Una struggente nostalgia dell’intero. La tentazione dell’androgino come ricomposizione dell’umano

Abstract

At the end of the nineteenth century, Giddens proposed a new kind of androgyny intended as a way to resolve the conflict between the sexes and democratise societies starting from the most intimate area of our lives. In so doing, mainstream sociology made use of an ancient idea that is central in a set of founding myths with reference both to the West and to the rest of the world and is subsequently visible in several literary works, artistic creations and cultural trends. All these elements, in fact, reveal at least two aspects: firstly, human beings unconsciously think themselves as painfully ruptured creatures and therefore tend to some kind of completion; secondly, androgyny can represent both a way to criticize old sexual stereotypes and a more general attempt to differently think and live. This is particularly true nowadays, when so-called postmodernity seems to yearn for androgyny intended as lightness of thought and life but also as illusory and narcissistic self- sufficiency.