Concluding Remarks

Abstract

This is a ripe moment for the radical work of critical theory. Even eyes usually blind to the horrors of the present cannot remain closed before mass shootings and massacred children. Even those who usually feel nothing but contempt or indifference for the other must feel something when confronted with the image of a Syrian parent clutching what remains of a toddler in his arms; that is, at least, if something of their humanity remains. The prickly voice of conscience, even if we stop our ears like Odysseus did, makes it hard to forget that we live in a world where the spirit of the concentration camp is alive and well, where starving North Koreans are reported to eat their own children, and where Chinese workers are made to live in conditions so appalling that suicide prevention nets must be hung between every building and within every stairwell. Cracks are manifest in the smooth ideological functionalism of hegemony, and social movements like Occupy Wall Street are already attempting to operate in these interstices. Critical theory should be shouting from the rooftops: It does not need to be this way, as we have the potential to transcend both this mode of living and who we presently are.