‘Metaphormosis’: On the metaphoricity of zygmunt bauman’s social theory

Towards the end of his seminal book Liquid Modernity, published at the threshold of the new millennium thus marking an entry-point into the 21st century - and a book whose argument unfolds around a gigantic metaphor of liquidity - Zygmunt Bauman draws an interesting and thought-provoking parallel between the similarities of the work of poets and sociologists in the way they approach their shared subject matter, the human world, by stating the following on the so-called ‘art of writing sociology’: This is indeed a daunting task - “to pierce the walls of the obvious and selfevident” - particularly because it is destined to provoke those who find comfort, status and meaning in upholding the status quo and in defining ‘the way things currently are’. Therefore, it may pose a perilous endeavour to use means and methods usually seen as dangerous or inappropriate when doing sociology and when pointing to the hidden possibilities of the human world.