Autonomia e autorità: gestioni postmoderne di un fragile equilibrio

In whatever way it is understood or represented, authority can only be conceived as a ‘social relationship’ that is, as a relationship between agents that exists “when an individual, driven by his/her situation, acts as another individual indicates, by doing what he/she would not do in the absence of such an indication” (Zambrano, 2000, p. 978). In this dynamic, the quality of the relationship between agency and social structure, between constraint and choice, between autonomy and freedom is at stake. Durkheim tried to consolidate what is actually an unstable balance between two fundamental dimensions of human life: “Freedom is the daughter of a well-understood authority” (Durkheim, 1922/1972, p. 60). Our survey tries to identify, in five aspects of the daily dynamics of contemporary social life, the signs of a mutation that has occurred or is in progress at this level, attempting, at the end of the path, to identify residual factors that allow to re-establish connections between two dimensions, both complex and necessary for social cohabitation.