Suely Rolnik
Anthropophagic subjectivity
The world today: an infinite ocean, agitated by whirling waves-variable flows with no possible totality, no stable borders, in constant reorganization. To some, a second flood-only this time the waters will never go down, never more will there be land in sight, and the many arks will drift forever, crowded with many Noahs of different species. Feetwill not again stand on the stable landscape of a firm ground: get used to "to navigate is necessary"l, with no fixed north or point of reference to this chaotic and moving surface. No longer is there just one reality with its respective map of possibilities. Possibilities are now reinvented and redistributed all the time, in accordance with waves of flows that eradicate forms of reality to generate other ones, that equally end up dispersing themselves in the ocean, carried away by the movement of new waves. Subjectivities today: grabbed from the soil, they have become ubiquitous-they float following mutable connections of desire with the flow of all places and of all times, that simultaneously pass through electronic waves. The fluid and unique filter of an immense ocean that is also fluido Without a regular name or address, without identity: metamorphosing modulations in an endless process that is administered daily inexhaustibly. Estrangement has taken ove r the scene and cannot be tamed: unstable, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, disoriented, lost in time and space-it is as ifwe were all homeless. Not without the actual house (basic leveI of survival in which an ever increasing human contingent finds itself), but without the "at home" feeling of oneself, a palpable subjective consistence-a familiarity of certain relations with the world, certain ways ofbeing, certain shared meanings, a certain belief. Ofthis invisible house, albeit no less real, all humanity is in need. Voices in all idioms, from all corners of the earth, from all specialists and also non-specialists, blend into an endless talk, between anxious and excited, on the sarne question: Have we all in fact beco me homeless? Did the subjective house dissolve, collapse, disappear? Where is our identity? How do we rebuild an identity in this world where national, cultural, ethnic, religious, social and sexual territories have lost their aura of truth, denaturalized themselves irreversibly, got mixed up in all possible ways, that either float or cease to exist? How do we recreate a territory in this everchanging world? How can one get by with such disorientation? How to reorganize some meaning? How do we establish neutral zones of serenity? And this transnational choir oscillates in variations on a theme composed by affectionate positions that range from wonder to the apocalyptic. Hope or hopelessness, it is the sarne: poles of a moralist position that naturalizes the valuesystem and with it interprets, judges and prognosticates what is going on-happy-ending or end of everything. Another type of voice, however, is clearly dissonant with this teleological tone. Its timbre doesn't express judgment nor drama, but the vibration ofthe activity ofthe world where it is sung, conveying the sense that this current world is neither better nor worst than the others. Like any other, it is unique, with its own problems, its way of affirming and also debasing life, some ofits territories about to disappear, and others are being drafted and asking for some cartography of meaning to make them intelligible, to strengthen their gain of consistence. ln tune with this is a
137 Subjetividade antropofรกgica Suely Rolnik