Translated from a text by Freerk Huisken

Correspondence on the topic:

“Without practice, all your critical theories are useless!”

“Every time I read or hear something from you, I end up feeling pretty helpless and asking myself: So now what? What follows from all your wise thoughts? What do you suggest we should do? I don’t want to become wiser, I want to change the situation. That’s why I have to tell you: Without practice, all your critical theories are useless!”

At the end of a lecture, I can almost always be sure that one of the first questions will be this one. As a listener, you might have noticed this yourself. Then it also won’t have escaped you how I answer this question. Of course, it always depends on how it is meant in each case. I have experienced three variants: First, there are the listeners who want to discredit my theoretical ideas by saying that they don’t lead to anything that can feasibly be put into practice in this country. Second, there are those who are indignant and impute to me a responsibility to draw practical conclusions from what was said. And third, finally, there are those who come to this type of event with a call for what is to be done and feel let down. Afterward, they demand that their call be met, often based on a judgment about the relationship between theory and practice such as you have declaimed: “Without practice, all your critical theories are useless!” From your letter, I take it that none of these interrogating postures are alien to you and that you would probably identify mainly with the latter group. That’s why I want to address all of them.

1. The first question is not even a question, but rather a complete dismissal of the theoretical proposition on the issue in the form of a question, whether it deals with a critique of exploitation in the Third World, a critique of refugee policy, a critical examination of a labor dispute, the sorting function of school, or similar issues. This rejection initially attempts to give the appearance of an agreement. One also wants to be a critic because there is certainly a lot to criticize about exploitation, refugee policy, school, etc. Yet a general thrust is right away detected in the speaker’s criticism – whether correctly or not doesn’t matter at first – for which the speaker is declared an extremist who does not recognize the basic values of this society. Far from wanting an argument over these basic values – usually, the freedoms permitted by democracy – an attempt is made to beat the speaker at his own game, or rather at what is considered to be his own game: He should just come out and tell us what his criticism is ultimately implying! Then it will not only become clear how impractical his criticism is because it is incompatible with the reality that has been instituted, but it will also immediately become clear that it doesn’t aim to change, improve, or reform anything, but only to do away with democracy and the free market economy. This discredits the criticism presented. Indeed, it does: For this way of discrediting ideas does not judge them by their coherence, but rather measures them with a predetermined standard that features a meaning entirely separate from the thing being criticized. In this case, the standard is: Theory must guide a practice suited to reality.[1] No matter how accurate such criticism may be, it is useless if it doesn’t put forward suggestions for improvement of the entirely objectionable conditions. Thoughts that do not submit to this standard are not only useless, they ultimately do not belong here because they fundamentally lack what systematic thinking is intended to do in this country: to justify and improve the functioning of existing conditions.[2]

2. Those who assign the speaker sole responsibility for practical conclusions, and then at the same time want to assess the presented criticism by its implications, can’t be charged with generally not wanting to know anything about this criticism. Their question even refers in an abstract affirmative way to the theoretical ideas expressed, albeit in a doubly strange way. On the one hand, one could ask why it should be solely up to the speaker to go on about practical conclusions when, after all, the theoretical basis for such further questions has already been provided to the inquiring audience, which signals its agreement in this way. On the other hand, the question doesn’t simply invite an inquiry, but calls for a responsibility that the speaker should have towards his audience in view of the subject matter being critically examined. How so? His initial concern is simply to share his thoughts on capitalist disasters with other people, to argue with them about them, to convince them of his own arguments or be convinced by theirs. Why should he then be concerned with something quite different than an examination of judgments on a particular matter? Anyone who demands that he has a responsibility to make practical proposals for solutions to the incriminated matter views it a priori from viewpoint that being intellectually engaged with it also entails being accountable for it in practice. Conversely, anyone who at first only wants to know what is specifically objectionable about it, what the reason for it is, and under what conditions it counts as functional, is considered irresponsible. Such an attitude thrives on the equation of outrage over scandalous conditions with a declaration of accountability for remedying them. That this is only imagined, as can easily be deduced from the theoretical explanation given earlier in the lecture about who is really in charge in the world of money and state power, is something that this interrogating posture not only doesn’t want to know. It insists that the critical speaker fill everyone in on what it assumes to be his program of praxis. And these interrogators are only satisfied when they are offered a proposal to take part in something that allows them to “do something.” The objective content of the criticism is completely pushed into the background. This criticism must be interpretable in such a way that everyone can find a practical way of taking responsibility, i.e., of doing something or other. In this way, practice here ultimately also emancipates itself from the criticism of the matter. That is indeed what provoked the general outrage. Yet this moral outrage is immediately translated into a categorical desire to remedy the outrageous circumstances, and therefore completely free from any thoughts of more efficacious pressures; a desire that should still in the end – hence the delusion – unite us all in practical action. Regardless of the fact that, for example, refugee policy is criticized for its imperialist content, it is only interested in how “we” can take responsibility for mistreated refugees – for example, by “all of us” warmly welcoming refugees, donating blankets, organizing candlelight vigils and petition drives, etc. Regardless of the fact that exploitation on coffee plantations in the Third World is attributed to the competitive interests of plantation capitalists on the world market, “we” have to take responsibility – for example, by “all of us” of course buying only “fair” trade coffee at prices one must first be able to afford, and no other coffee. Or when in the wake of a brutal lockout strike in the automotive industry the power of capitalist property over powerless workers is criticized, it is once again clear that “we” must also take responsibility for unfairly treated workers by refusing to buy BMWs in the future, etc. Conscientious people who can latch onto any criticism presented – both wrong and true – with their morality as nonchalantly as they are ignorant of the content of the criticism feign this moral responsibility to make themselves ideally complicit in everything that so bothers them about the lurid activities of capitalism: After all, according to this fiction, it is also “our” policies that make life difficult or even impossible for refugees which forces us as Germans to take responsibility. And, after all, “we” are the ones buying the coffee which makes us complicit as consumers. However, one should not maintain that nothing is changed by the actuation of a nationalistically tinged fictitious responsibility or by borrowing from the silly “customer is king” standpoint.[3] Where capitalism, with its scandals, is reduced to a single occasion for the will to do good, one can at least appease a guilty conscience. That too is a practice.

