Two Sociologies of Critique, One (and the Same) Critique: Introductory Remarks

8Ultimately, we cannot enter into the space of the debate between these two programs without rethinking it, in the sense that their polarity, which is the basis of a surprisingly obstinate division of labor, conceals the convergent conception of “critique” (that is, “great critique”) that underlies it.

Emancipated and Emancipatory Critique, or the Revolutionary Amalgam

18The most ordinary or lay critique appears almost everywhere in the work of Bourdieu; never, however, as a critique—a true critique, that is—but first and foremost as “agreement in disagreement”. [16]

19On numerous occasions Bourdieu describes with great subtlety what we have summarized in broad brushstrokes: actors coming into conflict because they endow the same thing with different meanings, depending upon the positions to which they aspire or which they currently occupy in social space. [17] But this “praxeological knowledge” fails to fully deliver on its promises as far as critical practices are concerned, because Bourdieu sees these critiques, which, according to him, “risk [...] never discussing what is essential”, or which (even more debatably) he assumes to “agree on the essential”, as “fictitious or formal [...] oppositions”. [18]

20This disqualification is all the more regrettable in that he demonstrates how a critique must necessarily take on its world’s established schemes of perception and, more generally, the benefits of “falling into line with rules”. [19] There are therefore good reasons to think that, if a critique demonstrates the force of the instituted in this way (which after all is what Bourdieu is interested in), that alone does not necessarily make it a weak critique—still less the opposite of a critique.

21This applies even if we see it not only as a reflection of its being “the only game in town”, but also as a reflection of the actor’s profound belief in the values of the game in question. We may accept that “the heretic remains a believer who preaches a return to purer forms of the faith” [20]—but we cannot deduce from this that, just because he is a believer or behaves like a believer, he poses no threat to representatives of the Church or representations of faith. To put it crudely, if churches have tended to burn their heretics rather than their miscreants, this is likely because they felt more threatened, and above all more directly addressed by the former than by the latter. If it makes sense to speak of it in such terms, this “disagreement in agreement”, remains a disagreement nonetheless.

22And if Bourdieu is so reluctant to concede that it is authentically critical, this is because critique, real critique, deep critique, is that which turns the tables and/or breaks the cycle of reproduction. Hence its rarity and the fact that, in this sociology, it is confined to critical states alone. It takes place only within a “cleft habitus”, [21] as if only a cleft habitus could produce division; or in “impossible” situations, [22] as if the actor must necessarily hail from an “exotic world” in order to be capable of critiquing the world in which he is integrated or, more exactly, in which he would, from that point on, no longer be integrated. [23] Above all, beyond being a mere personal crisis, this critique is essentially understood as both the index and the accelerator of a general crisis, the only one which can dislodge the ordinary complicity that unites mental structures with social structures. It is a “critical moment”, then, in which “subversive discourse” must contend with the “resistance of orthodoxy”. [24]

23On first glance, the “sociology of critique” seems to follow a different path. In the first stage of the model, characterized by its interest in the ideational—stabilized—conventions that actors make use of to bolster their “ordinary sense of justice”, [25] bringing down the established order is not a criterion for authentic critique. But then this may be because (to exaggerate the case a little) everything that is constraining in the social world has so to speak disappeared. [26] In other words, whether the possibility of critique is considered to be hindered by the alignment of mental representations with the reduced set of possibilities allowed by a social system, or whether it is supposed to be “always open” because of the latitude offered by the coexistence of different ideational systems, [27] in any case we are talking about the same, emancipated and emancipatory, critique. Apart from its enlightening nature, it is this acceptation of critique that is found in one of the main foundational arguments of sociology of critique:

24

If people lived in a world that is accepted as self-evident, if they were worked and dominated by forces without knowing it, then it would be difficult to understand either the eminently problematic character of the social environment, as revealed by the permanent concern for justice, or the very possibility of questioning and critique. [28]

25Indeed, nothing prevents us from thinking that, for example, actors might be “worked by superior forces” yet might also be critical—at least, nothing apart from the conception of critique invoked here. And this is why critical sociology, when it pays attention to domination, pays no attention to critique; and why sociology of critique, when it pays attention to critique, believes it needn’t pay any attention to domination.

26This also explains why, having reintegrated this theme long abandoned by standard sociology, sociology of critique only continues, in the end, to oppose domination to critique. [29] Even Michel Foucault, despite being a fine thinker of the “double” dynamic of “subjectivation” or rather of its totality (i.e. becoming-subject and being subjected) and sensitive to the affinity between critique and power, does not manage to fully get beyond this representation. [30] We can see how he hesitates, defining critique as “the art of not being governed”, “the art of not being governed like that and at that cost”, and then “the art of not being governed quite so much” or “not wanting to be governed”. [31] Also because he has in mind the Kantian model of critique, and his “What is Critique?” could just as well have been called, as it often is, “What is Aufklärung?” [32] And, more broadly speaking, because this approach to critique is so conventional that it persists even in this (other) non-conventional philosopher. As it does in this second pragmatic sociology, where critique rises up once more, “confronting the institutions”, remaining “the only bulwark against [...] domination”. [33] Along the same lines, on the rare occasions when the spotlight is turned on critical institutions—those which govern themselves by way of critique or are responsible for critical missions [34]—it is essentially to point out the limited nature of their critique or to insist upon the way in which they “digest” critique—forgetting that (to follow this unfortunate metaphor) far from being evacuated in this movement, it is being assimilated.

