Critiques conducted within political discourse reinforce the system they claim to scrutinize

Evidence

Political discourse, to follow on George Orwell’s brilliant formulations, is the chemical formula that dissolves real complexity into myth; it is, itself, constituted as a barrier that suppresses causality, connections, modalities, dialectics, and much else, even intelligence. Samantha Power’s interrogation, like Said’s own political aspersion, is not only superfluous because a genealogy of genocide was not undertaken before critiquing US foreign policy on genocides; it also reinforces the very system that the critic purports to scrutinize. By keeping the critique within the chemical formula, the critic not only places herself within its transformative power, an act of self-subjectification; she also enhances its reproductive capabilities for perpetual myth creation. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 446

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the speech-act and performativity literature (Butler) plus the idea of critique being absorbed by its object, similar to Boltanski’s critique of critique. — connects to: Critics are implicated in the systems they condemn; The system neutralizes opposition by absorbing critique into indifference — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 539; The political facade’s illusion sustains the very individuals who criticise it. (+10 more)