Changes

We live in a digitalised [[universe ]] that is artificially constructed, manipulated and no longer some [[natural ]] or traditional one. At all levels of our [[life ]] we seem to live more and more with the [[thing ]] deprived of its substance. You get beer without alcohol, meat without fat, coffee without caffeine…and even [[virtual ]] sex without sex.Virtual [[reality ]] to me is the climax of this [[process]]: you now get reality without reality…or a totally regulated reality. But there is [[another ]] side to this.

Be that as it may, something radical is happening. Now, a [[number ]] of new [[terms ]] are proposed to us to describe that. The one most commonly used is paradigm shift, denoting that we live in an epoch of shifting paradigm. So New Age [[people ]] tell us that we no longer have a [[Cartesian]], mechanistic individualism, but a new [[universal ]] [[mind]]. In [[sociology]], the theorists of second [[modernity ]] say similar things. And [[psychoanalytical ]] theorists tell us that we no longer have the [[Oedipus ]] [[complex]], but live in an era of universalised [[perversion]].My point is not that we should stick to the old. But these answers are wrong and do not really [[register ]] the break that is taking [[place]]. If we measure what is happening now by the standard of the old, we can grasp the abyss of the new that is emerging.

It is precisely a desperate attempt to avoid the [[trauma ]] of the new. It is a deeply [[conservative ]] gesture. The [[true ]] conservatives today are the people of new paradigms. They try desperately to avoid confronting what is really changing.

In fact, all big breaks were done in such a way. [[Nietzsche ]] was in this [[sense ]] a conservative, and, indeed, I am ready to [[claim ]] that [[Marx ]] was a conservative in this sense, too. Marx always emphasised that we can learn more from intelligent conservatives than from simple [[liberals]]. Today, more than ever, we should stick to this attitude.<ref>The One Measure of True [[Love ]] Is: You Can Insult the [[Other]]</ref>