Symbolic Universes and (Post)Crisis Scenarios

Abstract

This chapter will deal with an interpretation of the current socio-political European scenario (populism, raise of ultra-right parties, Brexit) in the light of the cultural analysis provided in the previous chapters. The main thesis that will be discussed concerns the persecutory valence assumed by otherness and how such a semiotic process works as a device for satisfying a demand of “thinkability” of a context that is less and less cognitively graspable. On the other hand, symbolic universes are discussed in terms of their capability of working as semiotic capital, namely as cultural resource feeding civic and social development. In this perspective, the notion of “mentalization of the system” will be presented as a strategic perspective for dealing with a post-crisis scenario. The mentalization of the system consists of the embodied interiorization of the rule, i.e. the rule assumes the mental function of object of desire rather than limit to it (as it is now). This is possible once and as far as models of practices make the systemic rule (which is by definition abstract and impersonal) something that can be experienced as the mediator of desire (i.e. as the way through which the subject finds satisfaction to their demand of sense).