Estética y melancolía

Narcisismo y eclipse de la tragedia en la modernidad

Abstract

Modernity emerged from a violent albeit progressive, multiple and differentiated transformation of the whole universe of collective frames and domains of experience. Also it perturbed the patterns of identity, of self comprehension and the regimes of affection, the sphere of the self and the sense of appropriation, the webs of solidarity and the stability of the social links. It bred an individuality of a particular physiognomy; it fostered the creation of subjective patterns built upon the claims of a sense of identity, derived from the exacerbation of the ego instincts. This claim led tu a radical mutation of the forms of life, the patterns of interchange, the nature of the strategies of control and the installation of symbolic strategies that deepen the specular vertigo aroused from the intimate links and cancel the expectations and the opening of the subjective experience to the unexpected; the alternatives for the consolidation of the collectively created horizons of self comprehension have been shattered, both in the intimate and in the collective domains. This text seeks to explore the different aspects and the complex development of this process of the creation of social subjects, and of the control strategies that have stemmed from the consolidation of the desegregation factors inherent in modernity.