Кригер Борис - The Illusion of Meaning

This book explores how meaning, often assumed to be a stable or innate feature of reality, is in fact a constructed phenomenon — shaped, transmitted, and manipulated through language, cultural systems, economic structures, and ideology. Drawing on thinkers such as Wittgenstein, Lacan, Orwell, and contemporary cultural critics, the text unpacks how language limits thought, how culture recycles and fossilizes symbolic forms, and how capitalism turns meaning into a consumable commodity.
The work examines the dual nature of meaning-making: its capacity to liberate through creativity and reflection, and its equal potential to dominate, suppress, and normalize through repetition and authority. It shows how meaning is neither found nor given but manufactured — continuously and collectively — often under the guise of naturalness. Concepts like nationalism, morality, religion, love, and identity are treated as socially and historically embedded illusions that gain their power from repetition, myth, and narrative framing.
Rather than calling for the destruction of these illusions, the text advocates for philosophical lucidity: the ability to live within meaning while recognizing its constructed nature. The philosopher’s role becomes one of critical engagement — not to discard meaning, but to hold it consciously, to reshape it when necessary, and to refuse its most coercive forms. Ultimately, the text defends a form of freedom rooted not in escaping illusion, but in choosing one’s illusions with awareness, integrity, and care.