The Limits of Critique

Cover image from Amazon

Modern-day critics
Modern day critics of literature unmask and delve between the lines to determine hidden truths and repressed beliefs. It stems from Marxist critical pedagogy, that requires consumers of literature to adopt a critical and questioning approach to reveal embedded social and political power relationships that lie, often unnoticed, within text and other works of art. Critique is now the dominant form of interpretation in literate circles. Rita Feleski examines critique and situates it among other forms of literary examination and credits it with a worthwhile contribution. However, it does have its obvious limitations. It is essentially a poststructuralist notion of language whereby the practitioners of critical literacy search for discourses and reasons why they are included or left out of texts.

Suspicion
Interpretation is often motivated by a spirit of disenchantment and skepticism or outright condemnation. Freud and Nietzsche join Marx as the creators of this art of critical interpretation. They have instantiated a system of suspicion of motives.

To the postmodern critic meaning is not always apparent. It must be disentangled and discerned. Rather than revealing ultimate truth it seeks to unveil hidden meanings and power relationships. This view has been given impetus by post-structuralist language thinkers such as Foucault and Derrida, who have entrenched the notion of suspicion and made truth a relativist quagmire, particularly when combined with Marxist and Freudian thought. "This entrenching of suspicion in turn intensifies the impulse to decipher and decode. The suspicious person is sharp-eyed and hyper alert; mistrustful of appearances, fearful of being duped, she is always on the lookout for concealed threats and discreditable motives. In short: more suspicion means more interpretation".

Society and contemporary culture
The consequences are catastrophic because the focus on suspicion and skepticism serves as a catalyst for political dissent. Those that are marginalised and victimised are more likely to harbour mistrust of the motives of others. What now pervades contemporary culture is a sense of disbelief. "While poststructuralist critique rejects hidden truth and dogged or naive pursuit of ultimate meaning, it engages nonetheless in what I (Felski) call a second-level hermeneutics - a method of reading that looks beyond the individual text to decipher larger structures of cultural production." Emotional cues in text and film, for example, are intertwined with inferences and judgements that give vital clues to the characters and their world view. However, we must be cautious about imposing their own ideas and prejudices, in effect this has a serious ethical and moral dimension. In the end it comes down to an austere exercise in demystification rather than attention to aesthetics and associated affective qualities of a work. of art.  In other words, it is a metaphorical act of 'digging-down' rather than 'standing-back'.

Postcritical interpretation
Felski maintains that the act of criticism is an integral part of Western civilisation. Part of being a responsible individual in society is having the privilege to dislike and have a desire to bring about change. However, forms of disagreement in democratic societies has been couched in particular and acceptable forms that legitimate diverse views. Felski believes that ..."critique, as we have seen, is not one thing but an eclectic array of philosophical tenets, political ideologies, and modes of interpretation." Moreover, we in the west have built walls around cherished world views and interpreted art and public discourse through a narrow sense of mistrust and disbelief. The antidote to the critique of suspicion is what Felski calls a 'postcritical interpretation.

Postcritical interpretation takes into consideration a variety of critical perspectives and traditions. Rather than 'digging down' and 'standing back' critiques should engage with works of art and  appreciate aesthetics. This wider approach seeks to recontextualise what we know and to view our world with new perspectives. Often works of art, whether the written word, film, art, etc have the potential to reorient and refresh our situational perspectives. Such works may often stem from different regions, periods and personal world views but are always embedded within various religious, philosophical and cultural contexts. Thus, critique should not only be concerned with skepticism but should also consider beauty and creative work's inherent ability to challenge our own thinking and to open up new possibilities. Without this tolerant and wider view of critique we will become slaves to narrow ideology and dogmatism.

Felski: R. (2015). The Limits of critique. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

See also:
Postmodernism is dead -what comes next - Alison Gibbons