Criticism — how does it work?

In a free country, criticism is not feared, let alone suppressed. Free citizens, even cocky young people, are even encouraged to be critical. And they comply, to the point where there are masses of self-assured personalities walking around who demonstrate their “critical awareness” and have an opinion guaranteed to be “their own” when they pass judgment on everything.

In a free country, criticizing is not a special privilege. You don’t have to be one of the politically or economically mighty to get to accuse your contemporaries of making mistakes. Ordinary people don’t hesitate for a minute, never tiring of reproaching even the elite for their shortcomings. People from all walks of life who complain are extensively quoted in the democratic media; they are even prompted by professional critics to raise all kinds of objections they might not have come up with themselves.

In a free country, criticism is always going on everywhere. Enlightened citizens are forever calling for a better world. That doesn’t make it happen, however, the result being that a considerable standard repertoire of complaints is repeated and lives on for generations. The popular sport of criticism does not lead to the breakdown of state and society either. Responding to fears in this regard, which used to serve many a prince and other ruler as a guiding principle of their law-making, proponents of the modern way of dealing with discontent offer up a peculiar argument: freedom to criticize pays off for the polity, even contributes to its stability, and ultimately works toward all-around change for the better.

What is peculiar about this statement is the fairly idyllic picture it paints of the public exchange of views. After all, such praise suggests that criticism is being listened to and moreover taken to heart, to the satisfaction of those who have made their entries in the complaint book. At the same time, this lesson on the virtues of critical activities is implicitly taking for granted that the griping has a quality it by no means necessarily has. Criticism is imagined here to be basically a suggestion for improvement; it is evidently not envisaged that there might be good grounds for rejecting the matter being objected to, for condemning the offending works across the board.

In a free country, although criticism is not prohibited it is definitely not welcome any time and any place. On the one hand, all citizens reserve the right to decide whether attacks on matters that are near and dear to them merit attention and due regard. Thus, the art of rejecting criticism has flourished just as much as the practice of criticism itself. On the other hand, government bodies and representatives of the people, broadcasters and publishers are aware that there are also certain types of criticism that are “out of line” and need to be outlawed. In such cases, the appropriate consequence of rejecting criticism is to prohibit it. Moreover, once a ban is decided on it serves as a reason for dismissing a critique, taking the place of rebutting it.

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The democratic culture that prevails in a free country lives on active citizens who are sure about how criticism is supposed to work. Both those who constantly criticize, and those who one way or another check whether the diverse accusations are permissible, present themselves as masters of this craft. Unfortunately, this does not mean that they have actually mastered it and know how criticism works. As critics, responsible citizens keep making the same mistakes, causing them not merely to muck up the initially theoretical business of criticizing. With their cockeyed way of objecting and complaining they develop a kind of will that makes them perfect everyday supporters — of everything they take such a dim view of.

1. The consequential motive for criticizing

People are quick to criticize whenever and wherever they are dissatisfied. This is as true in proud “civil societies” as in totalitarian regimes. Regardless of whether they have official approval, and with no shred of doubt about their freedom of will, both certified scoundrels and moral authorities declare what they don’t like. For everyone possesses the gift of practical feeling, which habitually distinguishes between pleasant and unpleasant experiences in all matters of life, great and small. Practical feeling is “articulated” by the theoretical work of criticizing; this goes beyond just conveying the impression that one dislikes or has trouble with something. Criticism goes through with the comparison that practical feeling has decided directly by ascertaining that the world simply does not conform to one’s own ideas. It formulates the discrepancy between one’s needs and the objects for satisfying them, the opposition between one’s expectations and what circumstances allow; it shows how one’s interests are being damaged by the actions of others. The purpose is not to prove that one’s esteemed self is once again being trampled on. A person criticizing takes it for granted that his free will gives him license both to enjoy and to shape the world — after all, this is the fruit of “appropriating” the world through thought. He is not talking about his own personal taste, but about the object of his desires and interests. That is what the critic is saying is no good, and why. He is claiming there is something wrong with the thing he is dealing with — and that is why it cannot provide the service it is supposed to, or causes harm.

