Page - 182 - in Siting Futurity - The “Feel Good” Tactical Radicalism of Contemporary Culture in and around Vienna

182 siting futurity this embryonic political potential is whether, in light of the de- velopment of new technologies and the ensuing bastardization of democratic principles, the Chinese middle classes, or for that matter the middle classes in the us and elsewhere, remain in a position to act like citizens and to reflect on, and act on, the prioritizing of any kind of greater good. What Hallstatt and its cloning encourage us to reflect on is how much has changed since America was a rising nation keen on establishing the hegemony of its dream, and how best to deal with the rise of China. In an interview with NPR, Chinese novel- ist Yan Lianke, who has been both celebrated but also had some of his works banned in China, elucidates the challenges in terms of simulacra: [B]asically in China’s reality today, the real is unreal. All of us who are living in China today basically exist in a kind of fan- tasy already — in a kind of elusive reality. Our everyday life is already filled with both a kind of fantasy of the future, a kind of denial of the present. We really don’t have a full grasp on what might be happening or what might not be happening to us in everyday life. So when I write my seemingly fantastical novels like Explosion Chronicles or The Day the Sun Died, I’m really trying to write a kind of reality that people are not fac- ing and people are not seeing, but in fact exists. (Lianke 2019) When asked about the state of anxiety he feels, he replied: Yes, I certainly feel a great deal [of] anxiety and unease and maybe perhaps even the sense of danger. I feel it day after day. But I wouldn’t say it’s based on any specific incident or set of reasons, and in that I’m not alone. I think people in China all feel this way. Intellectuals feel this way. But every- day life is a sense of constant anxiety, constant unease — you don’t know where the danger is coming from. The danger could be the curbing of free speech, but the danger could also be in poisoned or contaminated vegetables. It could be in a