The mediocracy: French philosophy since the mid-1970s

Abstract

The Mediocracy generated great controversy on its publication last year, with its argument that a veritable counter-revolution in intellectual life has seen the period of the master thinkers of the 1960s succeeded by an era of generalized mediocrity. Where Althusser or Lacan, Foucault or Derrida once held centre stage, today restorationist currents prevail in academia and on television. Fuelled by a complaisant media, contemporary French ideology seeks neither to interpret nor change the world, but is instead content to legitimize a globally hegemonic neo-liberalism.