The very subject of our discussion is a translation and expression of the crisis the democratic movement is currently undergoing. And our choice of this subject is indeed conditioned by the appearance of a conception of "democracy" that, breaking with all previous political thought, makes of democracy a mere set of "procedures." Political thought saw in democracy a regime that was indissociable from a substantive conception of the ends of the political institution and from a view, and from an aim, of the type of human being that corresponds to it. It is easy to see that, whatever the philosophical window dressing, a purely procedural conception of "democracy" itself originates in the crisis of the imaginary significations that concern the ultimate goals [finalités] of collective life and aims at covering over this crisis by dissociating all discussion relative to these goals from the political "form of the regime," and, ultimately, even by eliminating the very idea of such goals. The deep-seated connection between this conception and what is rather ridiculously called contemporary "individualism" is quite manifest and I shall return to it. But we must begin at the beginning.
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