Paradoxes of affiliation in the contemporary society.
Abstract
Through the subjectivist affiliation characteristic of the contemporary family, two opposed conceptions of the family tie, and more broadly, the social tie, seek to be reconciled with each other: on the one hand, the modern ideal of the social tie, freely chosen by an autonomous individual; on the other, an assigned membership that situates that same individual within a world order. It may well be that the difficult fitting together of the two, clearly observed within the families studied, is the major problem of our time: how to procure for oneself a minimal sense of lastingness and stability without once again taking on the rules and regulations of the traditional family. Individualism is run through with contradictions. It is therefore a mistake to conceive the values of autonomy and personal accomplishment on the one hand and belonging and assignation on the other as antinomies. Affiliation today is marked by the contradictions within which the modern individual struggles.