the irony of anti-capitalist works

i’ve always loved artists who critique capitalism while acknowledging the irony of their position. there's something refreshingly honest about it. like maurizio cattelan's "comedian," (that you all hated. kind of proved his point) it was sold for $120,000, and it became the perfect metaphor for the absurdity of the art market. the artist then ate the banana. here was this object critiquing commodification, itself highly commodified, then literally consumed. another great example: rf kuang’s babel.

it’s a novel that delivers a critique of oxford’s colonial legacy and academic elitism. written by someone that has literally been educated at prestigious institutions like oxford itself. the irony isn't lost on me, but nor do i think it's lost on kuang.

the novel follows robin swift, a chinese orphan brought to study at oxford's royal institute of translation, babel, where students harness the magic of "match-pairs" in different languages to power britain's imperial machine. but robin simultaneously benefits from the institution while becoming increasingly aware of its fundamental corruption.

it's impossible not to see parallels with kuang's own life.

i’ve often thought about how writers like kuang navigate these contradictions. there's something almost unavoidably hypocritical about using the cultural capital granted by elite institutions to critique those very institutions. but what's the alternative? should outsiders refuse these opportunities when offered, and surrendering these platforms entirely to those who won't question them?

the power of babel comes partly from kuang's intimate knowledge of these spaces. she understands the seduction of oxford and the intoxicating feeling of belonging in rarified intellectual circles. she can write about the pull of these institutions with authenticity precisely because she's experienced it. the critique lands harder because it comes from within.

i remember hearing kuang speak about this in an interview, how she was acutely aware that her career had been built in part through the very systems of privilege and exclusion that her work criticizes. but instead of pretending this isn't the case, she folds this awareness into her fiction. robin's ambivalence about babel, his simultaneous love for its beauty and knowledge, and his horror at its true purpose, can also rirectly reflects the author's own complicated relationship with these institutions.

kuang doesn't present herself as standing outside the system, throwing stones or throwing molotov cocktails into buildings or whatever. she acknowledges her position within it, which makes her critique more honest, not less. there's a recognition that we're all compromised in some way. that purity is impossible within systems so pervasive.

this is what makes babel more than just another campus novel. it's wrestling with questions about complicity that apply far beyond academia: how do we critique systems we benefit from? is it possible to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house? can meaningful resistance come from within?

i don't think there are easy answers to these questions. but i find works that acknowledge these tensions far more honest than those that pretend such complications don't exist.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ i think that the most interesting work happens where critique and complicity both coexist.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ they are not mutually exclusive.