Abstract
The article examines, from the perspective of representation theory, the place of the idea of unrepresentable groups and individuals in contemporary liberal democracies. The author juxtaposes Ernesto Laclaus’ radical theory of populism with Michael Saward’s liberal theory of representative claims. The analysis traces the discursive shift from “demand-side” to “supply-side” representation theory, illustrating how the logic of this shift leads to an “inflation of representation”, where the representation obtained ultimately does not bring fulfilment. The author’s assumption is that the influence of new media creates a paradoxical situation in which the radical heterogeneity of the plebs returns at the level of individual experiences, revealing the internal contradiction of desires and interests of individuals. Although this becomes a source of potential abuse, it also harbours the potential for political subversion, identified in the article as the triumph of plebeian irony.
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