LIQUID EVIL

There is nothing new about evil; it has been with us since time immemorial. But
there is something new about the kind of evil that characterizes our contemporar
y liquid-modern world. The evil that characterized earlier forms of solid modern
ity was concentrated in the hands of states claiming monopolies on the means of
coercion and using the means at their disposal to pursue their ends ends that we
re at times horrifically brutal and barbaric.



In our contemporary liquid-mode
rn societies, by contrast, evil has become altogether more pervasive and at the
same time less visible. Liquid evil hides in the seams of the canvass woven dail
y by the liquid-modern mode of human interaction and commerce, conceals itself i
n the very tissue of human cohabitation and in the course of its routine and day
-to-day reproduction. Evil lurks in the countless black holes of a thoroughly de
regulated and privatized social space in which cutthroat competition and mutual
estrangement have replaced cooperation and solidarity, while forceful individual
ization erodes the adhesive power of inter-human bonds.