Without claiming to be exhaustive, this brief contribution attempts to sketch a reflection on the socio-cultural crisis of the Western identities. Although it is not possible to make a "demented generalization", as Said would write, by resolving the local varieties of the European and American reality into a vast and fallacious macro-category, it may make sense to use the word "West" not as a definitive label, but as a starting point for analyzing a complex whole on multiple levels: geophysical, geopolitical, cultural, anthropological, social, regulatory, linguistic. Even with its facets and contradictions, in fact, and although partly the result of a political-cultural invention, the West struggles to fade, in the eyes of those who observe it, tell it, try to analyze it and continue, while crumbling and redrawing its boundaries and characters, to stand as something that opposes another macro-category, equally invented, rationalized and designed by politics and culture: the East, which merges and overlaps with the South of the world. Two labile categories, elusive for their immensity and volatility, iridescent and in part still unknown, within which the daily life of social actors is brought into play, with their perceptions, aspirations, illusions, in a climate of criticality that exasperates disparities and consciences, to the point of confusing the unique and gregarious, destinations and destinies, free and servants.
Try to be less white! Identità nell’era del post-umano
CASTELLANO C
2024-01-01
Abstract
Without claiming to be exhaustive, this brief contribution attempts to sketch a reflection on the socio-cultural crisis of the Western identities. Although it is not possible to make a "demented generalization", as Said would write, by resolving the local varieties of the European and American reality into a vast and fallacious macro-category, it may make sense to use the word "West" not as a definitive label, but as a starting point for analyzing a complex whole on multiple levels: geophysical, geopolitical, cultural, anthropological, social, regulatory, linguistic. Even with its facets and contradictions, in fact, and although partly the result of a political-cultural invention, the West struggles to fade, in the eyes of those who observe it, tell it, try to analyze it and continue, while crumbling and redrawing its boundaries and characters, to stand as something that opposes another macro-category, equally invented, rationalized and designed by politics and culture: the East, which merges and overlaps with the South of the world. Two labile categories, elusive for their immensity and volatility, iridescent and in part still unknown, within which the daily life of social actors is brought into play, with their perceptions, aspirations, illusions, in a climate of criticality that exasperates disparities and consciences, to the point of confusing the unique and gregarious, destinations and destinies, free and servants.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.