Critical Theory and the New Political Constellation

Contemporary political dynamics pose a major challenge to the project of a critical theory of society. Critical theory's defining principle of formulating a critique that delineates objective and subjective possibilities for overcoming domination would seem to be contradicted by major political tendencies of recent times: the renewal of authoritarian political movements, the recourse to war and military interventions, violence towards minorities, state repression of dissent, the degrading of institutions that had served to constrain arbitrary power, the expanded asymmetries in wealth distribution, and new mechanisms of digital control. One could define these tendencies as a shift from a (to borrow from Castoriadis) liberal oligarchic regime to a more repressive politics of tyranny, with even less of a basis in the rationality of legitimating justifications and more of a consolidation of coercive power. While it may be possible to claim that the normative standpoint of critical theory is opposed to these developments, this position is insufficient because the social grounding of the normative has been hollowed out and this is itself one of the facilitating conditions of these developments. Given these problematic tendencies, this session asks how critical social theory should address the questions of political conflict and its violent manifestations. Does contemporary critical theory contain the conceptual resources necessary for theorizing modern political tyranny and violence? If not, which other traditions might be drawn into new syntheses — e.g., anti- and post-colonial thought, politically engaged strands of Marxism, legacies of non-violent resistance, or the early Frankfurt School studies of authoritarianism?