Critics should therefore have a good idea of the nature of the circumstances and powers that are foiling their concerns. After all, people who do not want to stop at simply voicing their dissatisfaction; who want to do more than just express that they are beset by various difficulties and annoyed by their circumstances; who are not out merely to complain about the deficiency they are experiencing, but to trace it back to something being wrong with the conditions and constraints getting in the way of what they are striving for; who, in other words, take the liberty to criticize and thereby declare they want to make a change, i.e., do something about what is bothering them: such people need sound knowledge. One needs to know about the objective restrictions that are wrecking one’s needs and goals when one is out to hurl an ‘ought’ against what ‘is’ — as the great philosophers put it. Without correct judgments about the matters that are causing displeasure and harm, criticism does not hit home. This makes criticizing quite difficult for many people.

It is worth recalling such banalities because societies that uphold freedom of expression have given rise to a culture of critical fuss that does not even attempt to pass judgment on the source of annoyance. Legions of young people, along with women and celebrities as well as talk-show bit players, have mastered the art of raising objections to other people and institutions and furnishing their statements with “I think…” and equivalent phrases. No matter if it is music, a politician, or an event that people are rejecting, they always refer energetically to their own esteemed personality, their own taste and expectations that are not being matched. It is common to pretend to be so very humble in one’s dissatisfaction — using a slogan like “it's just my own personal opinion of course…” — and generously refrain from expressing anything binding like a judgment. But such critical minds are still insisting on saying that they in any case take a very dim view. Their other important message is that something does not suit them, which they underline by declaring their disapproval to be a feature of the thing itself, a thing they are condemning without properly judging. They “find” it “really stupid, a drag, awful, uncool, unbearable” — in other words, worthy of criticism. And as if to ward off and take care of the obvious question “in what way? why?” they add to the arsenal of trendy lingo by specifying “somehow”! So the critical attitude is in full bloom, even though critics are only letting it be known that the world is in no way up to their tastes and needs.

Unfortunately, this bad habit of seeming to form a judgment but then just saying what practical feeling totally rejects isn’t just limited to those notorious matters of taste. In this area there is sometimes an annoying display of vanity that should not be taken too seriously — civilized peoples, at any rate, who are otherwise game for any nonsense, warn themselves in their stock of sayings against arguing de gustibus, о вкусах, and les goûts et les couleurs. However, this does not prevent their clever club members from applying the “judgment”-of-taste template to areas of life that carry more weight. Enlightened citizens readily offer up evidence of their critical attitude toward political rule by giving the occasionally sought-after favor of their vote only to a candidate for governmental power whom they find likable. This is how they attack social conditions and give poor marks to the market-economy setup of rich and poor, labor and control by big money. To some, the poorest person is too rich, and managers’ salaries seem a little too high…When grownup people so willingly express their discontent in opinion polls they are, from the outset, above all suspicion of striving for change and furnishing reasons for it — they are just saying what strikes them as unpleasant.

Critical citizens stop following this pattern of occasionally disapproving of actions and circumstances they personally consider wrong as soon as they are out to have their objections elicit agreement. When they are pushing for the criticism they express to be recognized so that they can win over comrades-in-arms, when they want to bring the people or institutions they are criticizing to mend their ways, they no longer simply complain about things they can’t stand. The need to convince others affects the way dissatisfied people show that their needs and ideas are not being met in the world as it is. In order to get others to share their own dissatisfaction, they have to go beyond the “I think that…” cult that proud individuals use to present themselves, in a way as boastful as it is modest, as personalities with minds of their own who definitely never just accept everything. Anyone who wants to “proselytize” even a little bit when knocking their peers or “society,” when stating their “own opinion” about farmers and cabinet ministers, the market and the church, literature and legislature, has no choice but to justify their objections.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that attempting to “campaign” for one’s dissatisfaction is simply and inevitably a matter of finding out and explaining to others the objective causes of what one is displeased with, so it is clear what one is coming out against and what one wants the help of others to stop, and how. Instead, a different trend has caught on among the large community of dissatisfied people. In order to convince others, young and old alike try to prove that they are entitled to voice their complaints. It is either a more or less pushy way of promoting themselves that gives critics the right to go into action. Or they present a yardstick behind their objections that clears them from the suspicion of protesting solely out of egoism, on a whim, or because of their own personal inclinations.

