Abstract

The triumph of neoliberalism globally signifies what one might term the poverty of (critical) theory, as does the phenomenon known as ‘post-theory’, with its cynical rejection of the claims of theory. Here I do not wish to retrace the steps of Adorno and Horkheimer in Dialectic of Enlightenment to remind ourselves of the fatal dialectical intertwinement of enlightenment with obfuscation and domination; rather, I wish to follow the trail suggested by critical motifs in the work of various thinkers to demonstrate the ‘poverty of (critical) theory’, that is, its incapacity to effect the crucial transition from theoretical insight in, and exposition of, the sources of alienation, oppression and ideological obfuscation, to emancipatory action. The work of Gil Germain on technology and consumerism highlights the extent to which contemporary humans’ world has been constructed as one ‘minus desire’, where all needs have supposedly been satisfied, and which tends to produce self-satisfied beings, incapable of ‘acting’ in accordance with the demands of freedom. With Kant's famous motto, ‘Sapere aude’, as a point of departure, Hardt and Negri’s corrective in terms of the need to act, and not only ‘think' critically, is pursued. This is followed by an elaboration on Arendt’s vita activa, to unpack what action amounts to, and whether the conditions for its enactment exist today. What becomes clear is that critical theory is incapable, by itself, of guaranteeing emancipatory action. By way of analogy, first the importance of (critical) ‘thinking’ according to Stiegler, and then that of distinguishing between theory and what Parker describes as potentially effecting a ‘revolution in subjectivity’ at the psychoanalytical clinic is emphasised; that is, the subject’s re-articulation of her or his relationship with power. The point is that this amounts to a ‘preparation’ for possible commensurate transformative action in social reality, and similarly, it is argued, ‘thinking’ as well as critical theory can merely prepare the subject for emancipatory action, which is something irreducibly different from theory. To illustrate the difference between critical theory and emancipatory action, a glimpse is afforded of instances of such action reported in the work of Foster and Klein, before demonstrating (with reference to Nietzsche) what is at stake to move from the level of the individual to that of the collective.

Highlights

  • The ‘dark’, or pessimistic writers of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, were not wrong, as Habermas believed, about the dim emancipatory prospects of industrialised society, which they famously sketched in Dialectic of Enlightenment of 1944/47 (2002)

  • In a nutshell: if Habermas (1987: 73-77) believed, as implied in his theory of ‘communicative action’ – which is always ‘action’ communicatively oriented towards agreement according to “criticizable validity claims” (1987: 184), and as will be seen below, not ‘action’ in the sense that I pursue in this paper – that it could save the day in the face of rampant ‘strategic action’, extant conditions suggest otherwise

  • To be able to regain the condition of ‘enlightenment’ – knowledge of the world we live in and the critical-reflective ability to act on such knowledge, so as to retain one’s rational sovereignty – what Stiegler (2015: location 348) calls the “rearming of thought” has to proceed via the theorising and “enlightened” practice regarding the digital technologies of today, and universities are failing in their duty to do this. He sums up this lamentable state of affairs as follows, connecting what I have summarised above with a broader economic and political field (2015: location 286): Western universities are in the grip of a deep malaise, and a number of them have found themselves, through some of their faculty [a reference to the economics professors in the US who were implicated in triggering the global financial crisis in 2008; BO], giving consent to – and sometimes considerably compromised by – the implementation of a financial system that, with the establishment of hyper-consumerist, drive-based and ‘addictogenic’ society, leads to economic and political ruin on a global scale

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Summary

Introduction

The ‘dark’, or pessimistic writers (in Habermas’s view) of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, were not wrong, as Habermas believed, about the dim emancipatory prospects of industrialised society, which they famously sketched in Dialectic of Enlightenment of 1944/47 (2002). Jon, by George Saunders, we encounter a ‘utopian’ microcosm of modern consumer society which is predicated on the possibility of satisfying human needs via technological control to the point where they are self-sufficient beings. Through the lens of the short story’s eponymous protagonist, Saunders supplies us with a picture of a closed universe whose end is the production of closed, unerotic, or self-satisfied beings It is my contention in the present paper that the set of social conditions described above, which comprises nothing less than a kind of (invisible) ‘totalitarian’ state of affairs, has been left to develop largely unhindered, despite critical theory being taught at many universities worldwide. The following section is an attempt to demonstrate that neoliberalism is the dominant social model

Hardt and Negri on the ‘common’ and the need to act critically
Action
The university
From theory and thinking to action
Psychoanalysis as preparation for action
From the individual subject to trans-individuation and the collective
Findings
Conclusion
Full Text
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