Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 02:14:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: Stephen C Tumino <sctumino-AT-acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: M-TH: RED-NET: TEXT TWO 





The Revolutionary Marxist Collective

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RED NET TEXTS


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In the RED NET TEXTS, we start a series that will introduce issues we
think are at the moment missing from the net-left discussions: issues that
are part of any serious Marxist understanding of the social -- questions
of sexism, postcolonialism, homophobia... and we begin our series by
discussing the mode of our discourse: critique.  We make a distinction
between CRITIQUE and CRITICISM and argue for a materialist critique as a
mode of social analysis.  At the end of each set of texts we will hold a
CYBERFORUM for critique of our texts by all interested persons and the
writers of these texts will engage the critiques. Our first CYBERFORUM
will be on questions related to sexism and sexual harassment and will be
held after publication of Jennifer Cotter's text on "Sexual Harassment
as/and Invention".

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			 CRITIQUE AS RADICAL PRAXIS 

				BOB NOWLAN


	It is well-known that "being critical" is something of crucial and
indeed even central importance to what "radicals," and especially
Marxists, are all about.  After all, one of the most well-known quotations
>from Karl Marx is his call for "a ruthless criticism of all that exists."
Yet more often than not what this means and how it is (to be) done is
greatly misunderstood. 


	There are several reasons for this misunderstanding.  First, it is
not just radicals, and certainly not just Marxists, who prize "critical
thinking": in fact, all intellectual disciplines and all kinds of mental
labor require learning some form of "critical thinking," and, because of
this, workers in different fields of intellectual work will tend to
understand "radical criticism" in relation to the notion of what criticism
means that prevails in their field.  Second, "being critical" is just as
frequently a part of the "common sense" of everyday life, and in fact,
common sense teaches us as much and as often about what are "critical"
versus "non-critical" ways of thinking, acting, and interacting as does
any form of "technical sense";  therefore, "radical criticism" may also be
understood in relation to commonsensical notions of what criticism is and
does.  Third, and this is of key importance, it is often assumed, from the
vantage point of either common or "technical" senses, and also by many
radicals themselves, that the only difference in the way that radicals are
critical from the way in which everyone else is critical is that radicals
simply are more critical -- and also, more often, and of more things --
than non-radicals.


	"Radical" criticism which is understood, and, more importantly
than understood, practiced as simply more of the same kind of criticism as
that which prevails among those working "critically" from the vantage
point of non-radical common or technical senses is neither genuinely
radical, nor effectively crucial -- or central -- to radical praxis. 
Radical criticism is qualitatively different from non-radical criticism. 
This does not mean that radical criticism bears no resemblance to
non-radical criticism; on the contrary, radical criticism is a kind of
criticism which develops out of a critique of the limitations of
non-radical criticism, and this means that radical criticism is an attempt
to supersede the limitations of non-radical criticism -- in particular,
the limitations of non-radical criticism that make it difficult if not
impossible for this non-radical criticism either to imagine or to enable
radical social change.


	Radical criticism is criticism which aims to enable radical social
change:  change which strikes at the "root," at the "source," at the
"structural foundations" of the social "system," pushing change forward
towards transformation of the social totality rather than mere reformation
or even conservation of this existing system.  The ultimate aim of radical
criticism is to enable the emergence and development of a new social
system -- governed by a new essential logic -- to replace the existing
system.  To be radical in today's world, therefore, means, minimally, to
work towards the transformation and replacement of capitalism with a
social system that will enable the most radically progressive resolution
of the principal contradictions and thereby the most radically progressive
solution of the most egregious problems and the most radically progressive
supersession of the most egregious limitations of capitalism: and this
means the replacement of capitalism with socialism.  Radical criticism
must be criticism which is both first and last directed towards and
genuinely capable of making a significant and substantial contribution
towards this end. 


	Radical criticism, therefore, does not simply come to
(prospective) radicals "naturally"; it must be studied and learned.  A
merely cognitive study of radical criticism, however, is insufficient to
insure mastery: radical criticism must be learned by focussing,
developing, sharpening, and refining cognitive understanding in practice.
In fact, only when critique becomes a principal mode of radical praxis --
and in all areas of radical activity -- will the radical activist have
made effective use of the real potential of critique as radical praxis. 

 
	What I propose to do in this essay is briefly to provide an
introduction to critique as such a principal mode of radical praxis.  My
aim is to outline how to begin to go about this process.  Providing such
an outline involves a serious risk: the risk that this "general guide"
will be used as a kind of mechanical apparatus, when my purpose is merely
to enable a rudimentary understanding and to provide a provisional
framework from which to begin to engage in critique.  If this guide is
applied as a mechanical apparatus, the "critiques" that this guide enables
will tend towards an idealist (and perhaps more precisely, a rationalist)
abstractness rather than a materialist concreteness.


