In my thesis I explore the dynamics of contemporary social change and the role played by critique, illusion and utopia. I consider alternative approaches to addressing contemporary societal issues that attempt to transcend the form of traditional forms of resistance, primarily with the aim of restructuring ways of thinking and incorporating elements of innovation and dreaming. By highlighting the views of philosopher Alenka Zupančič (2019), I explore a pivotal instrument for raising awareness of the complexity of contemporary antagonisms of society, critique, through its two primary tools, objective truth and rationality, and thus its role (or more precisely, its limitations) in a contemporary world dominated by spectacle and emotional representations. I further highlight Guy Debord's theory of spectacle (1999), which relates to the concept of illusion and also functions as a tool for maintaining existing social structures, which I link to the contemporary normalisation of social problems and to the general apocalyptic climate through which I explain the contemporary inability to imagine an alternative. As a potential means of transformation by combining the utopian dimension with the fundamental characteristics of spectacle, which is mainly discussed through the theory of Stephen Duncombe (2007), I posit the ethical spectacle as a mechanism that can mark the transition from passive acceptance to active transformation, thereby constituting an awareness of the possibility of pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
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