The common theme of the interventions that comprise this volume is Kastoriadis's attempt to analyze the different aspects of the phenomenon he calls the “rise of insignificance”: From the political apathy of populations and the retreat of class struggle to the exhaustion of artistic creation and the restriction of philosophical reflection to the commentary of classical texts.

From the erosion of gender roles and social norms to the crisis of education and the inability of modern societies to form any positive self-image. The fundamental crisis of meaning underlying these phenomena is not just a rhetorical device but a basic anthropological observation. And it is essential for understanding the course of Western societies, as it even determines the trajectory of the economy, as evidenced by the anthropological factors that essentially allowed the neo-liberal transformation of capitalism.

“Human rights cannot constitute a political goal. The rhetoric around human rights, or about ‘democracy’ that is supposed to have been realized […], simply conceals the black hole at the heart of today’s society, the crisis that is never named […] the disappearance of political imagination. […] It is clear that the current situation was not caused by simple manipulation, by a conspiracy aimed at dulling the populations. The fact is, populations want to be dulled. And we must tell them so.”

Just as we must denounce the terrifying decline in the quality of productions across all fields. We need to create islands of resistance against trivialization and resignation, against the garbage that is printed and circulated, against the falsehoods they feed us as truth, against the transformation of loss of memory and ultimately forgetfulness into structural features of modern society.