From The Holocaust To The Consumer Society: The Stranger In Zygmunt Bauman's Social Theory

How is the situation of human being in today's society? How is the survival state of human being today? What is the impact of the modernity's consequences? Can human being get out of the modernity' dilemma? These are ont only theoritical questions but also the fundamental questions of human being in the era of globalization. Contemporary western social theory is attempting to give some response in the scope of modernity and post-modernity. Great times call for great thought. The stranger issue in Zygmunt Bauman' social theory can be regarded as the response of him, also can be seen as his special thinking on this rapid changing society.Through an archeological study of the Stranger's Theory in Bauman's thoughts, and through a clear comb of the genealogy of the strangers, we discover that: the historical antetype of strangers are The Jews; The origin of strangers is the teaching of Judaism and the customs of the Jews which caused by this teaching; The strangerhood of the Jews has an great impact on the occurrence of The Holocaust, it can be said as the social condition of The Holocaust; The losers and abandonees of the consumer society make up for the strangers in the consumer society, so there are still underlying possibilities of holocaust in the consumer society; In Bauman's social theory, the theoretical solution of the stranger issue is the morality toward others, and this kind of morality has opened boundless possibilities for the future of human being as a kind of sociological imagination.