Salvaging Modernity: A Social Contract for the Age of Permacrisis

Domonkos Sik is Associate Professor at the Eötvös Loránd University, alumni of CEU-IAS. His research deals with political culture and mental disorders from a critical theoretical perspective. He wrote several monographs including Radicalism and Indifference (2016) and Empty Suffering (2021).

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A Critical Theory for the Age of Permacrisis1 The Contemporary Challenge of Social Criticism2 Social Contract as a Critical Praxis3 The Principles of a Social Contract in the Age of Permacrisis4 In Search of the Missing Contractors5 Towards a Social Contract for the Age of Permacrisis1 From the Crises of Modernization to the Renewal of Social Contracts – the Dialectics of Freedom Taming1 From System Paradoxes to Global Crises1.1 From Market Bubbles to Financial Crisis: Global Capitalism out of Control1.2 From Political Polarization to Solidarity Crisis: the Cost of the Moral Panic over Migration1.3 From Exploiting Nature to Pandemic: the Structural Components of COVID-192 Taming Universal Freedom: Social Contracts in Early and Classic Modernity2.1 Hobbes: Constraining Individual Freedom2.2 Rawls: Constraining Market Freedom3 The Normative Basis of a Social Contract in the Age of Permacrisis: from Universal Justice to the Morality of the Face and Hospitability3.1 The Limitations of Universalistic Freedom3.2 The Particularistic ‘Impossible Moralities’3.3 The ‘Trial of Particularity’ as Principle and Praxis4 The Missing Contractors and the Critical Praxes of Grounding Moral CommitmentReconfiguring Paradox Intersubjectivities: from Mimetic Crisis to the Supplements of Solidarity2 Mimetic Crisis Unleashed – (Mis)Managing Violence in Late Modernity1 Sociability from Controlling Mimetic Violence1.1 Mimetic Desire and Violence1.2 Managing Contagious Violence through Sacrifice2 A Fragile Balance: the Classic Modern Paradigm of Controlling Mimetic Desire and Violence2.1 The Reconfiguring Space of Mimesis2.2 Mimetic Desire Unleashed3 A Balance Turmoiled: the Late Modern Paradigm of Controlling Mimetic Desire and Violence3.1 The Coalition of Capitalism-Fueled Desire and Biopolitical Surveillance3.2 The Unsustainable Paradigm of Mimetic Violence4 Naturalized Cruelty and Alternative Sacrificial Rites3 From Constrained Subjectivities to Paradox Intersubjectivities – Impossible Solidarity and Its Substitutes1 The Transforming Space of Social Suffering and Solidarity2 The Dimensions of Late Modern Social Suffering2.1 The Distortions of Late Modern Capitalism2.2 The Individual Consequences of System Expansion3 Internalizing Paradoxes: the Ideal-Types of Constrained Subjectivity3.1 Unharmed Subjectivity3.2 Unscrupulous Mobile Subjectivities3.3 Uncertain Experimenting Subjectivities3.4 Desperately Struggling Subjectivities3.5 Broken Subjectivity4 Impossible Solidarity: the Reduced Interactive Space of Constrained Subjectivities5 The Substitutes of Solidarity – Emancipatory Intersubjectivities and the Trial of ParticularityReconfiguring Paradox Inter-Objectivities: from Rigid Flesh to Hacking Back Ethics into Technology4 Rigid Flesh – System Integration and Technologically Mediated Chiasm1 Existence and the Plasticity of Chiasm1.1 From Consciousness to Flesh1.2 Inhabiting Chiasm: Enjoyment, Instrumentality and the Ethical1.3 The Impossibility of Possibility: Death and Transcendental Meanings2 From Chiasm to Structural Coupling2.1 From Phenomenology to Autopoietic Systems2.2 The Modernization Dynamics of Meaning Systems2.3 Chiasm as System Coupling3 The Critiques of Technology4 From the Critique of Technology to the Trials of Particularity5 Empty Satisfaction – Beyond Technologically Mediated Enjoyment1 A Social Phenomenology of Embodied Enjoyment1.1 The Visceral Level of Satisfaction1.2 The Existential and Ontological Narratives of Enjoyment1.3 Sharing and Intersubjectivity: the Ethical Aspects of Enjoyment1.4 The Reduction of Enjoyment: from the Exclusivity of Visceral Satisfaction to Addiction2 The Structural Components of Late Modern Enjoyment2.1 Reified Control over the Visceral2.2 The Existential Consequences of Social Disintegration2.3 The Lost Horizon of the Ethical: Inequalities of Joy and the Overburdening of Intimacy3 Hacking the Reified Actor-Networks of SatisfactionReconfiguring Paradox Discourses: from Cynical Justifications to the Reclaiming of Mutual Understanding6 Justifying the Paradoxes of Modernity – the Emergence of Contemporary Cynical Discourses1 Traditional, Classic and Late Modern Economies of Worth1.1 Modernization and the Dialectics of Justification1.2 Premodern, Classic and Late Modern Cités2 The Late Modern Emptying of Critique2.1 Modernization and the Emptying of Critique2.2 From Emptied Critique to the Birth of Contemporary Cynicism3 The Cynical Modalities of Justification4 Overcoming Cynical Justifications7 Reclaiming Communicative Action – Mutual Understanding in the Age of Technologically Mediated System Communication1 Mutual Understanding via Speech Acts: the Latent Preconditions of Communicative Action1.1 Action Coordination through Communication1.2 Strategic and Dogmatic Distortions of Communicative Action1.3 Moral Development and Communicative Action2 The Late Modern Limitations of Mutual Understanding2.1 The Triumph of Late Modern Digital Populism2.2 The Expansion of Moral-Free Zones of Action2.3 The Twilight of Traditions2.4 Communication Trapped in Preconventional Morality3 Overcoming the Obstacles of Mutual Understanding3.1 Proximity vs. System Integration3.2 Bricolage vs. Technological Reification4 Reclaiming Communicative Action: the Triangle of Proximity, Bricolage and JustificationConcluding Remarks – from the Networks of Salvaging to a Social Contract for the Age of PermacrisisBibliographyIndex