Dionysus in chains: Nietzsche, nihilism, and the pursuit of emancipation

This article is a Nietzschean reflection upon the Critical theorisation of emancipation. It takes Raz Modirzadeh’s critique of TWAIL and Critical Legal Studies as its starting point. Condemning what she characterises as ‘critique-as-detachment’ and ‘critique-as-wellness’, Modirzadeh considers that Critical Legal Studies is frustrating any genuine emancipatory project for formerly colonised peoples. Taking up Modirzadeh’s gauntlet, and building upon it, the article reads the two styles of critique through, and alongside, Nietzsche’s philosophy of nihilism. It suggests that, in seeing the Critical theorisation of emancipation as fundamentally Nietzschean framed, we gain a greater appreciation of why certain strains of Critique are potentially leading to impoverished results. Looking to the future, the analysis can also help us to think through the usefulness of current paradigms of emancipation and how we might go about reframing them to confront Modirzadeh’s challenge.