The neo-baroque imposture

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current relevance of the “Baroque ethos” in our historical world, conceived as a “Neo-baroque” world. In order to do that, we will begin by investigating from a historical perspective the essential features of the “Baroque ethos”, as opposed to the “Protestant ethos” that prevails in capitalist Modernity, in relation to the Catholic Restoration project of the Society of Jesus and its cultural policy. Secondly, we will broadly develop the image of the world as representation (theatrum mundi) in the historical Baroque, placing special emphasis on its sociological dimension (given the crucial importance of “knowing how to appear”), but also on the ontological level (in relation to the dialectic being/appearance). Next, we will test the hypothesis of a “Neo-baroque capitalism” in the present, in light of the current phenomenon of “social aestheticization”. The ultimate objective of the research is to characterize from an eminently critical perspective the “life in the image” that derives from this planetary process, to the extent that it is constituted as a radical and ontological imposture, consisting in denying the dreamlike character of life, fleeing from the consciousness of dreaming.