CCRI Seminar: The Communal as a Path of Transformation - Between Social Distress and the Search for Meaning

This presentation, inspired by the book “Un nuevo sentido de realidad” (A New Sense of Reality), seeks to open the question of the human beyond its usual reductions to the social, the biological or the psychological. The human is approached as an emergent reality — the outcome of biological, cultural and social interactions — yet irreducible to any of these dimensions in isolation.

The reflection is situated in Chile, a country where neoliberal reforms have reached a singular intensity and where social conflict, mistrust and the loss of institutional legitimacy are now strongly manifest. Within this context, neoliberalism has shaped an “entrepreneur-consumer self” that fuels both psychological and social distress, while simultaneously displacing fundamental human needs for rootedness, identity, meaning and transcendence.

Drawing on thinkers such as Erich Fromm, Margaret Archer, Edgar Morin and Humberto Maturana, the lecture explores a relational ontology that interweaves personal and social transformation. From this perspective, the communal emerges as a privileged arena in which to regenerate bonds, sustain life and open horizons of meaning. The presentation will emphasise that, in times of crisis, it is precisely communal networks that can provide pathways for rebuilding trust, recovering the political dimension of everyday life, and experimenting with new ways of living together.