Subjective-Life As Protest and Change

In late modernity we observe a relocation of places of conflict: the higher locus of resistance against subjection and dominion seems to reside in the “personal subject”. Given the impossibility for a Movement, as known until the '90s of the last century, the change takes the form of a process for empowerment, self-reconstruction (integrating emotions, sensations, sensitivity, reason), and recognition of their own expectations, needs and wishes, for a life that one believes it is worth living.

The Subject is the encounter of the individual with self-consciousness; a self-production, accomplished through reflexive processes for subjectivity and individuation. Becoming a Subject requires efforts to sustain the ability to look at oneself and assume responsibility in the absence of meta-protections (religion, ideology …). This call for the possibility to tap into emotional, cognitive and symbolic resources which are no longer available in the market-society, in order to address and support a process between two poles: the deconstruction of Me (social determinate) and the growth of one’s own conscious individuality, which is a prerequisite to the action for a socio-cultural change.

An exponentially increasing number of women and men react to contemporary civilization by choosing Body-Mind-Spirit practices in which women and men can find resources for a claimed subjective-life, coping and opposing the dominant Western economic-cultural orientations. A turning point, necessary for the reconstruction of subjectivity and self-determined life which has to do with states of consciousness, emotions, sensations, feelings, ethos and involvement in social matters.

From a survey on people engaged in activities like Yoga, I can argue that their concern doesn’t mean an utilitarian individualism nor an expressive individualism, but a way to generate space and contents for a relational subjectivity. Values, symbols and practices B-M-S are sources for substantiating the inter-fusion between meaningful relations and autonomy: a movement of “subjectivities-in-network”.