Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Making the Theory Political

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
A Political Theory of Post-Truth

  • 974 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter opens with a consideration of the relationship between representation and reality by discussing mimesis and verisimilitude to account for both the immersive inadequacy and criteria for truthlikeness of narratives. The chapter then proceeds with a consideration of the social and personal importance of narratives as structurers and upholders of identity, social as well as personal. The second part of the chapter first considers the relationship between post-truth and postmodern relativism before focusing on competition between and entrenchment of truth-claims (thereby providing partial stability to the social), mostly focusing on the ideas of Laclau while also updating some of his claims for the current environment. The chapter concludes with a discussion of striving for pleasure as a deeply engrained motivating principle of human action.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Adorno, T. W. (1997). Aesthetic Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (rev. ed.). London and New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Auerbach, E. (1957). Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakker, E. J. (1999). Mimesis as Performance: Rereading Auerbach’s First Chapter. Poetics Today, 20(1), 11–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baldwin, C. (2008). Narrative(,) Citizenship and Dementia: The Personal and the Political. Journal of Aging Studies, 22, 222–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baron, I. Z. (2018). How to Save Politics in a Post-truth Era. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baudrillard, J. (2001). Selected Writings (2nd ed.). Cambridge and Maldon: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. (2009). World at Risk. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beckert, J. (2013). Capitalism as a System of Expectations: Toward a Sociological Microfoundation of Political Economy. Politics & Society, 41(3), 323–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, J. M. (2015). The Metronome of Apocalyptic Time: Social Media as Carrier Wave for Millenarian Contagion. Perspectives on Terrorism, 9(4), 61–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Birkner, T., & Donk, A. (2018). Collective Memory and Social Media: Fostering a New Historical Consciousness in the Digital Age? Memory Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698017750012.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blinder, S. (2015). Imagined Immigration: The Impact of Different Meanings of ‘Immigrants’ in Public Opinion and Policy Debates in Britain. Political Studies, 63, 80–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bluck, S. (2003). Autobiographical Memory: Exploring Its Functions in Everyday Life. Memory, 11(2), 113–123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bottici, C. (2007). A Philosophy of Political Myth. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bottici, C. (2009). Philosophies of Political Myth, a Comparative Look Backwards: Cassirer, Sorel and Spinoza. European Journal of Political Theory, 8(3), 365–382.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cast, A. D. (2003). Power and the Ability to Define the Situation. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(3), 185–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cevolani, G., & Schurtz, G. (2017). Probability, Approximate Truth, and Truthlikeness: More Ways Out of the Preface Paradox. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 95(2), 209–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cevolani, G., & Tambolo, L. (2013a). Progress as Approximation to the Truth: A Defence of the Verisimilitudinarian Approach. Erkenntnis, 78, 921–935.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cevolani, G., & Tambolo, L. (2013b). Truth May Not Explain Predictive Success, but Truthlikeness Does. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 44, 590–593.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, J. F. (2017). Pleasure Junkies All Around! Why It Matters and Why ‘the Arts’ Might Be the Answer: A Biopsychological Perspective. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 284. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.2837.