27For we must also keep in mind that, within this imaginary, critique is radical and nothing but; and not only liberatory but effective. This means that the difficulty in accepting that non-emancipatory critiques may deserve the name of critique is compounded by a difficulty in accepting—and this is not quite the same thing—that ineffective critiques are still critiques, just ineffective ones. From this point of view, a critique that does not silence violence is a critique that “violence will silence”, making it disappear even when it still exists. [35]

The Alignment of Critique with the Model of Class Struggle

28The Marxian and indeed Marxist acceptation of critique as a “struggle against the [...] status quo” that aims not to “refute” but to “destroy” its enemy, and “no passion of the brain” but “the brain of passion”, [36] is liable to tell us more about the (intellectual) revolutionary ideal than about concrete social critiques whether great or small. Boltanski’s proposed synthesis of critical sociology and sociology of critique in the significantly named On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation is a good summary of these distortions.

29In its own way—more attentive to the ideational structuring of discourses than to the social structuring of representations—the picture it paints is regrettable for the same reason as Bourdieu’s outline: because it (dis)qualifies critique on the basis of the presence within it of a supposedly liberatory revolutionary or subversive index. This revolutionary index is itself sought in three criteria, which we will distinguish here, but which, within this perspective, are not separated. Critique is only real critique if (1) it is displaced as much as possible from the existing order, (2) it operates from the bottom to the top of the social scale, (3) it is supported by a theory of practice, or at least some exegetical initiative that seeks to relate action to a rule. Not only are these criteria cumulative (although empirically speaking they all pull in opposite directions), but also each of them reveals serious biases in method. For this classificatory operation amounts to discriminating what can be called critical from what cannot on the basis of (1) its content and/or results (there is a continual confusion between the two) (2) its social factors and/or its authors (again conflated) and whether they are more or less sympathetic to the sociologist; and (3) its forms, depending on whether they are more or less convincing, again from the sociologist’s point of view.

The Weakness of the Radical/Reformist “Hit Parade” Versus the Call to Order

30A first symptom of this obstinate reference to the revolution is that it suggests that the more it is distanced from the “institution”, the stronger a critique will be—and indeed the more noble it will be, in so far as the distinction between the contents of critiques coincides with a sort of scale of critical dignity. At the top of this scale, we find the critique that goes the furthest, as far as it can go, even, when the “work of liberation” begins: this is the “radical” critique functioning by means of an “existential test” (i.e. critique in the name of another system of tests). [37] In the middle, we have critique that does not go all the way and remains incomplete: the “reformist” critique operating via the “reality test” (i.e. denunciation of the impurity of the framework of the existing test). [38] At the bottom of the scale, or rather entirely outside it, we find non-critique and, even more so, the critical obstacle: the call to order, significantly described as “confirmation”, which is what is at play in “truth tests” (i.e. reminding us that whatever was, must be). [39]

31Although On Critique instigates the normalization of critical activity, “reformist critique” is nevertheless considered as critique here (and no longer as “fictitious”). But aside from this labeling, its separation from “radical” critique remains fragile—and problematic. The implication seems to be that any critique that is radical in its claims is necessarily radical in its effects. [40] Does it make sense to consider the most marginal critique (or perhaps a critique by the most marginal actors—the point remains unresolved) as not only the most central but also the most effective? This is to forget that the most subversive discourses and actors by no means have the monopoly on strong critique with a fundamental purchase. Witness the icy silence that sometimes greets the radicalism of these “uncompromising types”, and the fact that, often for pragmatic and sometimes for moral reasons, they are frequently enjoined to be more “diplomatic”.

32From this point of view, actors are more realist, sociologically speaking, than social scientists who tend to posit the equivalency strong critique = effective critique = emancipation. What is more, as Walzer insightfully notes, the most radical and most external critique is probably the one most likely to end up relying on coercion—even more so if its critique has to be effective. [41] We therefore find ourselves far from an emancipatory critique, assuming that an effective critique may not have been simply one that leads to the manifestation of forms of obedience. This is one of the many reasons why we have suggested that the constituent elements of conventional critique, once they are no longer thought of as a given whole, ultimately add up rather badly.

33As we have now begun to suspect, if the dichotomy between the “call to order” and “critique” may seem entirely self-evident, it is a dualism paralyzing to a full understanding of critical practices. First of all, even if we wish to keep in view both sociology of critique and emancipation (which would imply that we do not regard them as synonymous), we should not consider the call to order to be intrinsically alienating. It all depends on what order—and, as always, for whom. Above all, we cannot help but observe that this activity of “confirmation”—confirming [confirmer] what has been and must be—often goes by way of an activity that invalidates [infirmer], and thus critiques, that which should not have been. By applying nothing more than a principle of symmetry, [42] we also obtain the wherewithal to add some significant nuances to the idea that “[t]he main orientation” of the call to order is “to prevent critique” (the implication being, true critique). [43] Rather than subscribing to this proposition, we instead want to open up an opportunity to see that the call to order is one possible orientation of critique and, on occasion, one of the factors in the escalation of that critique among others, the most subversive one. And although the call to order can oppose itself to the critique of order, one cannot deduce from this, as Boltanski suggests, that it is the opposite of a critique. [44] In a pinch, provided that critique is placed on both sides, it would be better to stick with the orthodoxy-heterodoxy couple, which is less saturated with normativity.

