I hope to make this short. I ended the last post with the expression of Boltanski’s commitment to an “immanent critique,” one that took its terms from the understandings and value commitments displayed by social actors in actual disputes at (within) actual social sites.
“The critical and systematic character of theories of domination, and their frequent claim to know more than actors themselves about the sources of their discontent, has in numerous cases even led their opponents to assimilate them to a kind of madness. In particular, the analogy has been suggested in connection with a pathology whose description is virtually contemporaneous with the development of critical theories and, more generally, the social sciences: nothing other than paranoia” (Boltanski, 162, fn. 6).
To avoid the charge of madness, the theorist must assemble (call into being if not joining an existing group) a collective that makes similar judgments and indulges in all the practices by which a community constitutes a world-view (or a “reality” to stick to Boltanksi’s idiosyncratic [ha!] usage of that term).
More germane to my purposes: I am completely on board with the effort to never accuse any group of false consciousness, but the left often seems to founder on this particular rock: how to convince those it wants to enlist to its cause of “systematic” or “structural” interpretations of the injustices and exploitation that it regularly (and feelingly) experiences. The grievances are all there, as is the sense of outrage, of moral indignation. But the analysis is lacking—or so it would seem.
Boltanksi’s comments on this disconnect are suggestive, even though they don’t offer any good pathway forward.
“One of the characteristics of complex domination effects [such as those established by neoliberalism] is therefore that they offer less purchase to critique than a regime of repression. Moreover, it is precisely this feature that was stressed in the critical theory and critical sociology of the 1960 and 1970s. One of the main issues raised by critical sociology of the time was the seemingly more or less passive acceptance of asymmetries by the very people who bore the brunt of them. It was to answer this question that critical thinking focused on a theory of ideologies and put the theme of belief and illusion at the heart of sociology. By contrast, one of the contributions of pragmatic sociology has been to show that actors are not abused . . . and that, as regards everything which concerns real life and the injustices they suffer in everyday life, they harbor no illusions. But it has also shown that this lucidity does not thereby give actors a sense of having the least purchase on reality” (128-29).
As the New Yorker cartoon portrayed the situation in 2008: the Mafioso thugs sit around lamenting that “the trouble with credit default swaps is you don’t know whose legs to break.” Still, if the claim is that the sources of asymmetries are hidden, the left is still going to need the services of the critical theorist, whose analysis will have to be communicated to (and convince) those passive sufferers (the unemployed, the underemployed, the exploited). The evidence is pretty compelling that most people do not even know the basic facts about asymmetry. Survey after survey demonstrates that people wildly underestimate the gap between the very rich and the rest of us. Call this a knowledge deficit as opposed to “false consciousness,” but it still amounts to lots of people failing to grasp the basic lineaments of the society in which they dwell.
Once in possession of the facts, the next issue is where to attack the structures that produce such inequalities. Again, lots of evidence exists to show that people fall back on individualistic explanations for inequality. In particular, they blame themselves (a self-directed instance of blaming the victim) for being unemployed, thus buying into the meritocratic premises of neoliberal apologists, as if 12% unemployment were the product of there being so many more unfit workers in 2009 than there were in 2007.
In addition, where these passive sufferers are moved to action, they tend to focus on remedies rather than on structural changes. On the right, the remedies include deregulation and anti-immigration measures based on the premise that government interference and immigrant competitors for jobs can be blamed for lack of adequate economic opportunities. On the left, remedies tend toward government supported jobs programs/trainings and a more progressive tax code. I hardly mean to say that remedies should be ignored—and the left must fight vigorously for its preferred remedies.
But sticking to remedies means, once again, neglecting a structural analysis and any structural reform. We are back, in a somewhat different register, to Boltanski’s distinction between pragmatic critique and critical theory. We seem able to do the pragmatic thing—i.e. propose better ways of working within the current structure, ways that would lessen its inequalities and offer better protections to capitalism’s victims—but unable to get much “purchase” on the structural stuff. That lack of purchase is not just the difficulty of figuring out how the structure works and where it should be attacked; it is also the difficulty of bringing along the numbers (the sufferers, the potential leftist collective that will save we theorists form the charge of paranoia) to make this structural approach a real presence. The battle between left and right remedies is currently so heated, and so vital, that moving to the structural level looks like a pipe dream. And my point is that it involves a lot of work of education, of changing people’s beliefs (or, at least, their habits of thought about the sources of inequality) before we even get to the hard political work of effecting significant structural changes.
To circle back as I conclude: effecting real structural changes means inventing—or very substantially transforming—institutions. That’s what Boltanski makes abundantly clear. Lasting change–the kind that truly alters the conditions within which people live and work, and transforms the outcomes of social interactions—requires institutions that establish “reality” (in Boltanski’s sense of that word), establish the enabling social stabilities that underwrite specific interactions.
And there is not much evidence that “the people” think in these terms or actively desire the transformation of institutions, of basic structures, of “reality.” Since this revolutionary vision and passion are missing, and because large numbers are misinformed about the basic facts of current economic practices/outcomes/institutions, it is very difficult not to attribute a) false beliefs (“fake news”) to many social agents and b) an overly timid sense of what kinds of political and economic transformations are needed/possible. Yes, a strong sense of injustice does exist—and is a great starting point. But getting “purchase” requires more; it requires a strategy that derives from an analysis of how power is currently organized. And that strategy should entail the creation of new institutions—or, at the very least, substantial transformation of existing institutions.
So now I have written myself into a corner. Obviously, the task ahead of me is to try to specify what some of those new institutions would be, and how they would function to enable more equitable and just outcomes. I will try to live up to that challenge in subsequent posts.
McGowanBlog 