Each of us possesses several different identities of varying degrees
of complexity.
I will assume that we all know what history is,
cultural changes in ways of seeing
that I would define as a "constellation"
- largely because of its vagueness -
that wants to capture the public imagination.
In private as well as in public life individualization is the
key trend
the self is a multiple, distributed system
constructed symbolically by information, advertising, and the social
networks to which we belong
creating other kinds and other forms of communities.
The fundamental difference to be discussed here is
one that is fragmented and dispersed within the social codes that
construct
its momentary configurations
not bogged down by the question of liberation or servitude
and marketed as an international commodity.
Inauthentic inauthenticity, as it were.
Critique has not resulted in a necessary liberation as some
had hoped.
We can effectively continue the discourse around fragmentation’s
effects
and other conditions that distinguish the Modern Age from what is
thought
to have arisen thereafter.
Philosophers, architects, sociologists, literary critics,
psychologists,
and others
use these days with different shades of meaning.
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