ABSTRACT
The Introduction to this book, which offers an understanding of contemporary modernity, presents shortly its two main parts. One is to offer a characterisation of the contemporary modern world in which we are living, including its various areas; while the other to search for approaches and thinkers who are most helpful in this undertaking. The book offers five interconnected ways to capture the heart of modernity. First, in contrast to ideas like post-modernity it suggests that we live in a hyper-modern world, with all excesses of modernity still present. Second, it also argues that the dynamics animating hyper-modernity can be expressed through the term ‘permanent liminality’, or as a situation where transitory crisis situations have become lasting, almost permanent. Third, this book is based on the perception that, strange or indeed ‘absurd’ as this may sound, in our days, and since quite some years, the entire modern global world everywhere is taking up the features of such an Absurdistan. Fourth, another way to characterise the permanent liminality of Absurdistan is to call it a Trickster Land. Finally, the actual title of the book is the totally absurd expression ‘Post Truth Society’, using a term that is increasingly coming into vogue.
