Salvaging Modernity: A Social Contract for the Age of Permacrisis

Modernity is stuck on an unsustainable course, which poses a challenge to both critical theory and praxis. My book develops a comprehensive diagnosis of the times by reviewing the rapidly growing field of critical theories that focus on structural paradoxes and social suffering. To address the complex challenges of the era of permacrisis, various emancipatory praxes are elaborated from the perspective of intersubjective (e.g., mimetic violence), technological (e.g., algorithmic reification), and discursive (e.g., cynical justification) distortions. In order to provide a synthetic framework, a new social contract is proposed, based on responsibility towards the particularistic other instead of universal justice.