2. Moral criticism, an aberration

Being directly affected as an argument

Thanks to grassroots movements and hot talk shows, the first variant — promoting oneself as an argument — has created the lingo of affectedness. In their efforts to be heard, critical-minded citizens sometimes even do without describing in detail the distress that is supposed to guarantee that their objections are legitimate. They shortcut the method they trust by presenting themselves as being directly affected and speaking “on behalf of all those affected.” They relentlessly badger everyone by assuring they are “affected,” apparently thinking this gives them the license to criticize. As if people who know how to bemoan their lot automatically have an idea of what is rotten in the state of Denmark and elsewhere! They name the matter that has got them wrought up, declaring it an evil solely because it is the source, or expected source, of harm to the complainers. Thus, the cultists of being affected cite the starting point of criticism, its motive — and spare themselves having to carry it out. They appeal to innocent and accused listeners alike to show some compassion, understand the suffering of avowed victims, put themselves in their shoes, and on that basis see and fight against the same grievances the victims are complaining about.

Among them are quite a few who do not trust the persuasive power of this method; who doubt that they need only invoke their own situation to elicit others’ approval. It doesn’t take much: one need only notice that other interests and inclinations, other social positions, lead to other ways of sorting living conditions into useful and troubling aspects. This easily satisfied way of experiencing some insufficiency — people citing solely themselves as an argument — is at any rate miles away from one decisive insight. That being, you can’t aspire to be critical without going to the trouble of looking into the object that is to blame for everything.

So the standard fix such critics have always used is pretty modest as well. Prior to the modern way of proving one’s credibility by extensively citing one’s victim role, there was a competing model of critical griping in circulation, which still exists alongside the slogans about being directly affected. The older way initially also makes use of the work of practical feeling, demonstrating how upset one is by the harmful effects of new laws, old highway bypasses, changes in working life or television programming. But next they emphasize that the harm being done to them can simply not leave the rest of the world cold. This they do by stressing the special nature of their life situation and their interests. They demand approval for their criticism by emphasizing their social function; the point of being affected in their case is the qualifications they have as protesters. Whenever someone speaks out as a consumer or a nurse, as a skilled worker or a small business owner, as an unemployed person or an artist… they are giving their complaint extra weight; their criticism deserves consideration primarily in view of who is speaking, which social character it is!

This attempt, which many consider worthwhile, is apparently aimed at shaking off the odium of private grumbling that clings to moody little types when something is bugging them again. When people reinforce their complaints by specifying who exactly is complaining, they are asking for respect from several points of view. Some attach more importance to being perceived not as loners with an opinion but as members of an entire group. Others think their qualifications, whether they come from the lower or higher regions of the social hierarchy, carry the right to recognition that their social class has earned through well-known, useful services. And some aim directly at the recognition that people of their ilk already enjoy. So they sit together on talk shows — the market economy’s welfare cases, beneficiaries and experts — and hurl this kind of argument at each other. They talk surprisingly little about the actual topic of the meeting — some famous “issue” — preferring to accuse each other of having no grasp of the worries, dire problems, and distress of one’s own kind.

When freedom-endowed citizens try to turn their dissatisfaction into criticism this way, they are not so much stressing that their interests are being ignored. Rather, they are saying that the harm they suffer is violating a legitimate interest. When they mean their statements about how and how directly they are affected by something to be more than a damage report, to be an accusation, they have committed to the principles of morality. They are saying, “I as a student, a woman, a patient, a teacher, a single-parent businessperson…” and thereby presenting themselves as recognized members of society, as its willing instruments. This makes their hardships into offenses against highly respectable people who are notoriously doing their bounden duty. Belonging to an occupational or professional group (“we small businessmen,” “we general practitioners”), while always involving lobbying for a special interest, also stands for an indispensable and honorable profession having what it takes to serve the common good, even if only as a simple economic factor. When people present themselves as voters and taxpayers, even more so as citizens, women, or the people, in order to reproach everything that moves — from social parasites to government agencies and leaders in the highest circles — it is clear from the start that righteous people are speaking out who have once again been through something bad and claim to know a reason for it that involves an objective deficiency of general interest. To them, the harm or disadvantage so deeply affecting them is a kind of breach of contract, committed against them in their capacity as respectable figures who have been denied the reward for their efforts, their irreproachable convictions, their skills, and their good will.

The ideals of society as the yardstick for criticism

The second variant goes one step further in downplaying the dissatisfied people’s interest that has been thwarted, prompting them to look for objective reasons — ones beyond their own control — for why they are coming up short. Modern citizens deciding to make accusations are well aware that eloquently presenting themselves as victims still smacks of simple self-interest even when the “as” clearly signals the critics’ willingness to fulfill the roles assigned to them in the social hierarchy, in society’s “division of labor.” So they identify a cause, an objective deficiency, that has to be condemned regardless of anyone being personally affected, and can be sure to be condemned by all who hear the critical message.

