Rethinking modernity from the eyes of Echeverría
On April 22, the talk took place: “Criticism of Modernity and Whiteness”, given by the Mexican professor of Philosophy Diana Fuentes and moderated by Diego Jadán.
Diana Fuentes worked with Bolívar Echeverría, whom she defines as “the most important Latin American philosopher of the last decades”.
The speaker analyzed how Echeverría advocated a non-capitalist modernity, since, since the Renaissance, the idea of capitalism has been a key factor for a decline in the West.
Echeverría mentions that we have access to countless consumer objects in this capitalist modernity, which causes previous societies to be viewed as inferior, and at the same time, the principles of societies are lost.
Based on the aforementioned, the speaker explained that because that relationship with nature was severed and removed, the only way to see modernity is in a capitalist way.
Even so, the speaker speaks that modernity and capitalism are not the same, since capitalism came out of modernity, however, capitalism would not have existed without modernity.
This creates great contradictions between modernity and capitalism, however, it must be understood that the subjects behave according to the society established within the current modernity.
Likewise, it must be taken into account that whiteness is not synonymous with whiteness, it is not a racial identity, since a person with a white complexion may not achieve those whiteness behaviors that society exposes.
At that time Diana Fuentes stopped reading Echeverría and began to show examples of whiteness, among them were Michael Jackson, Hans Holbein and Gerard Terd Borch with their paintings.
He explained that whiteness is based on the idea of how to be civilized through the look, body, clothing, among other things.
UDA Correspondent