34As to the last, and principal, argument justifying this division between call to order and critique by a difference in critical substrate, it is hardly convincing. It runs as follows: the call to order is pronounced in the name of, or even in favor of, reality as it is, whereas the critique of order is pronounced against reality as it is, in the name of and for ideals that are not yet real. [45] Never far away, testifying to a certain propensity to deduce the cause of the practice from its words alone, the call to order would be the pure product of reality, the critique of order the pure product of pure ideals. Consequently, Boltanski gives free rein to a representation against which Bourdieu had already battled, with limited success, when he moved from the marginality of heretical discourse to its disconcerting “novelty”. [46] In short, the call to order would still be attached to the viscosity of the world it defends, whereas the critique of order would be detached from the world against which it fights and, for that reason, would alone have a critical status. There may be differences, sometimes empirically subtle ones, between the critique of transgression and the most transgressive critique. But both of them, without ceasing to anchor themselves in reality as it is, do indeed invoke reality as it should be. Both have a social support and normative references—not necessarily the same ones—to which they are consubstantially linked. [47]

35From this point of view and above all, rather than opposing critique to the call to order, it would no doubt be wiser to consider critique as a kind of call to order—and then try to identify precisely what kind. This would allow us to better understand its social mainsprings; that is to say, it would help us to avoid locating the explanation of critique in forms of exteriority to the societal order, as if it were a matter of an “asocial” practice or of “desocialized individuals”. [48] And, rather than judging for them, it would help us to find out what actors themselves consider to be a true critique.

The Return of the Polarity: Social Rootedness Versus Ideal Detachment

49Finally, the last trace of this revolutionary amalgam is to be found in the abandonment of “critique” in the sense of “socially rooted, contextual forms of criticism” in favor exclusively of “metacritique”: the critique that consists in convoking.. . rules. [64] Are we to believe that this “metacritique” is not “socially rooted”? And that a “socially rooted” critique cannot be emancipatory? Although Boltanski rapidly passes over this distinction, it is reiterated when he locates critique not in “practical moments” but in “metapragmatic registers”, all of which are critical apart from the call to order. Exaggerating the functionalist zest of Bourdieu’s sociology by imbuing it with a scholastic bias, this classification raises three series of difficulties.

50Firstly, critique, detached from “practical moments” governed by the “taken for granted”, is only critical on condition that it breaks with the order of practice. [65] Like reflexivity in critical sociology, critique is what happens when the “automatisms have broken down”—and is only this. [66] If we were to keep to this conventional acceptation, we would necessarily end up disregarding “resident critics [critiques de service]” [67] and dismissing from the field of critique all those critiques characterized by their strong routinization and/or weak explanations. [68]

51Secondly, located in “metapragmatic” moments, (true) critique consists in convoking rules: in showing how rules have been abused but deserve to be retained (“reformist critique”), or how they should be abandoned for new and better rules (“radical critique”). In view of our earlier discussion of the exegetical capacities of certain dominant—in particular those most inclined to forms of interpretative virtuosity—this makes it even less tenable to exclude elite critiques.

52Above all, this perspective does away with all critiques that function on some other basis and take forms other than that of a test of coherence, one of its most legitimate forms within the intellectual milieu. It forgets that the expression of disagreement, even when radical, does not always and everywhere reside in an operation that consists in identifying or demonstrating a contradiction between practices and rules. [69] More exactly, in disregarding vague critiques—which are deemed insufficiently robust—this acceptation not only prevents us from considering them, but also from gauging the critical efficacy of the vagueness. [70] Here we are thinking, on one hand, of suggestive critiques, ironic gestures, jokes, puns, quips and other forms of wordplay that are capable of getting an amused audience on side, leaving them to come back to the chain of argument at their own convenience. Thus the mischievous little hand that signaled the shaky future of a commercialized French post office by altering its sign from “banque postale [post office]” to “poste bancale [wobbly post]” has a real critical depth, noticeably different but no less corrosive than the more conventional mode of explicit argumentation on the incompatibility between commercial logic and the exigencies of public services. Similarly, the fake report on satirical news website Gorafi revealing the “discovery of an endless queue”, again at the post office, has a comico-critical power sufficient in itself to signify a dysfunctioning in the institution. On the other hand, we are thinking above all of critiques that invoke, at the same time, contradictory practices, discourses, views and/or rules—such as the “lay” critiques of politicians as “all rotten, but not all bad”, or professional political critiques that mix up the most diametrically opposed registers, references, and/or symbols. [71] Now, against a conception of (true) critique delivered as an ideational pure solution, [72] it is possible that, far from short-circuiting and rendering themselves inaudible by not being more precise as to their aims and better organized in their articulation, these ambivalent critiques, precisely because of the operational misunderstandings they favor, may be propagated by the most heterogeneous actors.

