Modernity and Ambivalence

by Zygmunt Bauman

The argument in the book is simply that modernity in its will to order and reason had waged a war on ambivalence, on the other, on outsiders and on contingency. I likewise think that architects are waging a war on contingency. They can’t stand dirt for example. All those classic shots of architects’ houses, where everything is neatly lined up, are a symptom of this war on ambivalence. This architectural control is what Bauman puts into the context of a wider trend in society.