What immediately catches the eye about the condemnations aimed at the world of democracy and market economy, with its exciting subdivisions of culture and environment, rich and poor, young and old, etc., is that there is no end of negative judgments! Professional critics and amateurs alike are constantly accusing both the stars and the walk-ons of civil society of violating standards that the accusers not only regard as vital themselves — they also take it for granted that their listeners have the same interest. No matter what the occasion, such universally recognized standards will help reveal the reason for one’s own and others’ hardships:

• There are in-justices happening all over the place in society. Wherever the critical eye looks — whether at the legislative assembly where the law is made, at the courtroom where it is administered, at the lower depths of wage agreements or the higher spheres of bankers’ salaries, wherever — the principle of justice is being violated. To such critics, it plays no part whether this principle is actually guiding civil doings, whether even one of the criticized acts is due to this principle being rejected.
• It is un-social the way the less fortunate in the country and throughout the globe are treated every day. People who are a bit troubled by the misery they experience and observe know what causes the problem: governments, government agencies, business people fail to show proper consideration for the poor, thereby breaking an agreement that critics insist must be upheld.
• Sometimes such neglect of duty turns into un-Christian behavior or — in secular terms — un-constitutional, i.e., un-democratic measures, which critical minds in the Western world shaped by democracy and a venerable religious tradition simply cannot accept. So they take the liberty of boldly reminding the responsible authorities of their own principles that no one would refuse to agree with.

The extensive use of standards that are undoubtedly valid but being widely disregarded has developed the art of criticism in a rather unfortunate way. Employing this toolkit, critics stop harping on about being personally affected but continue to do so by other means. The advocates of norms and values replace the sectional “as” variants, used by the various social characters to point out that the harm done to them is impermissible, by a higher-order “as.” They are hurt and dissatisfied because and insofar as they have committed themselves to upholding those noble values. They present their criticism as a guaranteed germ-free desire that is beyond all self-serving calculation, thereby, in passing, making this a prerequisite for any criticism that openly stems from an interest of the ordinary kind. This has really caught on, as the widespread practice of hypocrisy shows: no individual, let alone an organization, will stand up against others for their own cause without appealing to a consensus-hardened common good to back their own interests!

As for the other side of this development, it also leaves something to be desired the way critics deal with the objective situation that harbors the reasons for their subjective hardships, reasons it might be nice to eliminate. The standards they apply when attacking fellow citizens and institutions do not exactly testify to the attackers’ realism. Anyone applying such standards merely to report that something is missing is seeing the entire well-structured bourgeois setup as an ideal. They are even doing so explicitly, not “unconsciously.” After having bad experiences with the law and with money, or just seeing that the human victims walking around are anything but isolated “individual cases,” they insist that their own distress reveals a disregard for the principles and rules that they share. When they appeal to the ideal they see violated in reality, they are not only using it as a clever way of lending their demands a cachet as “only right and proper.” They are actually committing to the prevailing system, believing it is basically designed to fulfill the interests of the very complainers who have been shortchanged. The idealism of endlessly invoking standards spares its numerous enthusiasts from looking for reasons for the restrictions that are bothering them and prompting them to criticize. In fact, it ends such a search with a sweeping, preconceived judgment that transforms critical intellectual efforts into a fundamental declaration of consent. Resolving to regard one's own concerns — even when they have gone to the dogs — as basically compatible with the long-standing rules of democracy and market economy turns every objection into proof of conformity.

3. On a business known as “constructive criticism”

This manner of mounting a critique — invoking lofty, sacred values that those being criticized are guilty of trampling on, much to their critics’ chagrin — can be sure to stay in place in democratic discourse. At least as long as we live in a value-based community, which not only high-ranking personalities vouch for in their important speeches. Teachers of faith agree, and sociology — a science — has found out that particularly complex societies cannot function without being guided by values. However, it is not appropriate to every occasion to resort to the canon of grand principles.

