Disorientation in a Time of the Absence of Limits

Abstract

Seen from the perspective of the inconsistency of the Other, the post-truth era can be considered to be an era emerging from a crisis in belief in the existence of the Other, which is to be taken in a twofold sense: as a belief in the Other of the Other, that is, the Other of Law, and a belief in the Other considered as the subject supposed to know. Insofar as the contemporary subject does not want to know anything about this “condition of belief” without which no knowledge, and therefore no truth, are possible, the crisis of belief affect both, the Other and the subject. This can be seen in the fact that the failing belief in the Other and knowledge, considered as a distinctive feature of our profoundly unbelieving times, is accompanied by an unprecedented rise in anxiety at the social level, as contemporary subjects who do not believe in the (existence of the) Other are singularly defenceless before the irruption of the real. With truth losing its power to name the real, the subject itself as a singular response to the real is becoming ever more precarious. Which is why, when faced with the erratic irruption of the real, contemporary subjects are condemned to a desperate search for certainties.