Culture in the era of the economic triumph. A reading by Eduardo Lourenço - The Splendor of Chaos

Abstract

Globalization, which aims to bring everyone closer together and inhabit nonplaces through the experience of virtual space, has forgotten the spiritual component of interiority, silence, and time. Eduardo Lourenço points out that in this «symbolic desertification that mass culture has instituted, a single reality replaces all others as a place of emotional identification and even identity: the nation.» According to the author, this identification happens through culture, as it is the domain capable of instilling particular meanings that cement a family spirit. He says that «the blood of this communication is none other than language. Moreover, in it, and with it, the most archaic, that is, original, time of a community.» In the age of the triumph of economic domination, where values have acquired a price tag, where we can find the cultural root that continues to give meaning to the affirmation of being Portuguese?