Critically assessing the viability of everyday life

Dissatisfied people do not only live in a community of values, they also live in a state that makes use of its monopoly on the use of force, exercises its governmental power, enacts laws and ensures that they are obeyed. And they live in a free market economy “ruled by competition” that is all about money. They travel on roads, are fans of sports clubs, and maintain a family life or some alternative. In short, most of the events that cause them trouble, most of the (mis)deeds they object to, are just not due to such fundamental decisions as being for or against God, humanity, freedom or oppression, etc. They simply arise from the interest-based calculations that more or less important fellow citizens make when they exercise their office, seek their advantage, try to cope with the constraints of their circumstances. These calculations, whether recognized as “good reasons” or not, tend to damage the wallets and other components of the quality of life that those affected claim as their rightful entitlements.

So dissatisfaction arises from very mundane and commonplace conflicts of interest, and critical minds address these too, without subsuming them under the ultimate decline of values. Apart from a few exceptions who want to mobilize the Human Rights Commission every time a traffic sign falls over, enlightened people confine the use of the big moral cudgels as a yardstick for criticism to affairs that are announced as fundamental policy decisions from the start and in a broad public way, by those responsible and those affected. When it is a matter of redefining the extent of freedoms granted, clarifying the degree of permissible wealth and tolerable poverty, weighing and weighting the relationship between law and the use of force, at home and abroad, and so on — that is when critics go to town on the value cult. They tend to be more down-to-earth when assessing everyday trials and tribulations, i.e., dealing with the annoyances of ordinary political and economic life, coping with governing and being governed, with the results of a competitive struggle that does its weeding-out in big business as well as in the working lives of the masses. That is when, instead of calling for weighty maxims to be fulfilled, they judge how social institutions and legal persons perform. They scrutinize fellow citizens, distinguishing them by profession or social status, and accuse them of causing damage that makes the critics angry. Thus, much of popular criticism deals with the transgressions of high- and low-ranking officials, and a favorite target are business people, from corporate managers and bank chiefs to tradespeople. Conversely, poor people are just as readily singled out for criticism, since sometimes one can’t help feeling that the “socially disadvantaged” take far greater liberties than all the losers in our “elites” put together…

So critical minds busily address the diverse conflicts of the real world that involve equally diverse interests being restricted or ignored, and they do so without invoking the noble principles that others are failing to heed. Instead, they claim to know all about the matter at hand and to be demanding nothing more than what the matter itself calls for. Those complaining about the misconduct of others — about authorities that fail to fulfill their mandate, about business and other partners who act against what would be in their own best interest with the trouble they cause, etc. — are always at the same time judging the factual situation with its objective requirements and inherent purposes that are being so sorely disregarded everywhere, that is, wherever it happens to matter to the critic. Such accusers expressly avoid applying an extraneous standard to reality or asserting a mere ideal, instead insisting solely on the rationale they see at work in social institutions and prevailing conditions, a rationale they often know how to expound with great force. This kind of criticism takes an immanent approach in terms of its form and its intention. Critics argue on the basis of what the matter is about, are in favor of it working, and accordingly explain that the damage resulting from the way it works is due to its own true purpose being inadequately realized, whether through negligence or actually on purpose.

However, this widespread practice of immanent criticism must be immanently criticized for regularly failing to deliver what it promises, a proper explanation of the matter being handled so inadequately, if not downright wrong. Critics disapprove of what public officials do, the way prevailing or generally accepted interests are pursued, all kinds of things, before properly assessing what these interests actually are, what the criticized institution, etc., is actually out to do. Often enough, they do not even attempt to explain “conditions” — to themselves or others — but just lament the way certain individuals deal with them. They do not argue on the basis of what the prevailing system and the asserted interests are about, but in their name, on the basis of a preconceived judgment about their basically commendable function. They implicitly endorse or explicitly share the aims of these interests; but they are not partisan on the basis of any reasoned judgment on the matter at hand, their partisanship is conversely the reason for their critical stance. And this stance is not so much on the matter itself as on the way it is being handled, which is supposedly spoiling the good purpose they are absolutely sure it has. The logic of immanent critique that the complainer is invoking and often following qua form is not fulfilled, but rather turned on its head, by the complaint qua content.

But this kind of false immanence can often already be seen in the way “in theory” is abundantly contrasted with “in reality.” This is how critics give themselves the verbal license to attribute to everything they, or everyone, finds annoying a positive, broadly acceptable purpose that the thing has “in theory,” while they blame “reality” wholesale for its real effects that fall short of what should have been. By laying off employees an employer is going against his true profession; when students drop out, the school system is betraying its true mission; by providing “one minute care,” healthcare services are violating the lawmakers’ intention… The pattern of judgment is always the same and can be applied universally, to every issue: it is well-intentioned, but poorly executed! The world would be fine, at least halfway decent, if only everything were done properly. This packs approval and disapproval in one and the same judgment: one disapproves of the supposedly improper use, the wrong handling, of all the means available here and now for realizing a prevailing purpose that itself deserves full approval.

