Introduction

This introductory chapter sketches out some of the key characteristics of our contemporary culture of criticism. It argues that today’s obsession with criticality has debased the critical imperative, culminating in a post-political predicament whereat we seem to be incapable of imagining radical alternatives to our rapidly deteriorating situation. It outlines some of the main academic stances on our crisis of critique, demonstrating how they are underpinned by two fundamentally opposing critical directives. Positioning both our contemporary paradox of inconsequential criticism and its academic diagnoses as the starting point of the book, the chapter contends that the idea of critique carries a peculiar efficacy. It subsequently presents the book rationale, positioning at its core the investigation of the question of what is paradigmatically operationalised – in a sense of being established and made intelligible as a wider set of problems – by our current critical predicament. The chapter concludes with the description the book’s approach which includes a chapter-by-chapter outline.