Justifying the paradoxes of modernity: On the emergence of contemporary cynical discourses

IF 1 Q3 SOCIOLOGY

Thesis Eleven Pub Date : 2024-03-25 DOI:10.1177/07255136241240093

Domonkos Sik

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Abstract

Late modern existence is built around ambivalences: subjects experience the structural paradoxes of global capitalism or information society as social suffering; yet they follow behaviour patterns reinforcing the unsustainable trajectories. The article explores the discourses justifying such structural paradoxes, while normalizing the related suffering. First, the pragmatic theory of justification (Boltanski, Thévenot) is reinterpreted from a modernization theoretical perspective: a distinction is drawn between traditional, classic and late modern ‘tests’, ‘critique’ and ‘cités’. In the second and third sections, the gradual emptying of critique is analysed: as disillusionment reaches the sphere of subjective experiences, not even personal suffering can ground critique any more (Berlant), thus the impossibility of critique is demonstrated in a cynical manner (Sloterdijk). In the fourth section, the various cynical modalities of justification fitting the ambivalent contemporary existence are overviewed. Finally, a way out from the naturalized, quotidian cynicism is sketched: by turning cynicism’s logic against itself, the dialectics of justification can move forward.

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为现代性的悖论辩护：论当代愤世嫉俗话语的出现

晚期现代人的生存围绕着矛盾：主体将全球资本主义或信息社会的结构性悖论视为社会苦难，但他们遵循的行为模式又强化了不可持续的轨迹。文章探讨了为这种结构性悖论辩护的话语，同时将相关痛苦正常化。首先，文章从现代化理论的角度重新诠释了实用主义的合理性理论（博尔坦斯基、泰维诺）：区分了传统、经典和晚期现代的 "检验"、"批判 "和 "引证"。在第二和第三部分中，分析了批判的逐渐空洞化：随着幻灭到达主观经验的领域，甚至个人的痛苦也不再能成为批判的基础（贝兰特），因此批判的不可能性以一种玩世不恭的方式得到了证明（斯洛特迪克）。第四部分概述了适合当代矛盾生存的各种玩世不恭的辩护方式。最后，勾勒了一条摆脱自然化、日常化的犬儒主义的出路：通过将犬儒主义的逻辑与自身对立起来，辩证法可以向前发展。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Thesis Eleven SOCIOLOGY-

CiteScore

1.40

自引率

12.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Established in 1996 Thesis Eleven is a truly international and interdisciplinary peer reviewed journal. Innovative and authorative the journal encourages the development of social theory in the broadest sense by consistently producing articles, reviews and debate with a central focus on theories of society, culture, and politics and the understanding of modernity. The purpose of this journal is to encourage the development of social theory in the broadest sense. We view social theory as both multidisciplinary and plural, reaching across social sciences and liberal arts and cultivating a diversity of critical theories of modernity across both the German and French senses of critical theory.