Legitimation becomes an object of study only when questioned

Evidence

But as the term crisis in Habermas’s title, as well as the prefix post in that of Lyotard, reminds us, legitimation becomes visible as a problem and an object of study only at the point in which it is called into question. — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 30

Categorization

• DEFINE: The key presupposition — legitimation is only visible in crisis — that frames Lyotard’s whole inquiry.
• XREF: connects to: Religious legitimation of policy is usually studied only as social-sphere activism. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 87