Phantasmagoria

Abstract

This paper provides a philosophical reflection of the crisis of democracy. Its central research focus is on what is referred to as “the world of artificial images and the lost truth” (or phantasmagoria), where the West European society experiences a sequence of distorted perceptions of reality (simulacra) broken down between various social movements, and the effect of those on the conflict-settling function of democracy, which less and less observable in contemporary societies of Western Europe. Starting from this very brief description, the article elaborates the issue of lost truth and meaning as well as the resurrection of myth based on a multitude of sub-realities or simulacra, which deprive democracy of its conflict settling mechanism and prevent social groups/movements in an atomized society from discursive consensus building.