Abstract

TFOUNI, Fabio Elias Verdiani  and  SILVA, Nilce da. A modernidade líquida: o sujeito e a interface com o fantasma. Rev. Mal-Estar Subj. [online]. 2008, vol.8, n.1, pp. 171-194. ISSN 1518-6148.

This work presents the main characteristics of liquid modernity, according to Z. Bauman (2005, 2001, 2000, 1998) which are detachment, provisionality, and a speeded process of individualization; at the same time, a moment of liberty and insecurity. This context can be defined by the german word Unsicherheit, which means: lack of security, of certainty and of guarantee. The article has São Paulo city as an example of this kind of society. In this sense, we affirm that the status of the real and of reality is problematic in this time, and this is part of the discontents of post-modernity. Reality is here treated as the real with a touch of fantasy, so it is the real without the shock of what would be the subject's confrontation with the real. We claim that the discontents constitutes human subjectivity, and also the subject's relation with his own desire and with the objects that can fulfill this desire. The subject needs a fantasy not to be in direct contact with the real, in this case, the big cities and their injunction to speed and mobility. This fantasy may offer some security to the subject in such insecure times. In this line, fantasy may be an ideological fantasy which stops us from seeing the whole real of our time. The search for the real can be done by questioning the social fantasy and attempting to understand the meaning of speed in capitalism. We know that the subject tries to fill in the hole of desire, with by definition can never be fulfilled. So, in this context, the Capital may take for it's self the ideological role of fulfilling the human desire. Also the difficulty which is found in the relationship between the subject and the real can be delt with in an ideological approach, as well as through fetishism.

Keywords : liquid modernity; subjectivity; fetishism; reality; ideology.

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