Other Aspects of the Idea of Ethics in Liquid Modernity through the Theravāda Buddhist Context in Thailand

Abstract

Human individuals in Zygmunt Bauman’s liquid modernity are insecure with overloaded choices of identities and responsibilities: they are surrounded by uncertainties and strangers and shift their focus to self-fulfillment. Also, human bonds become weak due to communication technology. Nevertheless, Bauman sees a chance of ethics over uncertainty, and yet, it has to be in the immediacy of face-to-face interaction. This immediacy allows expressions of life such as trust to arise and cultivates a moral individual to fulfill ethical demands. This work assumes a shift to the liquid modernity of Thailand by sharing Bauman’s idea of ethical values derived from immediacy interaction. It proposes Theravāda Buddhist wise reflection, or yonisomanasikāra, to explain a moment when individuals immediately interact and contemplate their cognition and reaction activities with equanimity. In this way, individuals return to the compassion stage of mind, fulfilling a demand to care for others.