As Mrs. Herriton contemplates the fate and future of her wayward daughter-in-law, Lilia's baby born to the Italian Gino Carella in E. M. Forster'sWhere Angels Fear to Tread, she surmises reluctantly, “Let us admit frankly … that after all we may have responsibilities.” Without limiting ourselves to Forster's responses to and articulations of these “responsibilities,” the notion nonetheless of having such responsibilities usefully encapsulates some of the central issues at the heart of political criticism both in Forster's time and in our own. Who is the “we” with responsibilities and for whom or what is that “we” responsible? What exactly are these responsibilities? How local or global are they? How do they bring together the ethical and the political, the moral and the legal, duty and obligation, redress and hope for the future? How do the past, present, and future come together within this matrix of responsibilities? What kinds of political stances, posturings, or attitudes are in play? And what is the desired outcome or aim of political criticism? “We may have responsibilities”: in Forster, an equivocal or subjunctive “may” coupled with a frank admission and an expansive claim to amorphous “responsibilities” not only captures how open-ended and contradictory such assertions can be but also how tenuous their very ground always is. After all, Mrs. Herriton's sense of responsibility is highly disingenuous, the baby a pawn in her own power games.

中文翻译：

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当今维多利亚时代政治批评的利害关系

当赫里顿夫人思考她任性的儿媳的命运和未来时，莉莉娅的孩子是 EM Forster 的意大利人 Gino Carella 所生的。天使害怕踏足的地方，她不情愿地猜测，“让我们坦率地承认……毕竟我们可能有责任。” 在不局限于福斯特对这些“责任”的回应和表述的情况下，承担这些责任的概念有效地概括了福斯特时代和我们时代政治批评核心的一些核心问题。谁是负有责任的“我们”，“我们”对谁或什么负责？这些责任具体是什么？它们的本地化程度或全球性程度如何？它们如何将伦理与政治、道德与法律、责任与义务、补救与对未来的希望结合起来？过去、现在和未来如何在这个责任矩阵中融合在一起？什么样的政治立场，姿态，还是态度在起作用？政治批评的预期结果或目的是什么？“我们可能有责任”：在 Forster 中，模棱两可或虚拟的“可能”加上坦率的承认和对无定形“责任”的广泛主张，不仅捕捉到了这种断言的开放性和矛盾性，而且捕捉到它们的本质是多么脆弱地面总是。毕竟，赫里顿夫人的责任感非常虚伪，婴儿是她自己权力游戏中的棋子。