The End of Illusions

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Until a few years ago, the Western public was seemingly confident in societal progress: the worldwide triumph of democracy and market economy appeared unstoppable, with liberalization and emancipation, knowledge society, and pluralization of lifestyles seeming to be the guiding concepts of the future. The painful realization that these were illusions came with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. In fact, it is only now that the extent of the structural change in society is becoming visible: the old industrial modernity has been replaced by a late modernity characterized by new polarizations and paradoxes – progress and discomfort lie closely together. In a series of essays, Andreas Reckwitz incisively outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a post-industrial economy, the conflict over culture and identity, the exhaustion resulting from the imperative of self-realization, and the crisis of liberalism.