The materialistic ideal of social harmony

So those who make worldly-wise distinctions between the reality that exists, and what its underlying proper purpose is, are unfortunately not saying goodbye to moralism. They are only circulating in smaller coin the idea of there being a harmony of interests waiting to be fulfilled, an obligation that they are entitled to demand anyone and everyone should meet. Critics assess the dealings that bother them using a standard that amounts to a materialistic ideal.

This contradictory instrument, even though its name may sound scholarly and complicated, can be found in the toolbox of all critics with a popular touch, whether they are campaigning in beer tents, writing newspapers, or ranting at a bar. It is suitable for producing negative judgments about finance ministers, who aren’t reducing the national debt, businessmen, who are destroying jobs or not creating them, unemployed people, who lack goodwill and a willingness to put in even minimal effort, and foreigners, who won’t conform. Such everyday patterns of decided disapproval that is aimed at the most diverse social characters reveal the quite uncomplicated construction of this tool: what all kinds of figures do is supposed to be a service — in one’s own interest, of course — which they fail to fulfill. The essence of the ideal leading to the many negative findings about official, professional, and private deeds is that all these dealings are basically given credit for one thing: they are supposed to be useful tasks, and what has to be done should be done properly. So anyone and everyone is constantly in danger of being caught doing their job wrong.

Another bit of lingo illustrates how far this pattern of criticism has progressed. Not only hairdressers but also politicians and generals, real estate speculators and prostitutes have to face the accusation of being “unprofessional” the way they do their jobs. This modern product of the prevailing moralism at least makes clear that it is only pretending to be dealing with the matter itself when it comes to a bothersome or harmful issue. Every customary “profession” is automatically assumed to be serving the well-being of society in general and of the disappointed critic in particular, even if a lot of jobs show no indication of serving the interests of the critical community and no such proof is offered either. If it is taken for granted that whenever there is some kind of trouble someone has not done their best, so not done the best for us, there is no need to distinguish between real purposes and invented ones.

This kind of critique is logically continued in constructive proposals addressed to all professions and institutions. Critics lecture schoolteachers and architects, police officers and sales assistants on their true duties and how to perform them properly. They do not merely deem business processes and traffic rules hopelessly impractical, they apply the means of critical imagination to make them ever more practical, in theory. Resourceful managers have also discovered the practical productive force of critical know-it-allism. Complaint books for disappointed customers, suggestion boxes for frustrated employees, and also unsolicited comments from a constructively grumbling “swarm intelligence” will often provide useful hints on how to better serve the real purpose of the matter at hand. People who think up an idea worth using might be rewarded with a bonus, as they will otherwise usually get nothing out of it. If they are lucky their interest coincides with the real needs of the company they are submitting their suggestion for improvement to. Unrealistic know-it-all comments, especially the most outlandish ones, testify even better to the tireless good will of critical souls to further their unsatisfied interests by constructively interfering in some problematic issue. When everything bothersome is interpreted as transgressing against the basically prevailing principle of social harmony, criticism is synonymous with firmly asking the world to work out better. Even the grimmest event is an opportunity for constructive discussion and deserves a sharply-worded suggestion for improvement.

The damaged interest: A case for order

Those who criticize this way are dead sure they are not doing anything unreasonable. All they are asking is that social reality be in line with its true nature. For their own interests — which are shortchanged again and again, frustrated again and again — all they are demanding is what the prevailing circumstances and imperatives promise. At the least, the existing conditions of life, if they have to be tolerated, have to be tolerable. And often enough that is all they want. In such a case, they have reduced their own interests to the desire to cope with “things.” The yardstick of criticism here is the ambiguous category of “condition.” The condition prevailing in practice in the sense of an essential prerequisite for survival ought to be good as a condition in the sense of a manageable means for living as well.

