Material Phantasmagorias of Modernity. Baroque Dramatization As a Reconfiguration of Freedom and Against the Anthropocene

The Ecuadorian-Mexican Marxist philosopher Bolívar Echeverría was close to critical theory’s discussions inherited from Lukacs about the possibilities of freedom of subjects within the objective conditions of history. For Lukács was important to criticizes reification in the capitalist social dynamics and to understand how empirical class consciousness can rise to the level of attributed consciousness through the experience of struggle and achieve liberation. Freedom is considered here as a rational required moment of subjectivity in order to organize the class struggle.

Instead, Echeverria criticized the modern myth of revolution, a certain Lukac’s optimism and developed the concept of baroque ethos as a typical life form in capitalism, transgressing its automated character and refunctionalizing lives. In this sense, freedom is not related to rational and organized subjectivity, but to spontaneous experience. If this is so, to what extent can Echeverría's conceptualization of baroque ethos be understood as a critique of the Anthropocene? How does Echeverria avoid falling into individualism? How does the baroque ethos reconfigure the conceptualization of freedom? What is the theoretical and practical potential of the allegory bringing with it baroque dramatization?