Critique as Social Action

In what ways can critique be social action? In what ways can it materialize? Can it be more than an academic exercise given a great deal of lip service in the classroom but not valued elsewhere? Must critique be accompanied by solutions? Must everyone be a critic?

I’ve been thinking about these questions a lot lately because I’ve been thinking about who and what I am as a teacher. The act of critique has been quite central to my identity and pedagogy for years now, yet I’m not sure what I’ve been trying to get at. And trying to employ something like a critical pedagogy (though I never do it “all the way”) certainly heightens my frustration exponentially. I’m idealistic about education—it’s an exercise in optimism, dammit. But education buckles so easily under the weight of cynicism and apathy that I wonder sometimes if the whole damn system isn’t just too tenuous, that it isn’t meant for a culture on the verge of empire and extinction, that it just can’t cut through the virtual barb-wire of economic stratification. For critique to be more than academic exercise, doesn’t it require a desire for change? An urge to make something better? But our educational system works best for those who don’t want or need change. Rich suburbs (and maybe private colleges) don’t want no critical pedagogy. They want learning as an anesthesia, something that tells them it’s ok to be who and where they are, that life as middle managers can be rewarding, that advantages ALWAYS and ONLY come to those who deserve them. Education as comfort food—a heap of mashed potatoes and quart of Ben and Jerry’s. Poor school districts need the power of critique the most, but we’ve so burdened them with testing requirements and crumbling buildings and lousy resources and low salaries that there can’t be much energy left at the end of the day to say, “Wait, why are things like this?” And the American myth of education says that any kid worth her salt (back when salt had monetary value) can Rise Up past these inequalities and get herself the education she needs to succeed. Hmm. So we get the “human interest” story of the poor kid turned pro athlete, and he walks us through the falling hallways of his elementary school and he tells how hard it was and how hard he worked and to look at him now. But he doesn’t turn to the camera and say, “What are you going to do about the ways things are for others?” His story isn’t meant to make us question the status quo, it’s meant to help us accept it. Things can’t be that bad “down there” if he got out. Those who stay have only themselves to blame.

Critique as social action. How do we do it? The deck is stacked against us, because critique in this culture is now associated with fringe mentalities—it’s the artists and the feminists and the Marxists and the college professors and the rest of the kooks. Critique, THEY say, is a luxury for the idle. Good working people don’t have time for critique. They need answers. And if you can’t provide answers, then GET IN LINE.

But critique isn’t always meant to solve, and we need to figure out how to fit that idea into a culture/economy that values the product over the process. So how do I get the class engaged in critique in ways that get carried out of the classroom? And is the goal to push my students into identities as critics? Of this, I’m no longer sure.

Not so long ago I was a much more political teacher than I am now. I took critical pedagogy to mean something like “oppositional teaching” or “agitprop instruction.” Students found me fair and provocative (my evaluations tell me so), but I became troubled with the performative nature of my teaching, and I’m sure there were times I created a toxic classroom. What’s changed? For one, I feel more set in my politics, more confident. And I don’t think I need my teaching to provide me a space to confirm myself anymore. I don’t find students with opposing views threats to me or my identity or my authority. So rather than bring to class firestorm texts meant to enrage and say to the students, “Look at this! Be pissed off at this!” I feel more comfortable turning attention to the process and the tools. I don’t hide my political self in the class, but it’s not the point of the class anymore.

But becoming comfortable with my political self was a long, painful process, and my students are really just at the beginning of that process. Shouldn’t education expose that process? Shouldn’t it provide the spaces for claiming an identity in the face of a homogenizing media? Perhaps the act of critique—regardless of the material solutions it may or may not provide—is the act of self-actualization in tandem with the recognition of others.

Blog that.