	I think it is worth taking this risk, however, because the risks
of not developing a more precise and rigorous understanding of what is
critique and of how to do it are worse.  Too often, supposedly "radical"
criticism is ineffective because it is unsystematic, undisciplined, and
deficient in precision and rigor.  When this is the case, "radical
criticism" tends towards a largely uncritical -- and also, as I shall
explain, an often anticritical -- mode of evaluation that is principally
dependent upon moral rather than political categories.  Use of these kinds
of categories tends to support criticism which (idealistically) reifies
its object: criticism which conceives of its object as an isolated and
disconnected, fixed and frozen thing rather than a complex of relations
and processes that is interdeterminately interconnected with many other
complexes of relations and processes within the context of a concrete real
totality.  For example, Dan Quayle is mocked as simply a "stupid" and --
"bigoted" -- man, rather than critiqued as a man who exercises significant
power (despite, or perhaps even because of his apparent stupidity) as a
representative of the interests of the capitalist class.  Likewise,
Quayle's attack on Murphy Brown is criticized as an example of his
"stupid" inability to distinguish "fact" from "fiction" rather than
contested for its reactionary political implications -- delegitimation of
women's struggle for liberation from enslavement within the patriarchal
family. 

 
	My point, however, is that critical praxis which refuses
methodological precision and rigor tends towards eclecticism, empiricism,
relativism, pragmatism, mysticism, dogmatism, and irrationalism.  Radical
criticism that exhibits strong tendencies in any one or more of these
directions will not be able to make an effective contribution to radical
social change. Nonetheless, it should be emphasized very clearly and
forcefully, right at the beginning, that A CRITIQUE IS NOT A MECHANICAL
EXERCISE, but rather an investigation which requires imagination and
creativity as well as rigor and precision. 


	Criticism is, of course, something we all do -- and at many
different times and in many different places.  Criticism also can take
many different forms:  we think, feel, read, write, speak, listen, act,
and interact critically. Criticism is, in fact, one of the most important
ways in which we engage in the world in which we live to make and re-make
this world.  What is criticism?  Very generally, to "criticize" is to
evaluate -- to judge -- something according to certain standards.
Commonsensically, critical judgement is often understood to be simply and
entirely negative as "to criticize" is most often understood as simply
involving finding fault with, or putting down someone or something, and
"criticism" is often understood as merely that which points out what is
"bad" or "wrong" about something.  Commonsensically, to criticize
capitalism, for example, would involve simply expressing the opinion that
"capitalism sucks."  A critique is a more useful mode of criticism.  A
critique does not simply point out that "capitalism sucks."  A critique
explains first, what is means by"capitalism" and by "sucks"; second, how
and why capitalism sucks; and third, what can be done to transform
capitalism so that the "suckiness" of capitalism is overcome.


	I prefer to call "commonsensical criticism" -- critical judgement which
offers no explanation for its judgement -- non-critical criticism.
 Non-critical criticism merely evinces an opinion -- usually negative --
rather than producing an argument for and from a position.  Simply to
declare that "capitalism sucks" is merely to express an opinion.  An
argument differs from an opinion in several ways.  First, an argument
explains its claim, and this involves the use of various means -- for
example, deductive and inductive reasoning and factual and counterfactual
evidence -- to support and substantiate the claim.  An argument in support
of the claim that "capitalism sucks" would involve explanation of the
logic of capitalist development supported by reference to actual history
and to real historical possibilities which demonstrate this logic at work. 
Second, an argument accounts for the terms and definitions it uses (it
explains why it uses the particular terms and definitions it does).  An
argument in support of the claim that "capitalism sucks" would explain
what it means by "capitalism" and, if it still wants to make a case for
the claim that capitalism "sucks," (and a rigorously theoretical argument
would, of course, tend to make use of much different -- much more
rigorously theoretical and far less colloquial and moralistically
reductive -- categories than "sucks"), then also for what it means by
"sucks."  Third, an argument accounts for the philosophical-ideological
assumptions and presuppositions which underlie its claim, the
philosophical-ideological vantage point or perspective from which these
assumptions and presuppositions are derived, and the social-political
(pre)conditions which make possible and which further enable the
articulation and defense of this claim, from this
philosophical-ideological vantage point, at the particular historical time
and place in which the argument is made. An argument that "capitalism
sucks" would want to explain that Marxism is the scientific study and the
revolutionary ideology of (the possibility of)  proletarian
self-emancipation, how this is so, and, in particular, what this means at
this concrete moment in the historically ongoing struggle to transform
capitalism into socialism.  Fourth, an argument accounts for the
philosophical-ideological and the social-political implications and
consequences of accepting and agreeing with the claim it makes: in other
words, an argument accounts for the philosophical-ideological and
social-political ends it advances and the philosophical-ideological and
social-political interests it serves.  An argument that "capitalism sucks" 
would want to suggest how revelation of what capitalism really is doing,
to whom and for whom, can provide at least something of the impetus for
organization and mobilization of radical resistance and opposition to the
interests of capital, and ultimately to the interest of capital in
maintaining and reproducing capitalism.  Fifth, and finally, an argument
accounts for the relations -- and especially any and all contradictions --
that connect -- and disconnect -- its assumptions and presuppositions, the
claim it makes, the explanation it provides in support and defense of this
claim, its selection and deployment of terms and definitions, and the
implications and consequences that follow from accepting and agreeing with
its claim.  An argument in support of the claim that "capitalism sucks"
would want to show how and why even the most progressive reform within
capitalism is enabled by discerning the true nature of capitalist
exploitation and alienation and developing a long-term strategic
perspective on what is and is not possible at this concrete historical
moment in the struggle to end and overcome these problems.



(Forthcoming: Part II of Critiique as Radical Praxis)



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