Page 76 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 76
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
Sexuality as a “New” Social Issue
Social changes in the last three decades remain phenomena to be analysed
and conceptualised, as they continue in the direction of the neoliberal po-
litical and economic (dis)order. It is increasingly more obvious that the
term comprises of a heap of meanings, but the “fall of communism” main-
tains being a kind of central point of reference. A special position of this
point of reference should not be attributed to any big conceptual weight of
it, but only to the fact that as the supposedly breakthrough event, it repre-
sents a manifestation of the unpredictability of “reality”. Other terms and
notions from recent theoretical debates, such as all “post” phenomena are
somehow legitimised through this complex event. The same goes for many
speculations having to do with information and/or technology as well as
for sociological explanations of shifts within the structures of societies.
However, the epistemology of the social theories and sciences reflects their
own “contamination” with the changes. This may be visible in a number of
new concepts or old concepts with a new broader meaning, such as the no-
tion of civil society. Jürgen Habermas observed some differences between
the West and the East, concerning the notion of civil society:
Radical democratic theories in the West were inspired by a seman-
tic shift within the concept of ‘civil society‘ that has taken place in
the political self-understanding of dissidents. But one should dis-
tinguish between separate realities that exist here and there. In the
Eastern Europe, I am afraid, the structures of civil society are so
much a mirror picture of the panoptic State apparatus that they
come forth in a phase of its havoc, but they disappear with its ter-
mination – almost in all cases. In the societies of the Western type
new social movements have a different basis. They commence from
other motives, they stand in a different context, and they have dis-
similar aims since a dimension of liberties, for which they fight for
in the East, is already attained here (Habermas, 1993: p. 119).
This observation may be taken as generally true, although it succumbs
to a bias where judgments of “higher and lower” development “phases” are
all too quickly taken for granted. Quite undoubtedly, the two structures
of civil society may not be too easily compared, but at the same time, it
should be added that the demise of the civil society in the East sometime
after the “fall of communism” gave place to a development of the political
pluralism within the processes of a supposed construction of democracy. A
74
Sexuality as a “New” Social Issue
Social changes in the last three decades remain phenomena to be analysed
and conceptualised, as they continue in the direction of the neoliberal po-
litical and economic (dis)order. It is increasingly more obvious that the
term comprises of a heap of meanings, but the “fall of communism” main-
tains being a kind of central point of reference. A special position of this
point of reference should not be attributed to any big conceptual weight of
it, but only to the fact that as the supposedly breakthrough event, it repre-
sents a manifestation of the unpredictability of “reality”. Other terms and
notions from recent theoretical debates, such as all “post” phenomena are
somehow legitimised through this complex event. The same goes for many
speculations having to do with information and/or technology as well as
for sociological explanations of shifts within the structures of societies.
However, the epistemology of the social theories and sciences reflects their
own “contamination” with the changes. This may be visible in a number of
new concepts or old concepts with a new broader meaning, such as the no-
tion of civil society. Jürgen Habermas observed some differences between
the West and the East, concerning the notion of civil society:
Radical democratic theories in the West were inspired by a seman-
tic shift within the concept of ‘civil society‘ that has taken place in
the political self-understanding of dissidents. But one should dis-
tinguish between separate realities that exist here and there. In the
Eastern Europe, I am afraid, the structures of civil society are so
much a mirror picture of the panoptic State apparatus that they
come forth in a phase of its havoc, but they disappear with its ter-
mination – almost in all cases. In the societies of the Western type
new social movements have a different basis. They commence from
other motives, they stand in a different context, and they have dis-
similar aims since a dimension of liberties, for which they fight for
in the East, is already attained here (Habermas, 1993: p. 119).
This observation may be taken as generally true, although it succumbs
to a bias where judgments of “higher and lower” development “phases” are
all too quickly taken for granted. Quite undoubtedly, the two structures
of civil society may not be too easily compared, but at the same time, it
should be added that the demise of the civil society in the East sometime
after the “fall of communism” gave place to a development of the political
pluralism within the processes of a supposed construction of democracy. A
74
