Dirty Realism: Possibilities and Limits

Abstract

This article proposes to think possibilities and limits of dirty realism in its relation to cynicism. It is argued that cynicism is constitutive of dirty realism, and that, outside of its reduction to the impotent or passive attitude, cynism points to the existential practice that defies political closure at the same time demanding another relation to politics. By exploring cynism and dirty realism as a critique of the failure of the socialist project in Cuba during the 90s, the article takes into account the relation between value and body pointing to the fundamental relation between biopolitics and socialism. This article suggests the necessity of a critique of biopolitics and new thinking about the question of life. Finally, it concludes with the limits of dirty realism that coincides with the logic of biopolitics alluding to that which escapes its capture. For that reason, dirty realism and cynism are not only reactions to the present but also an opening to the future.

Keywords: dirty realism, cynicism, biopolitics, value, meaning