  • Clay, D. (2000). Platonic Questions: Dialogues with the Silent Philosopher. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conway, M. A. (2005). Memory and the Self. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 594–628.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Costa Lima, L. (2013). On Mimesis and the Control of the Imaginary. Culture, Theory and Critique, 54(2), 145–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Couldry, N. (2015). The Myth of ‘Us’: Digital Networks, Political Change and the Production of Collectivity. Information, Communication & Society, 18(6), 608–626.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • d’Ancona, M. (2017). Post Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back. London: Ebury Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Saint-Laurent, C. (2018). Memory Acts: A Theory for the Study of Collective Memory in Everyday Life. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 31(2), 148–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Vriese, H. (2017). Political Myth and Sacrifice. History of European Ideas, 43(7), 808–824.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duval, C., et al. (2012). What Happens to Personal Identity When Semantic Knowledge Degrades? A Study of the Self and Autobiographical Memory in Semantic Dementia. Neuropsychologia, 50, 254–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eakin, P. J. (2008). Living Autobiographically: How We Create Identity in Narrative. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Esch, J. (2010). Legitimizing the ‘War on Terror’ Political Myth in Official-Level Rhetoric. Political Psychology, 31(3), 357–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ewick, P., & Silbey, S. S. (1995). Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales: Towards a Sociology of Narrative. Law and Society Review, 29, 197–226.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feldman, C. F. (2005). Mimesis: Where Play and Narrative Meet. Cognitive Development, 20, 503–513.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fiske, S. T., et al. (2002). A Model of (Often Mixed) Stereotype Content: Competence and Warmth Respectively Follow from Perceived Status and Competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 878–902.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, T. (2007). Fragmented Selves: Temporality and Identity in Borderline Personality Disorder. Psychopathology, 40, 379–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gebauer, G., & Wulf, C. (1995). Mimesis: Culture—Art—Society. Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geertz, C. (2000). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gitlin, T. (2011). Nomadicity. In M. Bauerlein (Ed.), The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking (pp. 207–214). London and New York: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graci, M. E., & Fivush, R. (2017). Narrative Meaning Making, Attachment, and Psychological Growth and Stress. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 34(4), 486–509.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gudmunsdottir, G. (2017). Future’s Memory. Auto/Biography Studies, 32(2), 367–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hammack, P. L., & Pilecki, A. (2012). Narrative as a Root Metaphor for Political Psychology. Political Psychology, 33(1), 75–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, C. B., Rasmussen, A. S., & Berntsen, D. (2014). The Functions of Autobiographical Memory: An Integrative Approach. Memory, 22(5), 559–581.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haskins, E. V. (2000). Mimesis Between Poetics and Rhetoric: Performance Culture and Civic Education in Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 30(3), 7–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hauser, M. (2018). Metapopulism In-Between Democracy and Populism: Transformations of Laclau’s Concept of Populism with Trump and Putin. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 19(1), 68–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Helmick, R. (1995). Virtues of Verisimilitude in Design and Art. Computers and Graphics, 19(4), 55–507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hjarvard, S. (2008). The Mediatization of Society: A Theory of the Media as Agents of Social and Cultural Change. Nordicom Review, 29, 105–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmstrom, M. (2015). The Narrative and Social Media. Defence Strategic Communications, 1(1), 119–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horowitz, D. (2012). Consuming Pleasures: Intellectuals and the Popular Culture in the Postwar World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Horsthemke, K. (2017). ‘#FactsMustFall’?—Education in a Post-truth, Post-truthful World. Ethics and Education, 12(3), 273–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hudson, P. A. (2006). The Concept of the Subject in Laclau. Politikon, 33(3), 299–312.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James, S. (2016). Why Should We Read Spinoza? Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 78, 109–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, S. (2017, January 26). Post-truth Politics Will Be Debunked by Online Facts. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/26/post-truth-politics-online-facts-donald-trump-lies. Accessed 7 Feb 2018.

  • Jenkins, L. (2018). Why Do All Our Feelings About Politics Matter? The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 20(1), 191–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kalpokas, I. (2016). Social Media: Mimesis and Warfare. Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review, 35, 119–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kalpokas, I. (2018). Creativity and Limitation in Political Communities: Spinoza, Schmitt and Ordering. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kempshall, M. (2011). Rhetoric and the Writing of History, 400–1500. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kringelbach, M. L., & Berridge, K. C. (2017). The Affective Core of Emotion: Linking Pleasure, Subjective Well-Being, and Optimal Metastability in the Brain. Emotion Review, 9(3), 191–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laclau, E. (2001). Democracy and the Question of Power. Constellations, 8(1), 3–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. London and New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laclau, E. (2006). Why Constructing a People Is the Main Task of Radical Politics? Critical Inquiry, 32(4), 646–680.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laclau, E. (2007). Emancipation(s). London and New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (2001). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London and New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laclau, E., & Zac, L. (1994). Minding the Gap: The Subject of Politics. In E. Laclau (Ed.), The Making of Political Identities (pp. 11–39). London and New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindsay, E. D., et al. (2009). Establishment Reality vs Maintenance Reality: How Real Is Real Enough. European Journal of Engineering Education, 34(3), 229–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lovink, G. (2012). Networks Without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media. Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matthen, M. (2017). The Pleasure of Art. Australasian Philosophical Review, 1(1), 6–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nadal, M., & Skov, M. (2018). The Pleasure of Art as a Matter of Fact. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 285. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.2252.