53Finally, this conventional acceptation makes it impossible for itself to completely understand the only critique that really matters to it: exegetical critique. Because it prevents itself from seeing that this critical reflexivity, whatever position it may espouse, does not, as if by its very essence, escape the domain of the reflex. [73] As Wilfried Lignier summarizes, on the subject of the teacher who with his colleagues takes up “his usual accusatory tone”, it misses the “practical character of practical distancing” and the critiques that, even when they convoke rules, are “taken for granted”. [74] One must therefore go beyond this narrow focus so as to take the opportunity to consider whether critique—even the most “radical” critique, the “adoption of a standpoint situated apart from reality”, this “thought experiment” that may assume “a fictional character” [75]—might be above all a sensible and practical—in a word, real—experience.

54Further still, in positing the equivalence critique = removal from practice = ideational detachment, this narrow focus proves heavy with consequences as far as analysis is concerned. For it amounts to postulating—to sum it up in a phrase of Gaston Bachelard’s familiar to the reader of Bourdieu—that “[t]he world in which we think is not the world in which we live”. [76] Which means that, when asked which world we can think in, if not the one in which we live, sociology is condemned to answer: in an other world that offers an ideational alternative. [77]

55And here it becomes entirely clear: if critique must be radical in its content and its effects, if it must be driven by the great social divides, prosecuted by the dominated against the dominant, if it must explode contradictions and relate itself to something like a theory of practice which alone can gauge the injustice of reality, if it must be all of this at once or else not be critique, it is because it is being thought on the exact model of the Marxist revolution.

Critique as Theoretical Generalization: The Forgetting of Local Critique

57We will now concentrate more on sociology of critique because, as opposed to critical sociology’s tendency to consider indigenous theories as an obstacle to the analysis of practice, [78] the pragmatic program considers them to be a legitimate object for the analysis of practice, but also—via a succession of slippages—sees them as inseparable from a legitimate or effective critique, and ultimately from critique tout court. For it envisages critique principally, or even exclusively, as a mobilization of great, systematized (and, what is more, coherent) moral theories. Now, assuming that these theories, these “cities” or “grammars”, are indeed those of actors, it is as reductive as it is normative—in a word, it is scholastic—to count as critiques only those vast argumentative elaborations that lay out the framework of their principles. For not only does this reduce critique that rises in generality to critique that rises in ideality, [79] but any critique that does not follow the path of rising in generality through ideality will find itself dismissed from the field of studied criticism.

58In these studies, the local, as opposed to the globality of “principles” (and to the elsewhere of “worlds”) is deemed incapable of supporting critique. For example, the proposal whereby the “return toward the circumstances demands efforts to suspend the question of justice”, [80] misses the possibility that this return could be a way of making the question of justice heard for actors who do not have the capacity and/or desire to theorize their grievances. Is it so difficult to understand that the reference to singular circumstances, or “relativization”, might be a way of engaging in critique by signifying what is important here and now, rather than a way “of escap[ing] from a clash” by agreeing that “nothing matters”? [81] Saturated with both critique and details, humanitarian Sitreps (Situation Reports), military “after action reviews”, and other methods of detailed (self) evaluation remind us that, although it may not be the “all” of a principle, the local is not “nothing”.

59When it does not exclude them, this conception of critique can lead to an understanding of even the most theory-averse critiques as full operations of critical theorization. Above all it leads us to consider that critiques devoid of all theory are equipped, in the last instance, with a theory of practice deemed to be present in so many “atom-words”, to use Nicolas Dodier’s term. [82] All in all, the focus here amounts to considering that critiques must indeed have, somewhere in mind, and in the best case on their lips, a theory of practice that can be unearthed with some extra reflective effort—the effort that is made by the sociologist in clarifying this rather unusual sense of justice. [83] Note that the double sense of the word “grammar”, designating both the immanent rules of discourse and, in the most persistent signification, the discipline of language, offers a particularly welcoming cradle for this imaginary of critique. [84]

60Along the same lines, when local critiques have not been understood as pertaining to principle (at the price of considerable distortions, since the absence of principle continues to be considered as a “flight from justification”) [85] these critiques, deemed “fragmentary” (with “fragmentation” once again meaning an absence of mass movement, theoretical this time), “fugitive” or, essentially, emotive, have been considered at best as “testimonies”. Or even as the index of a “crisis of critique”, [86] although they are one of the most common and most significant forms of critique. Because, in this optic, (true) critique must be a critique of society at large and of power in particular, and one that rivals its target in scale.

61However, even if one is only interested in this social critique—and if so it would be helpful to explicitly say so [87]—the privileging of the most theoretically sophisticated critiques is hardly defensible. First of all, a critique of society can perfectly well be patchy, approximate, or sentimental (for lack of words with fewer negative connotations!)—in short, as distant as possible from being a theory—without this authorizing us to consider it as non-existent. [88]

62Further, there is nothing (apart from a tenacious intellectualism, once again) to dictate that a social critique must be totalizing and/or explicit in order to be, by virtue of this very fact, effective. While amalgamating critique into the figure of the Marxist revolution, this understanding of criticism neglects one of Karl Marx’s principal contributions to sociology, namely the idea that “[t]he weapon of criticism certainly cannot replace the criticism of weapons” with weapons, whatever they might be. [89] It is probably always difficult for us to acknowledge that the dynamics of revolutions often have no significant relation whatsoever to a theory of social justice. Far from being an affair of a “[w]hole [that] is poorly distributed”, [90] these great upheavals operate via little pornographic libels and other miniscule banter exchanged illicitly or in close-knit communities, [91] and are “also, and perhaps especially, the results of problems with overcrowded housing and taps running dry”. [92] This is what leaves us thinking that “small” critique is not necessarily “small” in its consequences, and “great” critique not necessarily any better armed.

