Postmodernity

"La bibliografía apocalíptica sobre la cultura occidental es amplia en los últimos tiempos. Una de sus posibles fundamentaciones teóricas la encontramos en el freudiano concepto de narcisismo
cultural. Este artículo quiere mostrar, a través del cine de autor de la última década, que: a) el círculo hermenéutico entre narcisismo y apocalipsis no es productivo para la crítica cultural; b) el debate acerca de la noción de «autenticidad» resulta más adecuado para describir la situación actual; y c) el ideal de autenticidad defendido por C. Taylor no es utópico en el panorama cultural en el que nos encontramos."

"This book presents to the Italian reader the thinking of the Anglican theologian John Milbank (London, 1952), founder of the theological movement Radical Orthodoxy. Critical of the secular thinking “invented” in the course of western modernity and developed nihilistically from current postmodern thinking, Milbank shows how the fertility of the intelligence of the Christian faith can clarify many of the problems that determine current cultural and social decadence. He proposes to regard the present situation as a time that offers the opportunity to re-launch Christianity as the answer to the disintegrative, violent consequences produced by that modernity that emerges from certain unhappy premises that originated in late Mediaeval theology itself. One example that serves to illustrate this analysis of the development of western thinking is the interpretation of the subject of giving, both with regard to the domination today of commercial exchange, and as regards the most important philosophical theories on gift. From Milbank’s brilliant, profound analysis there emerges an ecclesial and social alternative to the current liberal-capitalist complex, which - under the name of socialism by grace - opens the reflection beyond the boundaries imposed by the idea that ‘there is no alternative’. As PierAngelo Sequeri writes in the Preface, this study “does honour to the new generation of the Italian theological school, and is a complement that is indispensable to its improved updating, at the forefront of the most interesting international research”.

Il volume intende presentare al lettore italiano il pensiero del teologo anglicano John Milbank (Londra, 1952), fondatore del movimento teologico Radical Orthodoxy. Noto per il dialogo senza esclusione di colpi con Slavoj Žižek, Milbank ha elaborato un pensiero che intende mostrare la fecondità dell’intelligenza della fede cristiana per chiarire molti dei nodi determinanti l’attuale decadenza culturale e sociale. Critico del pensiero secolare “inventato” nel corso della modernità occidentale e sviluppato in senso nichilistico dall’attuale pensiero postmoderno, Milbank propone di pensare la condizione attuale come un tempo opportuno per rilanciare il Cristianesimo come risposta alle conseguenze disgregatrici e violente prodotte dalla modernità sorta da alcune premesse infelici sorte dalla stessa teologia tardo-medievale. Un esempio particolarmente adatto ad illustrare quest’analisi del decorso del pensiero occidentale è costituito dall’interpretazione del tema della donazione, sia rispetto all’odierno dominio dello scambio mercantile, sia quanto alle più significative teorie filosofiche sul dono. Dalla brillante e profonda analisi milbankiana emerge un’alternativa ecclesiale e sociale all’attuale plesso liberal-capitalistico che, sotto il nome di socialismo per grazia, apre la riflessione al di là degli steccati imposti dal pensiero unico. Come scrive il prof. PierAngelo Sequeri nella Prefazione, questo studio «fa onore alla nuova generazione della scuola teologica italiana, e costituisce un complemento indispensabile per il suo migliore aggiornamento, sul fronte della ricerca internazionale di maggiore interesse»."

""Аналізується специфіка влади в дискурсі постмодерну. Влада стає проявом консенсусу, колективним ресурсом, а не відносинами панування-підкорення. Подолання конфліктної природи влади є наслідком звуження політичного і переходу до постполітики.

The peculiarity of power in the discourse of postmodernity is analyzed. Power is getting as a consensus, collective resource; it isn’t relations of domination-submission. The overcoming of conflict nature of power is a result of narrowing of political and transition to post-politics.""

Starting from a debate which took place at the beginning of the twenty-first century between Jean Clair and Arthur C. Danto, we will focus on the link between art and disgust, because we wish to show what art is now ‘doing’ with disgust. Our hypothesis is that art is part of the general process of self-reshaping that is underway in today’s capitalist societies. Therefore, by commenting Aurel Kolnai’s phenomenological analysis of disgust, we will gain the tools to try to show how disgust could be a crucial factor in the above process. Finally, we will recall the work of artists such as Pasolini, Nebreda, and McCarthy, in order to suggest how art could use disgust and have an actual political effect by orienting that process. All this is possible, because disgust has to do with the good life.

In the present article we will deal with the subject of contemporary boredom and its presence in Gonçalo M. Tavares’ Uma Viagem à Índia, published at the end of 2010 and already considered one of the most prolific and important books in the beginning of the 21st century. Bloom, the main character of this unique travel to India, is someone who reveals an attitude of distrust and distance towards the world that surrounds him, bearing the weight of a profound feeling of boredom and a kind of tiredness which reflect the characteristic post-modern apathy, resignation and detachment. Thus, by analysing Bloom’s  unique individual epic journey and by confronting his path with the contemporary man’s fractured indentity, we will try indentify marks of boredom in the 21st century and provide a insight into its unique features.