In any case, we would like to sketch a historical argument (Blanco,
2002): these forms of self-revelation have progressed and some of
them have suffered a great degree of sophistication at the same
time and as a consequence of the extension of literature (and the
disciplined act of reading) and the multiple institutionalisations
of counselling in mesmerism, spiritual counselling, phrenology,
psychotherapy, aid groups, sects, and so on.
In brief, what these historical considerations may depict is what
has been called genealogy of subjectivity (Rose, 1996): in them
it can be read the chronicle of the process of the cultural genesis
of the Western individual, understood as the locus of what we now
know as psychological conflict, always a normative conflict of power
or of ‘autonomy’ (Blanco, 2002). This is why we can
say that the historical genesis of the idea of a psychological subject
is symmetric to, and is originated at the same time as, the genesis
of the idea of a political subject.
Anyway, the form of self-revelation that takes place in that Internet
community of shared suffering can be considered as a hybrid genre
of: 1) the public “honesty” required in exagoreusis;
and 2) the acknowledgement of the sin, compulsory in examologesis.
This genre can only be understood at the heart of a ‘saturated
of subjectivity’ conception of the self and is very similar
to the one used in Alcoholics Anonymous groups.
Reconsidering the concept of mediation
This example exposes the very difficulty of a mediated activity
theory. We would like to propose another turn of the screw: to take
Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as grounding for a new mediational philosophy
(Latour, 2001; Law, 1994). We will sketch some of the relevant ANT
features for this aim.
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