Theory Saves, But only Practice Pays Interest

Abstract

Theory Saves, But only Practice Pays Interest Peter Hitchcock (bio) Can theory save the world? To answer what is not wholly a rhetorical question one could rephrase an old saw to the effect that: theory saves, but only practice pays interest. For theory, the theory/practice binary is obviously problematic while its solutions have a tendency to favor the former over the latter (even in ancient Greek philosophy the arguments over epistêmê and technê hardly resolve the dichotomy yet provide a base if not a form for contemporary debate). There is a long tradition in theory in which conceptual metaphors do the work of sublating the divide and the poetics of praxis shake crisis to its core. This does not blunt in any way the radical import of, for instance, theoretical practice, waywardness, intimacy, blur, and occasionally common or garden deconstruction, and neither does it undo the power of intersectional assemblages, co-constitutive subject articulation, and the dissidence of disidentification. The scene of theory is so bound to practice that terminological exuberance itself is no more than agential will, one where confronting inequality and injustice can hardly be faulted for an expression of force in the idea. I find so much theory of this kind inspiring I come close to producing another suspect indulgence, eclecticism, so here I hope that in this brief note I can suggest a political genealogy around the initial question that, even if it does not fully embrace logical consistency (which would be the third sin in this opening précis) it might nevertheless offer a challenge for further deliberation. Without recounting all of the reasons we need theory, one could start with the position that theory offers a basic abstraction on the Real in the service of transforming reality. This could mean confronting capitalism, colonialism, racism, sexism and socio-economic hierarchies and discrimination of every stripe by beginning with aesthetics as itself a challenge. The invocation of the aesthetic seems at once out of joint, as if the cultural conditions of expression do not inflect, or are not inflected by the contradictions of socialization as such. Still, the extravagance of artistic practice is often limned to the luxury of theoretical articulation with both becoming a blot on the apprehension of real struggle. Much of the production of radical theory in our field seeks to save the world from such misconstrual. Yet, because this act is socially [End Page 543] and historically determined, one must also acknowledge that in this conjuncture, one marked by the crisis and dissolution of the Humanities in higher education as a viable arena of disputation, theoretical production can seem like arch and desperate pleading, or else demonstrate that the art of fiddling did not end with Nero's calculated obliviousness. The implications of the state of the humanities, or more accurately humanities and the state, mediate the very texture of theory today. There is a responsibility to theory and theorization now that defies the heyday of high theory when, for instance, significance was often reduced to strenuous delight in signification, a practice so precious that no etymological stone was left unturned. We cannot not continue this turning; indeed, cultural theorists are wont to announce new turns at every turn (the affective turn, the ontological turn, the ecological turn, etc.), all of which necessitate neological nuance and terminological titration. Yet responsibility to the present, if not to presence, presages theory highly sensitive to its place in meaningful discussion and disputation. Few would say cultural theory saves the world, but much of it provides succor and salience before the crises of the hour. Theory should be a luxury, a communal luxury, to borrow from the artists' declarations of the Paris Commune and Kristen Ross' more recent and related use of the term; but the state, fiscal, and institutional exigencies of the Humanities today urge something akin to practical reason, primed of course with anti-bodies unapologetically hostile to Kant. I cannot with good conscience implore my graduate students in literary study to focus on a feast of exquisitely phrased and virtue-laden samples of theory if these are not pinned to or imbricated with the outlook of the profession as a whole...