This volume offers a comprehensive study of both the personal and political ways in which uncomfortable realities are avoided and evaded. It ranges from clinical states of depression, to media images of suffering, to explanations of the "passive bystander".
In the late 20th century many writers and activists envisioned new possibilities of transnational cooperation toward peace and global justice. Iris Marion Young aims to revive such hopes by responding clearly to what are seen as the global challenges of the modern day, including the war against Iraq and the conflict in Palestine/Israel.
With the advent of liquid modernity, the society of producers is transformed into a society of consumers. In this new consumer society, individuals become simultaneously the promoters of commodities and the commodities they promote. They are, at one and the same time, the merchandise and the marketer, the goods and the travelling salespeople.