The Critique of Common Sense in Defiance of Common-Sense Critique

63The scope of critique, already reduced to theorized critiques alone, is reduced yet further if they have to be thought on the model of a sociological competence.

64Following Bourdieu, to consider profane critical theories as the production of a “point of view [...] that is no longer that of action, without being that of science” has the advantage of reminding us that we cannot expect the actor to be his own sociologist.  [93] But it has the unfortunate consequence of placing the accent on what is missing from these critical theories, rather than addressing what they are made up of: namely, a practical logic (even if it does not yield a precise reflection on the practice it rationalizes) sometimes rich in fragments of sociological knowledge. This last angle is therefore the most appropriate from which to study the hybrid knowledge mobilized in these enterprises of normative rationalization, [94] without reducing them to a “form of lacunary [...] consciousness” [95]—which would still be a way of comparing them to a pure and whole sociological knowledge.

65But in countering this sometimes too rigid conception of the epistemological break, one must not bend the stick too far in the other direction by considering that ordinary critiques are “similar in every way” to the denunciations of injustice contained in “critical sociology”. [96] Rather than being the exact opposite of the sociologist afraid of constructing the actor in his own image, indigenous critique tends to be understood—on terrains amenable to it—as his almost perfect double, validating the conviction that the researcher need do no more than clarify what he says of himself and of the world. [97] If it is a matter of attributing this faculty to him and no longer depriving him of it, here we find the same tendency to consider critique as sociologically equipped or, since this is not always enough, as philosophically equipped.

66On this point, we can well accept that one of the ordinary topics of denunciation consists in relating (for the purposes of critique) position-taking to social positions, as happens (for the purposes of knowledge) in “standard sociology”. But it would be unfortunate to envisage this reduction to smallness (“of course, it’s X’s son who got promoted”) as a tacit reference to some great theory of justice when, far more prosaically, it simply signals a practical comprehension of situational logics.

67Above all, the critique in question here, far from being generic, is of a very particular genre. Since the “exercise of superior forces upon actors” no longer takes place “without their knowing it”, it is conscious, and even critical, of its determinations. [98] Yet critical reflection does not suppose knowledge of the effective driving force of their practice on the part of actors, although we may observe that they are not always ignorant of them.

68If we have dwelt on the way in which the precepts of both of these opposed methods harbor an acceptation of critique as conscious of the objective functioning of the social world, it is because all this amounts to is a professional (in this case, sociological) declension of an imaginary—the Enlightenment imaginary—that can only conceive of critique as lucid (and as intellectual, but from this conventional perspective these are more or less two words for the same thing). Critique (true critique) is an affair of Reason, but also of good reasons. It is a critique of common sense, not a common-sense critique. It is a critique of prejudices, not a critique based on prejudice. Significantly, it is the Dreyfus affair that, in France, is deemed to have precipitated the emergence of the “critical intellectual” and is taken not only to symbolize a critical ideal, but also to symbolize what critique should be in the name of ideals. As if the critical intellectual, in the literal sense of the term, must necessarily espouse the stance of tolerance. [99] The exact historical dating may be the subject of fierce debate (Plato? Voltaire? Zola?), but today it seems unthinkable to separate “intellectual” from “critical”, and it is accepted as a given that these two figures of dissent emerge together in a “public space” that supposedly constructs itself on the basis of frictions, but especially against the power of the state, the blind faith of religion, and the obscurantism of tradition. [100] Another index of the force of this representation is that we find it again in the strategies of “democracy building” that privilege the “empowerment” of “civil society” through support of its community “leaders”, that is to say the non-governmental lay intelligentsia. This perspective, blind to other no less concrete paths of democratization, is also fuelled by the silent conviction that the people, enlightened by a superior brain, will begin to think (well), to critique (well), that is to say to critique for the good (that of the greatest number), ensuring the happy passage from “the critical intellectual to intellectual critique”. [101] Behind this, in more or less nuanced forms, we find a whole representation of critique as an intellectual enterprise that must help the dominated to outgrow their “immaturity”, and which is liable to forget that “courage” is not just a matter of “understanding”. [102] For it seems to be a given—to believe otherwise would, for an intellectual, be too wretched—that if up until now men have not revolted against oppression, it is because they do not know how to think, since one can only think well. This is demonstrated in striking manner by Isabelle Delpla when she destabilizes the thesis of the “banality of evil” popularized by Hannah Arendt on the basis of the (deceptive) case of Adolf Eichmann: if evil “does not think, then thinking is saved”. [103] Better yet, thinking can save, especially when, as if to definitively do away with evil (the Frankfurt School’s thoughtlessness), it is “critical thinking”.  [104] We therefore have to call on the surrealist force of Ylipe to convince ourselves that, just as “even stupid people think” [105] even the most unpleasant critiques can sometimes be very carefully considered, and may prove resistant to the temptation to consign them to the wastebasket of acritical practices.

