The Postmodern Mirror of Dorian Gray in the Digital Age: The Accelerated Exasperation of the Self in Social Dynamics in face of the Inertia and Fragility of Normative Structures

Abstract

This article aims to illustrate the contemporary relevance of the Dorian Gray syndrome in the digital era, where the idealization of the individual and the community intertwines with cancel culture and the obsessive pursuit of power, prestige, and control. The thesis suggests that, without excluding other causes of an economic, legal, and political nature, at the root of current social disorders, including those of an international nature, there is an increase in individual narcissistic exacerbation caused by a lack of control, even regulatory, over the digital dimension, whose rhythms far exceed human reaction capabilities. The article explores three main dimensions: the construction of a perfect self in the digital context, the formation of a community conforming to predefined values through cancel culture, and finally, the analysis of the obsessive pursuit of prestige and power by state actors. There is a consequential development of these three aspects, which are interconnected through the guiding thread of a modern interpretation of the Dorian Gray syndrome that manifests itself thanks to the accelerator of the digital at rhythms not parallel to those of the physical world. In other words, and this is the point the article aims to analyse, it is about understanding whether the idealization of the online self, and its consequent effects at cultural, social, and geopolitical levels, find a fair comparison with the rhythms of reaction of the physical world. Or if the latter, with its regulatory regulations of the post-war period, is now outdated.