Mimetic degradation and the narrative crisis
A foundation of the hermeneutic sociology proposed by Johann Michel is that humans are “self-interpreting” and, potentially, reflexive beings who put into narrative their individual and collective experience. This narrative work is a cornerstone of democratic societies, which are built on the “self-institution” of social life and, to use Claude Lefort’s term, the “dismantling of the markers of communal certainty.” In this article, we posit that the pandemic has profoundly undermined our capacity to deploy the narrative markers indispensable to the creation and maintenance of a community of citizens. As amplified by the health crisis, “conspiracy polemics” turn the public debate into confrontation between “doubt” and “knowledge,” the “strong” and the “weak.” In the process, the narrative plotting or, to use Paul Ricoeur’s term, the emplotment (mise en intrigue) of social life, has degraded into a binary confrontation that removes the axiological holds that support public judgment and civic decision making. More generally, the (anti-)conspiracy confrontation and the related pathologies of narratives shed light on the exhaustion of our democratic public spheres.