Critique as Objective Rather Than Object

69We now understand that sociology, the science of the social, especially in one of the (French) birthplaces of Enlightenment philosophy, tends to take an interest only in a certain genre of critique (i.e. “social critique”) and to make it, above and beyond an object of study, an aim in itself.

70Even Bourdieu does not entirely escape the belief, or at least the longing to believe, that the “truer” a critique is, the more effective it will be, that the more it is based upon objective data, the more emancipatory effects it will have. And yet we know of his repugnance for thinking in terms of “becoming conscious of”, and his insistence on reminding us that this “becoming conscious” is not sufficient in itself for a dynamic of emancipation. [106] But, no doubt because he had to gloomily acknowledge his sociology’s failure to yield the key to a more egalitarian world—although perhaps it also reflects the limits of his permanent struggle against the intellectual in himself [107]—Bourdieu does not entirely let go of this conception of liberatory knowledge. [108] The unveiling of determinations in all their arbitrariness can accompany an experimentation with lateral possibilities, on condition that it is upheld by a “Realpolitik of reason” whose “realism” is questionable, even “for intellectuals”. [109] Or else—no less scholastically, for who better than the intellectual to find his freedom and pleasure in knowledge for knowledge’s sake—the sole fact of knowing them can make of the actor “something like a subject”. [110] Addressing critique, then, comes down to addressing “the misadventures of critique”; [111] and understanding the world is “understanding the world to change it”, to take up the phrasing that sums it up best, beyond the arena of research advocating a “critical sociology”. [112]

71Similarly, contrary to what is suggested by the label “sociology of critique” and its critique of “critical sociology”, this program does not seek to bridle its own normativity in order to better account for the normativity of actors—otherwise we would get exactly what we bargained for. This is not to say that in his sociology, Bourdieu conceded too much to his militancy—as we are inclined to think—but rather that he did not concede enough to it: in refusing to see how deeply his critical sociology was shared, in underestimating the margins of freedom available to actors, and in prohibiting himself from exposing the underlying moral motives of his analysis, particularly in regard to inequality. [113] It is therefore no longer a matter of fuelling critique by suggesting that the world does not march to the ideals it advocates, but of clarifying which ideals it should call upon in order to work better. To exaggerate the case somewhat, the objectivation of grammatical structure, a theory of just ideas, has taken up the critical office formerly occupied by the objectivation of social structure, a theory of true ideas. [114] We can also understand that the first critique would come down to belittling the critique of actors by attaching it to its social determinants, while the second would raise it up by relating it to its moral imperatives. [115] It is therefore not critique understood as a militant objective that the pragmatic sociologists propose to abandon, but a critique they judge to be unfortunate, in both senses of the word. To the point of regretting that calling it “sociology of critique” does not do sufficient justice to the normative ambitions of their “moral sociology” which, in recent years, has forcefully reaffirmed its “critical vocation” and made a number of ameliorative recommendations. [116] In this respect, these works incarnate a postulate that overflows them: the idea that “critique’s dependence on sociology has as its corollary sociology’s dependence on critique”. [117] Within this perspective, which henceforth wants to believe in a certain critical efficacy of “critical sociology”, a place is beginning to be made for “power relations”, principally considered as hindering factors to be overcome. [118] Their reconciliation with the themes of “standard” sociology appears to be overdetermined by considerations of a militant order, as was their opposition to the same themes.

72Subsequently, exchanges between these two currents rapidly develop into a reciprocal examination for critical ineffectiveness. [119] The question, significant in itself, of whether critique requires a theory of practice, is only posed so as to find out which—a “determinist” theory of practice or a moral theory of justice—would be most profitable for it. To question the place of constraint in the activity of critique comes down to asking oneself whether it is discouraging to dwell on it or inconsequential not to do so; and whether, to awaken some critical tendencies in an actor, it is better to paint him as being already free, or as not yet free. If the problematic nature of the elitism of both programs begins to surface in these debates, it is not to wonder which (uncommon) critiques these works accede to, but which of these works, up to and including its style, is most accessible to the common people. And on occasions when it is not a matter of saying that the competing model is devoid of critical consequences—which is just a way of saying that it should have some—it seems to be a matter of showing that it only has disastrous consequences, as if it were impossible that it could have none. What follows is a list of contradictions—which are only contradictory if we think that the objective of knowledge and that of struggle must go hand in hand—indicating the inability of the competing alternative to guard against the forms of domination it seeks to combat. How is it possible that this “critical sociologist” could be the only sighted man in the world of the blind? And if its sociology applies to itself, doesn’t it reproduce the same undisputed authority from which it was supposed to liberate the actors? Isn’t it a shame that the pragmatic sociologist of critique, in returning to “free will”, echoes a conservative political philosophy and even legitimates it?

