Identity Politics and the Critique of the Subject of Modernity
Modernity is characterized by the ideal of an autonomous and centered individual. This individual, or subject, of modernity, who is European, white, male, heterosexual, and a property owner, is characterized by having a private interest, as well as a public one, by being rational and by having the capacity of agency. His capacity for agency endows him with the potential to achieve freedom. Freedom, as a concept, encases multiple forces which although at one level seem to be different, at other they reveal themselves as being attached to the same spine of modernity. Freedom constantly refers to a foundation; the individual, above all, is seen as the bearer of an indivisible essence. The paradox of Modern’s life is that at the same time that it puts the subject in a relation of estrangement with his essence (alienation), it also gives the real promise of change. Change is the promise that it is possible to recover all that was lost, thereby achieving freedom. Of course, different ontological discourses (with their particular forces) were configured; for some the essence was work, for others rationality, for others property, for others language, and it goes on.
Identity Politics and the Critique of the Subject of Modernity
Psychoanalytic Critique of the Subject of Modernity
The following are others of the Grand-Narratives of Modernity:
The Grand-Narrative of History: Progress and Change