Post-truth and the spectator crisis

Abstract

If the figure of the spectator emerged with the advent of logical thought and the invention of representation – in theater and, then, in the politics of ancient Greece –, this role seems to enter into crisis in the transition between the 20th and 21st centuries, in which communicative phenomena suggest challenging rational ways of perceiving and conceiving the world. In this sense, what has recently been described as "post-truth" would be one of the key symptoms of this critical movement. This article offers a reflection on the emergence and cultural evolution of the concept of "spectator", articulating it with the notion of "truth" and its trajectory in the history of the West. The text explores the hypothesis of a crisis of this concept, which would result from another instability, that of the definition criteria themselves, in common life, between the categories of "true" and "false".