DL_Adolescents today: transitions in hypermodernity (1/5)
Adolescence is a time marked by a series of changes that respond to a process of physical transformation. These changes produce bewilderment in the face of a reality that pierces the body and the constituted knowledge, making symbolic resources insufficient to meet the new demands of an unavoidable drive urgency.
The adolescents face new scenarios that push them to look for referents to support what is to come. The key to this stage lies in the metamorphosis of puberty, an awakening of sexuality, love and new encounters. There is no possible preparation for this metamorphosis, each one goes through it as he/she can and according to his/her particular way of enjoyment.
Adolescence comes to say goodbye to childhood, to say that growth is a bodily reality that liquidates a past that seemed eternal. In addition, the need for definition in terms of gender and sexual orientation is in-corpo-rated. Finally, this is a stage of an enormous subjective effort that implies asking oneself about the meaning of existence.
These are hypermodern times in the West. In this hypermodernity, described by Lipovetsky, life is lived at an accelerated pace; there is no time to elaborate discomfort. We try to shake it off before we even feel it. The vertigo of the everyday produces subjects who flee from pain and anesthetize themselves in the hyper-consumption of goods, substances, sex and internet. How does adolescence play in this new order of things? In the following posts we will allude to three areas of hypermodernity in order to trace the challenges of today's adolescents: "permissiveness", "hyper-individualism" and “the economics of jouissance"
Reyes González Anglada.