New Uruguayan: A new subjective Condition?

Abstract

The title «New Uruguayan» plays with the message of a short advertisement that, in its attempt to sell, tries to impose a new account of the «uruguayanship». Starting from a little clinical vignette, the author questions the existence of a «new subjective condition» according to the changes in the social context. On his way and taking input from Dany Dufour, he reviews the impact on the individual-subject of the mutation implied in the passage from modernity to post-modernity. The return to the primacy of the individual, the current conflict with the law, the new forms of communication are some of the civilizing movements assessed in the light of Freud’s contributions. The deterioration of the social bonds has pushed the «new Uruguayan» to build increasingly impassable borders, with the consequent segregation, specially residential and educational. In a brief review of the concept of safety, consequences of the restricted use of this concept are outlined.