Representations of crisis and criticism on the lunar side of capitalist modernity

Comments about Rodrigo Cordero's book

Abstract

The book Critique and Crisis: on the fragile foundations of social life published by Ateliê de Humanidades Editorial (Rio: 2022) by Rodrigo Cordero invites us to rethink the ontological foundations of critique at a time when the crisis of power devices seems to be perpetuating itself to produce what C. Castoriadis (1992) summarized very pertinently 30 years ago in "The fragmented world". My approach to the problem intentionally departs from the Eurocentric perspective that prioritizes the theoretical and philosophical truths of the so-called "classics". Instead, I believe it is necessary to value the epistemological justice through which a plurality of perspectives can be recognized, such as those on the frontiers of knowledge, which allow us to problematize the current world system more objectively as the result of various movements that Dussel (1993) calls transmodernity.  As we will see below, the challenge of rethinking the critique of the crisis or the crisis of critique in the current context cannot be answered from the epistemic and moral categories inherited from the Eurocentric program. This has precise historical limits given by the imperial, warlike and racist imaginary that markedly impregnates the representations of Western modernity, separating what the colonizers call superior and inferior cultures and ethnicities. So the critique formulated from the borders aims to break with this imperial and colonial imaginary founded on a strong hierarchy of domination that historically discriminates against peoples and individuals according to a racist and patriarchal scale of valuation.