This contribution uses the concept of “Europe” as a synecdoche for“modernity.” The point of departure is Antonio Negri and MichaelHardt's postulate that one can distinguish two Europes and two modernities.Modernity is, on the one hand, the historical tendency towardstotalization and exclusion, and on the other hand, the opposite penchantfor fragmentation and anarchic liberative thinking. On the basis of thisduality, one can talk of a syndrome of modernity, a cultural conditionthat is determined by the coincidence of two views on sovereignty (self-determinationand self-coercion). The article relates the theorem of “twoEuropes” to Gilles Deleuze's concept of difference (which inspiredNegri and Hardt's work) and to Mikhail Bakhtin's theses on carnivalesquefolk culture. In addition, it considers historical Avant-gardemovements a radical affirmation of modernity's anarchic and fragmentisingnature.
