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67 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
Cynicism is enlightened false consciousness. It is that modernized, unhappy consciousness, on which enlightenment has labored both successfully and in vain. It has learned its lessons in enlightenment, but it has not, and probably was not able to, put them into practice. Well-off and miserable at the same time, this consciousness no longer feels affected by any critique of ideology; its falseness is already reflexively buffered.Critique of Cynical Reason at 5. Works through definitional material, much of it comparative with related terms (‘humbug,’ ‘hot air,’ &c.) as well as dishonesty proper. It is RSB’s viramsata insofar as “the realms of advertising and or public relations, and the nowadays closely related realm of politics, are replete with instances of bullshit so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept” (22).