Of course, there is another side to such a humble stance. A critique that relies on nothing other than the rationality that must ultimately be inherent in social matters is thereby seeking to make itself unassailable. Those who see systemic plights solely as cases of “mismanagement,” who see policing by the state as “abuse,” and who can think of no better argument than that such things are detrimental to law and order; those who, not just implicitly but explicitly, side with the conditions that make them dissatisfied and that they are criticizing their situation in the name of — such people are convinced they are so absolutely in the right as critics that they can even get quite bold when the occasion calls for it. A situation that gives grounds for such dissatisfaction deserves more than just well-meaning suggestions for improvement; it is a scandal, and when people demand it be remedied they are entitled to be respected and heard. In such cases, the humble often turn into know-it-alls who come on strong.

However, this actually gives their damaged interests a new and quite unambitious rank. Such critics think they have set forth the general significance of their particular distress and thus an irrefutable good reason for it to be remedied. But the generality and significance of their “case” that they are asserting has nothing to do with the general concept of their situation, i.e., with the essential determinations of the generally prevailing living conditions they are subsumed under, whose immanent necessities make them a “case.” Instead, they are adopting the perspective of these conditions, as well as they know how, looking down at them as a “case” “from above.” Confident that the community at large cannot possibly be interested in a conflict with them and their honorable concerns, they do not see in the conflict they are in with the prevailing conditions what it says about these conditions and their place in them. They take it as an example of a general functional and harmony problem that society has, thus adopting society’s standpoint as if it were the true general form of their own damaged interest.

In a society that has an institutionalized conflict-settling mechanism on hand for every systemic conflict of interest, this advance in the art of criticism can be had with little effort. Anyone who finds their wages too low can contact the shop committee, which will advise them on their job classification, thereby giving their complaint its appropriate perspective and significance. Whoever is harassed by a government agency can be informed by the complaints office of how their treatment complies with official regulations, i.e., where they can stick their grievance. Talk shows offer ample opportunity to present a cause for dissatisfaction as a complaint to the responsible authorities and discuss “possible solutions” with experts from the “other side.” All this has made it a habit to take this decisive step in the methodology of wrong criticism: the step to wrongly generalizing one's own unsatisfactory circumstances, to subsuming them under the common norm that settles interests quite generally, as if that were the truth about the thing one is criticizing. The critic has theoretically replaced the standpoint of being at odds with the prevailing conditions by the perspective of the general community they are not happy with, thereby giving up their standpoint in practice. Believing this community is the true, real meaning of their unsatisfactory situation in life, they put themselves, in thought and in will, in the position of the object of general measures to be taken for the sake of the overall social order — which they are right about in a completely different way than they think. Fo counter-attack r in their minds, the critics see themselves as the managers of their existential worries, who have understood what matters. In reality, they have acknowledged, without understanding it at all, the function assigned to them and their like in the world as it is. In this way, with great self-assurance and seeing themselves as quite demanding, they transform the problems that they have with other, weightier interests and overriding aims, with institutions and given power relations, into problems that the social order, as they imagine it, has with “cases” like theirs. In other words, they turn them into a problem that they and their like present, with their damage and their dissatisfaction. So union representatives end up demanding a “fight against mass unemployment” to stop their clientele from following another Hitler. And by complaining that lack of daycare is driving women to give up childbearing, thereby ruining the national population pyramid completely, the advocates of single academic mothers translate their stress into maxims that would work perfectly as principles of universal legislation (in the words of the forefather of the critique of practical reason^[*]).

The consistent progression toward “politicized” criticism

By consistently taking a constructive stance in favor of a social order that everyone wishes to succeed, critics place themselves theoretically on an “equal footing” with those who actually hold social power, who in turn like to interpret their authority as exercising a responsibility for society as a whole, for the nation’s success, and for its good. The loftiness of this stance has several consequences.

Now the critics are looking at the world without considering the living conditions troubling them. They are suffering from the way of the world regardless of being affected materially in any way. Their imagined responsibility for an intact social order runs up everywhere against wrong-way drivers and abuses that deserve disapproval; the world appears as a collection of examples of antisocial behavior and momentous failure, along with exceptions that prove the sad rule. Those who view the world this way no longer need any bad experiences or damaged interests of their own to go into action as complainers. Their standpoint itself becomes a source of the greatest and deepest dissatisfaction, leading them to find things to complain about in the past, present, and future as they please.