73On the other side of the Atlantic, and on that other side that is philosophy—though the borders of these national and disciplinary territories are not so solid when it comes to critique—debates are startlingly similar. Thus we hear Habermas accuse Foucault of self-refuting his own theory, and even of abdicating by persistently pointing out the affinities between critique and power without sufficiently teaching the principles that he advocates. [120] It is therefore principally from the angle of their respective contribution to “social critique”, rather than to the comprehension of social actors’ critique, that these epistemologies are interrogated.

74It will therefore come as no surprise that they pay most of their attention to those critiques that most resemble sociological critiques (or the ideal of sociological critique), and above all that, in essentializing this conception, they define and recognize as (truly) critical only this type of critique.

The Unthoughts and Overthoughts of “Great” Critique

76Not only does this conventional perspective retain only one type of critique—“social critique”—it probably retains something else: emancipation—and even something else: the (intellectual) ideal of emancipation, that is to say, confusedly, emancipation by intellection.

77Here we touch upon the first series of difficulties raised by this conventional definition of critique. In positing that (great) critique is equivalent to emancipation, that is to say in conflating “intellectual work” and “crucial decision”, this narrow focus neglects all critiques that do not lead to emancipation, while suggesting that emancipation is necessarily an affair of great critique. Now, as we believe we have demonstrated, this is a naïve sociological conception of the dynamics at work not only in criticism but also (since this is what is at issue) in revolutionary processes. To work at these different projects will therefore in all likelihood require that we untangle the different threads of “great” critique which, although they may form a coherent whole for one seeking to formulate a political theory of liberation, are somewhat chimerical: a forced cohabitation of social realities that are probably not particularly convergent. It is to err on the side of irenism and/or mechanism to see a relation of perfect refraction between the (great) forms, the (great) factors, the (great) authors, and the (great) results of critique. It is hardly sociologically realist to suppose that a critique could be both radical and emancipatory in its claims and in its effects, while being carried out by the most dominated actors and in the most intellectualized way possible.

78Furthermore, the very division between great and little critique does not stand up to empirical examination, so that it would seem impossible to predict the respective and as if proportional amplitude of the effects of great critique and little critique. What is more, there is no reason to think that they must result from singularly different social processes, as if their essence dictated it. Ultimately, even if little critiques had nothing in common with great critique, they would nevertheless still be critiques—provided that we ceased to invest them with all the weight of critique’s own normativity, and instead considered the normativity of actors in all its diversity.

Small and Acritical: The Unthoughts of “Little” Critique

79Here we touch upon the second series of difficulties. The stamp of social critique (these two acceptations of critique conflated into one) does away with all little critiques, or leads to their disqualification. Critiques that, rather than attacking the foundations of the existing order in the name of another yet to be invented, repress, as if lacking great courage or creativity, the beginning of a disorder. Those that, supposedly narrow, limit themselves to advocating marginal improvements and, in doing so, supposedly scuttle themselves. Those that, indifferent to the emancipation of others or of the dominated, are inseparable from the emancipation of the dominant who espouses them. Those that are not wholly and entirely clear-sighted, fully aware of social determinations, or even detached from every social determination. Those that are not backed up by a sociological and/or philosophical theory of practice, a theory of unjust inequalities or a theory of just equalities. Those that, rather than demonstrating a contradiction between practices and rules, reveal the ordinary confusion of practices and rules. Those that, because they express emotions and not reasons, assessments and not judgments, impressions and not arguments, singularities and not generalities, are deemed to speak only of superficial froth, or of nothing at all. Those that, far from the great debates on ideas and the great social divisions, play out in miniscule, even “petty” competitions—for this perception is not unrelated to their disqualification. And finally, those that, whether devoid of ideology or saturated with a distasteful one, are not, not really, or insufficiently left-wing.

80Just like the great critique whose exact counterpart they are, these critiques are “small” from the point of view of their forms, their ambitions, their results, and their driving forces, which are often conflated—but always from a moral, if not a moralizing, point of view, that of none other than the sociologist himself. The sociologist who, blurring critique’s many faces into the figure of “the” revolution and ultimately never thinking of them for themselves, judges these critiques to be so “small”, so inconsistent, that he denies them any critical consistency, denies them even their own critical consistency. Except when, in those places where the ground of the imaginary of the revolution begins to slide, in order to save the idea he has constructed of the good mainsprings of good critique, he has to distort the explanation of them: to transform a marginal critique into a critique of the marginal, an emancipatory critique by the dominant into a critique by the dominated, a social competition between actors in strong proximity into an ideational exteriority.

81Beyond these deformations, as if summarizing them, this imaginary of critique is not without its effects, as we have seen, on sociology’s difficulty in enquiring about its social rootedness. It explains the stubborn survival of two variants on the thesis of the social underdetermination of critique. That of critical sociology, which locates its explanation in forms of social disorganization—the only thing that could have allowed the accession to other ideational possibilities. And that of sociology of critique, which locates it in ideational forms of organization that are certainly social, but are thought independently of any social organization.

Thinking Critique as “Negative Judgment”: A Non-Normative Acceptation

82If we are to better understand what constitutes critique, there are therefore a number of advantages in retaining as our (preliminary) definition of critique the final one to appear: that is, “negative judgment”. [122] Recall that the issue is not to use the order of definitions to invert the hierarchy between great and small critique, but to escape from this hierarchy by thinking both of them and thinking them otherwise, by way of a definition that is indifferent to their worthiness.

