No Light, But Rather Darkness Visible: Language and the Politics of Criticism

Abstract

At a time in which most possibilities are unthinkable, and consequently few people want to think too much, there is a natural tendency to avoid engaging in serious criticism. Peter Gronn's review of my book, Schooling as a Ritual Performance, is a case in point. On this note, I find myself hesitant in responding to Peter Gronn's critique. It is especially difficult to respond in a reasoned and thoughtful manner to a reviewer who uses such terms as pretentious apocalyptic socio-babble. But at the risk of tearing open the seventh seal and revealing all, I shall attempt a short rejoinder. Faced with Gronn's unfortunate disregard for evidence, his fundamental disregard for the basic theoretical issues my text addresses, his vapid deployment of terms, his refusal to proffer any detailed examination of my understanding and use of ritual, and his conceptual and analytical naivete, it would be easy to dismiss Gronn's review as trivial and silly. Yet what appears as initially embarrassing within the trivial text can provide us with a textual and political space for questioning its position of intelligibility as it relates to larger social and political concerns. This is why the trivial text must sometimes be engaged: assumptions that inform it often reveal tacit, yet important structuring operations linked to larger ideological interests.