled with worthless possessions, of missing the momentcalling for a change of tack and being left behind. Liquid life isalso shot through by a contradiction: it ought to be a (possiblyunending) series of new beginnings, yet precisely for that reasonit is full of worries about swift and painless endings, withoutwhich new beginnings would be unthinkable. Among the arts ofliquid-modern living and the skills needed to practice them,getting rid of things takes precedence over their acquisition. This and other challenges of life in a liquid-modern society aretraced and unravelled in the successive chapters of this new bookby one of the most brilliant and original social thinkers of ourtime.