Justifying the Paradoxes of Modernity â the Emergence of Contemporary Cynical Discourses

Domonkos Sik

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Chapter 6 Justifying the Paradoxes of Modernity â the Emergence of Contemporary Cynical Discourses

In: Salvaging Modernity: A Social Contract for the Age of Permacrisis

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Domonkos Sik

Domonkos Sik
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 152â174

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004736177_011

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Abstract

Besides securing emancipatory intersubjectivities (i.e. suspending the reproduction of damaging structures) and emancipatory inter-objectivities (i.e. ethically hacking actor-networks of satisfaction), there is also need for an intervention on the level of discourses. The naturalizing of structural paradoxes and social suffering occurs not only on the level of interpersonal roles and material infrastructure, but also on the level of interpretations and justifications. Accordingly, in chapter six, the narrative universe naturalizing the paradoxes of modernization is explored with the help of Boltanskiâs pragmatic sociology. It is argued that the dialectic transformation of critique leads to the hegemony of cynical justifications. As the various bases of critique gradually lose their validity, the impossibility of justification is demonstrated with the help of cynical discursive panels. Although cynicism resonates to the despair of the disillusioned and damaged late modern subjectivities, it also results in a discursive dead-end. By framing critique as futile and justifications as ultimately relative, it deprives the actors from the possibility of meaningful reflection and deliberation.

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Salvaging Modernity: A Social Contract for the Age of Permacrisis

Series:Â Social and Critical Theory, Volume: 33

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004736177

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 29 Jul 2025

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Chapter 6 Justifying the Paradoxes of Modernity â the Emergence of Contemporary Cynical Discourses

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Salvaging Modernity: A Social Contract for the Age of Permacrisis

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Chapter 6 Justifying the Paradoxes of Modernity â the Emergence of Contemporary Cynical Discourses