The Importance of Engaging the State

Abstract

The way we envisage social criticism has very important consequences for radical politics. Radical politics today is often characterised in terms of desertion, exodus and refusal to engage with existing institutions. Whereas I believe that radical politics should instead be concerned with building political engagement, through developing competing, antagonistic political claims. My aim here is to highlight the main differences between these two characterisations. The first could roughly be described as 'critique as withdrawal'; the second as 'critique as engagement'. I will argue that, ultimately, the problem with the form of radical politics advocated by 'critique as withdrawal' is that it has a flawed understanding of the very nature of 'the political' itself.KeywordsSocial CriticismRadical PoliticsCivil DisobediencePolitical EngagementSocialist StrategyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.