  • Naylor, E., & Clare, L. (2008). Awareness of Memory Functioning, Autobiographical Memory and Identity in Early-Stage Dementia. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 18(5/6), 590–606.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Negash, S., et al. (2016). Trading Later Rewards for Current Pleasure: Pornography Consumption and Delay Discounting. Journal of Sex Research, 53(6), 689–700.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, K. (2003). Self and Social Functions: Individual Autobiographical Memory and Collective Narrative. Memory, 11(2), 125–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicoll, B. (2016). Mimesis as Mediation: A Dialectical Conception of the Videogame Interface. Thesis Eleven, 137(1), 22–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Northcott, R. (2013). Verisimilitude: A Causal Approach. Synthese, 190(9), 1471–1488.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norval, A. J. (2000). The Things We Do with Words: Contemporary Approaches to the Analysis of Ideology. British Journal of Political Science, 30(2), 313–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oddie, G. (1981). Verisimilitude Reviewed. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 32(3), 237–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oddie, G. (1986). The Poverty of the Popperian Program for Truthlikeness. Philosophy of Science, 53, 163–178.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pemberton, A., & Aarten, G. M. (2018). Narrative in the Study of Victimological Processes in Terrorism and Political Violence: An Initial Exploration. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 41(7), 541–556.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plato, (1994). Republic. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, R. S. (2017). The Givenness of Desire: Human Subjectivity and the Natural Desire to See God. Toronto and London: The University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross, M. H. (2007). Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shenhav, S. R. (2005). Thin and Thick Narrative Analysis: On the Question of Defining and Analyzing Political Narratives. Narrative Inquiry, 15(1), 75–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spinoza, B. (2000). Ethics. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suganami, H. (2008). Narrative Explanation and International Relations: Back to Basics. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 37(2), 327–356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swaab, R., et al. (2007). Shared Cognition as a Product of, and Precursor to, Shared Identity in Negotiations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 187–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tanweer, T., Rathbone, C. J., & Souchay, C. (2010). Autobiographical Memory, Autonoetic Consciousness, and Identity in Asperger Syndrome. Neuropsychologia, 48, 900–908.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tavani, J. L., et al. (2017). Tell Me What You Remember and I Will Know Who You Are: The Link Between Collective Memory and Social Categorization. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 20(1), 91–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tresch, J. (1997). ‘The Potent Magic of Verisimilitude’: Edgar Allan Poe Within the Mechanical Age. The British Journal for the History of Science, 30(3), 275–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Volpe, G. (1995). A Semantic Approach to Comparative Verisimilitude. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 46(4), 563–581.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, A. E., & Ross, M. (2003). The Identity Function of Autobiographical Memory. Memory, 11(2), 137–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wullweber, J. (2016). Performative Global Finance: Bridging Micro and Macro Approaches with a Stratified Perspective. New Political Economy, 21(3), 305–321.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zamora Bonilla, J. P. (1999). Verisimilitude and the Scientific Strategy of Economic Theory. Journal of Economic Methodology, 6(3), 331–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zellman, A. (2015). Framing Consensus: Evaluating the Narrative Specificity of Territorial Indivisibility. Journal of Peace Research, 52(4), 492–507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zlatev, J. (2008). From Proto-Mimesis to Language: Evidence from Primatology and Social Neuroscience. Journal of Physiology—Paris, 102, 137–151.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, LCC International University, Klaipeda, Lithuania

    Ignas Kalpokas

Authors
  1. Ignas Kalpokas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ignas Kalpokas .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Kalpokas, I. (2019). Making the Theory Political. In: A Political Theory of Post-Truth. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97713-3_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation