Granì (Nov 2019)
«Private Self» in the situation of the «disappearance» of the Other: the paradox of redundancy
Abstract
The article is devoted to the study of the problem of organizing the private life, which is formed and changed in the complex interaction of the Self with the Other. It is claimed that in the present mode of production of subjectivity there has been a significant performance related to the extension of the “private self”. It is emphasized that the problem of our time is not in itself privacy or even the ease with which digital technologies facilitate access to the intimate, hidden aspects of our lives, but the loss of the individual’s ability to live in private as such, loss of privacy, autonomy, fear of remaining Alone with you, reducing the need to hide something. The consequence of this is the desire for a life «alone with everybody», which is a clear result of particular conflicts of individual and collective subjectivity. It is determined that the «scattering» of private semantics throughout the «social body» was a natural result of a specific ontology of the present time, which is denoted by the (re)configuration of the intersubjective connection of the Self - the Other, namely, the redefinition of the status of the Other (Great Other and various «real» others - authorities from the environment of the subject) against the background of «over-sufficiency» of the Self. The post-social, simulation, hyper-real order of constructing the I-Other relationship is emphasized. Such its properties condition a situation of potential (in)attention to the Other, (in)certainty of the Other, radical «liquidation of the Other». It is stated that in the situation of «missing Other», «statistical Other», «artificial / mediated Other», the limits and limits of one’s Self are questioned, that is, the sense of «secret life» disappears. It is said that private life is organized today in the format of a «publicly organized event» (in terminology by L. Theveno). It is determined that as the subject becomes involved in the most public mode of interaction, his attitude towards himself will find manifestation in the mode of expressive desire for self-expression, which can often acquire quite bold and frank forms of self-objectification. It is justified that in any case such a construction of privacy is marked by obvious redundancy. On the one hand, it turns out to be a kind of spectacle made up of various visually designed elements – personal stories, cases from private everyday life, personal emotional and physical representations aimed at creating an «impression». On the other hand, excess privacy, being the epiphenomenon of modern techno-capitalism of the neoliberal sense, emerges as an effective resource for utilitarian (self)exploitation and potential commercialization of self.
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