Narcissistic Culture and the Problem of Political Legitimation
Authors:   Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Orekhovsky Petr , Razumov Vladimir ,   Dostoevsky Omsk State University, Russian Federation
Published: December 2023

The work continues the rethinking by the authors of the phenomena of changes in education, science and the structure of power in the 21st century within the framework of the philosophy of culture. The concepts of “carnival” according to M.M. Bakhtin, “the soul of culture” according to O. Spengler, Dionysianism (and neo-paganism) by F. Nietzsche are used for this work. The central problem of this study is the legitimation of the political regime of liberal democracy in the context of a narcissistic culture. The latter, due to its internal characteristics, does not allow the existence of any internal authority, the approval of which would provide a moral sanction to the rule of certain political actors. History provides several options for the ontology of the legitimation process. The fi rst of them are associated with the priesthood that existed in the conditions of the domination of pagan culture, the Abrahamic religions that replaced it developed their own sacred mechanisms for granting sanctions to power. The most important shift occurs during the Modern: mass culture is forming, the role of moral authority is shifting from priests to scientists. To achieve legitimacy, political actors must ensure the progress of society on the basis of new advances in science and technology. The legitimacy is also challenged with the help of scientifi c argumentation – the authorities are presented with claims of erroneous technical and economic decisions that have entailed negative socioeconomic and/or environmental consequences. An extreme but signifi cant case is the challenge of scientifi c foundations of politics, as was the case in the case of Soviet Marxism. Expanded reproduction of science and education in the 20th century erodes the former exclusivity of the scientifi c elite and at the same time eliminates the scientist mechanism of political legitimation. The situation is reversed: now, in order to continue pursuing science and education, the former authorities must prove their usefulness to the authorities and society. But the same thing happens with the authorities themselves: offi cials and deputies turn into “servants of people” and explain their necessity to society with the help of representatives of the humanities. They do not rule anymore but produce public goods in exchange for taxes. Bakhtin’s carnival is triumphing. The regime of liberal democracy that ensured the protection of rights of minorities is close to narcissistic culture, in the center of which is the need for freedom and self-realization of the individual. At the same time, however, any authority – political or scientifi c – has a conditional legitimacy here. The proportion of partisans is growing – actors who recognize the legality of the existing social order but deny its internal justice. Fragility and instability are inherent in liberal democracy. The longevity of such a political regime is ensured by the rise of neo-paganism. Unlike previous pagan cults there is no separate social group of sacrifi ces. Thus, the problem of legitimation is removed: what is already there automatically becomes legitimate. With the help of the liberal discourse, each individual political personality is instilled that it has all the full rights, and the state is left with only responsibilities for the service of this personality: this is the uncontested meaning of Fukuyama’s ‘last man’.