3. The third question is discernibly not about that. It assumes that one must first get to work theoretically when it is about changing something in the established conditions. It is equally true that a theoretical examination of the works of capitalist destruction, cited above as examples, must lead to correct results if it is to lead to promising practical consequences: Without correct theory, there can be no successful solution to practical problems; this is something one can learn from the natural sciences.[4] It’s just that for the interrogator these two findings lead to an incorrect determination of the relationship between theory and practice. For there is no compelling necessity that every theory must be translated into corresponding practice. Above all, the negative reversal derived from this misses the point: that critical theories are useless without practice invents a connection according to which a theory cannot be useful on its own if it is not followed by practice on its own. And yet every theory first stands unavoidably in its own right: it must add up in itself! Then, apart from this and in a second attempt, the question arises as to whether it even allows for any practical consequences, and if so, what they might be. Most of the “clever thoughts” about capitalism that I collaborate on has precisely the content that it is easy to deduce from it what needs to be changed in practice in order to eliminate oppression and exploitation, racism and nationalism, war and peace from the world. Unfortunately, however, it is just as easy to take from this that the means and ways to carry this out are currently blocked – to put it bluntly. It is therefore precisely an insight gained from examining the theoretical work of the left that the relationship between theory and practice must be spelled out somewhat differently than they themselves would like. For if the – once again, unfortunately – indisputable finding that the overwhelming majority of citizens in this country are content to critically grumble and protest vote in circumstances that are not good for them can be attributed to the fact that they misunderstand these circumstances, then “practice” today means: First, one must explain capitalist conditions and the false consciousness of them[5]; secondly, one must consider how to deal with this, i.e., how to criticize them convincingly; and thirdly, one must ask oneself how ... That’ll do! The first two points are enough to keep us busy at the moment.

4. Still one last question for the letter writer: When you talk about practice, are you thinking of more or less militant demonstrations, occupations, strikes, perhaps here and there disruptions of an event, etc.? All of this is always accompanied by calls, flyers, slogans, posters that say or should say why – not: that – people should join the protest. In substance, this is nothing other than what I have just referred to as the currently unfortunately only possible but nevertheless necessary “practice.” The differences between you and me is not that I favor theory over practice, while you see things the other way around, but is solely our differing theoretical judgments about capitalism today, about what it has in store for people and what they have in store for it – or do not. Wouldn’t it therefore be appropriate to discuss all the issues that concern us in more detail instead of stifling every debate with the slogan “What is to be done?” Or to put it another way: Shouldn’t we stop this bombastic insistence on “practice” over mere theorizing?

Footnotes:

[1] This is an attitude toward intellectual pursuits, theories, and science in general that is already being practiced in schools, where every subject is included in the curriculum on the grounds that it is needed in this capitalist society. Students quickly pick up on this instrumentalist hostility to theory and apply it in school: “Why do I have to learn this? I won’t need it later anyway!”

[2] When faced with this line of questioning, which shows dissatisfaction with the criticism presented, I usually attempt to ‘oblige’ its proponents to engage with it. My reasoning is that if something about the criticism is unsatisfactory, this must be demonstrated. My experience has shown that, instead of objective criticism of the criticism presented, the missing standard explained above is then usually cited, meaning that a discussion of the criticism presented is not actually taking place.

[3] Why is this point of view silly? Let me just say this: Hasn’t anyone noticed that the much-maligned large corporations are now taking up the production and trade of “fair” products in such a way that the self-organized small producers are once again losing out? This is something that such a responsible person would never have imagined. For a critique of the consumer standpoint, see also: “Ideologies about consumption and the consumer in the market economy”

[4] Even in capitalism, the laws of science must be obeyed so that bridges don’t collapse, power lines don’t catch fire, and rockets only hit their intended targets...

[5] Regarding necessary false consciousness, see correspondence: “What do you mean when you constantly talk about ‘mistakes’”?