Intervention as Radical Struggle
In sum, it seems clear that radical struggle is the order of the day. Intervention, if it is to have concrete meaning or be relevant at all, seeks human happiness, tranquility, liberation - like art that is worth its name, in Marcuse's formulation. Undoubtedly, the threats aligned against the realization of these ends are considerable; Hegel was largely correct to identify history as a slaughterbench that sacrifices the happiness of humanity to hegemony. We can clearly see such analysis confirmed throughout the calamitous world today: Think of the recent Tazreen and Rana Square disasters in Bangladesh, or the 2011 Somali famine.
However, it is also clear that humanity is capable of far more affirming projects than those that hold power today. Dialectical thought, and the praxis that may follow from it, can serve to overturn negation.