Aesthetic Reflexivity in the Global Age

Starting from a contribution of Scott Lash on aesthetic reflexivity, this paper aims to show that this kind of reflexivity can have different meanings and that it is suitable to established a global community. Specifically, aesthetic reflexivity can be seen in the philosophy of deconstruction to maintain the concept of mediation and the reference to a community that Lash seems to exclude. The aesthetic reflexivity implied in deconstructionism is then explained as counteracting the reflexivity that, following Bourdieu and Lash himself, represents the grounds of hermeneutical communities. The latter are based upon pre-reflexive orientations that keep the subject blocked in a structure of power of which it never becomes aware. In contrary to this model, the argument is put forward that the aesthetic reflexivity of deconstructionism implies a different relationship with power in which the subject has the reflexive means to criticize the structures of which it forms a part.