Deprivácia významu ako generačný problém
Meaning-Deprivation as a Generational Problem

Summary/Abstract: The meaning-deprivation or dissignification of human life has recently become typical of all post-socialist countries. A model case is the former Soviet Union, where over the “perestroika” years the population was deprived of the meaning of their previous lives by the devaluation of all past social goals. In recent years the population was deprived of all of their life-long savings. While on the personal level the process brings about a great deal of human resignation and tragedy, it also brings about anomie, disorientation frustration among different strata and generations. These processes threatens to have far-reaching implications, such as the spread of nationwide apathy, disbelief, loss of direction, desperation, and political absenteeism. Resistance against dissignification can be achieved through different productive and nonproductive practices. By productive we mean real activities aimed at the recovery or improvement of one’s former social status. By nonproductive we mean those aimed at the cultivation of imaginary links with a substitute unreal world. In this respect we concentrate on fatalisation and transcendisation as compensatory practices at an individual level. For general uses the relevant practice is the creation of myths. A massive turn to myths in contemporary post-socialist countries contributes to the formation of a past-oriented attitude inimical to reform and societal transformation.

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