83To sociologize it a little more, it is acceptable to study as “critique” any practice whatsoever that consists in publicly manifesting a negative judgment on someone or something. We use the word “practice” to maintain ourselves in the idea that critique is a practice, even when it seeks to break away from the order of practice. We say “publicly” to escape the conception of critique as a “decision” taken in the actor’s innermost depths, and to protect against the risk of the overinterpretation of practices too narrowly descended from “intellectual works”. We say “manifesting” because—as annoying as this may be for our intellectualist tendencies—critique is not always expressed by way of the Word, and even when verbalized is not entirely expressed by way of the Word. Experience has taught us that a mere sigh, in the right context, can sometimes say more than many a lengthy speech. Finally, we say “on someone or something” to remind ourselves that critical ideas are incarnate.

84In this respect, then, a critique is a negative judgment. We have become so habituated to another acceptation of critique that this one risks seeming terribly loose and frightfully impoverished, to the point of not really designating anything. On the contrary, we believe it more rigorous because it is non-normative, and richer in terms of what it allows us to observe. It enables us to avoid reducing critique to just one of its forms (the most intellectually sophisticated form), to one of its political orientations (Leftist critique), to one of its targets (the most consecrated norm), to one of its authors (the most dominated), to one of its factors (social and/or ideational distance) and, finally, to one of its outcomes (the most positive). More exactly, when looking at practices of dissent, it allows us no longer to discriminate between what belongs to critique and what does not on the basis of the above criteria. It would suffice to replace “critique” with some other term designating another social practice—“contestation” or ‘“conformity” for example—to remove any lingering doubts as to the well-foundedness of this methodological orientation.

85Abstracting from the different forms of critique allows us to make of intellectual critique what it should have remained: just one critical form among others, and an object of study. At the same time it makes room for critiques that have not been theorized, or very little: the most circumstantial types of critique. Suspending the question of their ideological tenor also allows us to take a look at the burgeoning field of right-wing critiques, from which we can no doubt learn a great deal not only about these critiques themselves but also, by comparison, about those opposed to them. To break away from the hit parade of “call to order” versus reformist critique and radical critique gives us a chance to no longer confuse cause and effect, form and substance.

86Above all—and this important point bears repetition—it comes down to considering that critique cannot be anything but a kind of call to order, in the literal sense of the term. To study the critique of those actors least endowed as well as those best endowed in the various types of capital is to cease to think of the relation between domination and critique as one of poison and antidote. That does not necessarily mean losing critique as the conventional perspective conceives it—indeed, our reflections here suggest quite the contrary. No longer assuming that its sole mainspring is distance, detachment, or various forms of exteriority gives us better chance to improve our understanding of the most ordinary dynamics of (more or less) ordinary critiques. To no longer think of it as (a)critical depending on its results and whether they are more or less satisfying is to authorize ourselves to think that illegitimate critiques and, before that, ineffective critiques—for the rather hasty equivalence between legitimacy and efficacy deserves further interrogation—are still critiques. Not only would studying them allow us to better understand critiques that succeed in finding an audience, it would enable the analysis to escape a finalist bias which we have stated here in terms in which no serious sociological thinker would recognize himself, but which nevertheless remains a marked trait of (both) sociologies of critique. [123]

87What is more, if it seems useful, when delimiting the scope of practices understood as critical, to take the methodological decision to be indifferent to the forms, driving forces, and consequences of critique, this is also in order to (better) discover them in study, when those practices have to be explained. It is only on condition that these three facets of critique are not taken up in the very definition of the object, that it becomes possible to study the way in which the conditions of entry into a critical exchange can influence the course of exchanges and/or their outcomes, how the forms and effects of these critical interactions may help or hinder actors in obtaining different critical grasps in specific social contexts, and which actors are thus affected.

88Finally, this new acceptation, in distancing itself from a conventional definition of critique that, over and above being a definition, is a normative essentializing of this activity, can play a part in the sociological normalization of the study of criticism. In ceasing to consider that criticism supposes—in the full sense of the word (obtains, necessitates, and is defined as)—a suspension of the social attraction exerted on mental representations, it invites us to break with all explanatory exceptionalism. That is to say, it invites us to reinstate the ordinary of the social relations within which criticism is integrated.

89It is true that this reorientation may seem to discredit the critique of actors, by ceasing to understand critique as a pure affair of ideas and an affair of pure ideas—as if this then meant seeing it as an affair of impure, dirty ideas. This critical effect of an approach whose postulates are non-normative, a direct consequence of the scholarly common sense of critique, is doubtless the price to be paid in order to be better informed as to the diversity of its forms, and to think an unthought of (both) sociologies of critique: their social organization.

90In this sense, the above reflections may be useful to anyone seeking to work on critical activities, even if they choose to define them differently. Above all we would like to think that, in constraining ourselves to make criticism an object of study and nothing but an object of study—that is to say, in apprehending it as just another sociological object and resisting the sirens of critique unless it is of a methodological order, it will be possible to reinvigorate our knowledge (for knowledge’s sake) of social actors’ critical practices and, within that broad spectrum, that of “social critique” “itself”.