That already makes it clear who such dissatisfaction is primarily aimed at: it is “everyone,” the people the social order is there for. They are constantly breaking the rules they should be following for everyone’s benefit, “only thinking of themselves,” not taking any responsibility for anything, certainly not for the common good, “just going after money,” which in this context is not a sign of knowing how to make a living, much less the result of the pressure imposed by the prevailing market economy, but rather a motive of the base kind, the kind that will always lead to trouble even in the best world order. This diagnosis already indicates what and who such criticism of the world at large will take to task next and at a higher level: the institutions and those in charge of public order, who are so obviously failing to take proper control of “society.” First of all, and often also last of all, it is the personnel directing the world at large who come off badly, with their authority to rule being taken for granted. They are incompetent, negligent, corrupt, and the like: that is how critics, who sometimes like to be so bold as to give the powerful a good telling-off, explain pretty much all evils, from climate disaster to financial crisis, from xenophobia to infant mortality. Entire wars have “broken out” only because the political commanders have failed to keep their hostilities safely locked up. But the art of politicized criticism also has room for diagnoses of problematic structures. Imagined or real principles of order, and institutions of rule, are judged against the demanding ideal that they be immune to the danger of abuse and misconduct and guarantee their own success, and are found to be inadequate. Precisely because humans are fallible, even in the highest offices of state, institutions and mechanisms for “conflict prevention” should, for example, regulate the interaction of supreme powers in such a way that they achieve their hostile goals without using force, but in reality they all too often fail. For every such failure there is not only a suggestion for improvement, but also an expert who wants to prevent economic crises by a financial transaction tax, or unemployment by wage cuts, and who in any case firmly corroborates the suspicion that the evils of this world can be remedied with good will and improved rules.

Quite often, of course, criticism of the responsible authorities focuses squarely and without any ado on their duty to call citizens to order. Notorious offenders need to be more effectively deterred; the gradual, general decline in moral standards has to be combated from time to time by a shake-up in society. Internationally, too, abuses can sometimes only be remedied with punitive expeditions and a dose of shock and awe. People whose critical stance is second to none but who do not know how criticism works, only how it is supposed to, logically end up calling for rule. Not infrequently, they expressly ask for measures drawn from the broad repertoire of “civilizing” force — against people like them!

4. The art of anti-criticism

In a free country, everyone has the right to criticize what they dislike, and this right is exercised to the fullest extent. However, it is rare for this freely expressed criticism to be carefully considered and then taken into account, or to be refuted with well-founded arguments. Nevertheless, the criticism does not remain unchallenged. On the contrary, the honorable social custom of leaving nothing uncriticized is fully matched by the practice of rejecting complaints.

The anti-criticism is generally no better than the criticism.

The rejection of “personal” criticism

No one has to put up with criticism of themselves, of what they do, of people or things they like or accept the way they are, i.e., their capacity for judgment. Any self-respecting person, and what other kind is there, will defend themselves. Civilized people do so by presenting good reasons for their standpoint and their way of looking at things.

However, these reasons very rarely actually relate to the things being judged. They are presented only to justify one’s opinion that has been rejected, and this is precisely what they usually express: that one’s criticized behavior or attacked point of view is legitimate. For example, someone who is told that their preferences or assessments are quite off the mark will often point out that they are not alone, they even have recognized authorities on their side, so they are by no means making a fool of themselves with their opinion. When accused of not fulfilling the true, socially beneficial tasks of their job, people do occasionally counter with the truth that they are doing their work under the pressure to earn money and not with the freedom to contribute to the common good. However, this is not meant as a criticism of the constraints of competition, aiming at their root, but rather as a mitigating circumstance, an excuse in the face of the criterion of harmonious cooperation in a society based on the division of labor, a criterion those criticized share with their critics and accept as the ultimately binding yardstick, alongside the reminder that money rules. In most cases, however, those criticized admit to or apologize for no wrongdoing at all, but rather underline how competent they are — after all, they have been doing their job for some time to everyone’s satisfaction. Their critics, on the other hand, are hardly competent, having no right to make accusations after having done something wrong in the past themselves. That makes it unnecessary to say anything about the actual matter in dispute. One quashes an accusation of inappropriate behavior according to the same pattern: the standards the critic claims should be followed are completely out of step with the times; and a person complaining that unquestionable moral values are being ignored is sitting in a glass house and driven by base motives, as shown by episodes in their life that took place no matter how long ago and are no matter how irrelevant to the matter at hand but make them forfeit any authority to sit in judgment. “He’s one to talk!” is one of the phrases people use to start reckoning with a critic, explicitly announcing they have no intention of wasting any breath on what was criticized.

In all its variants, the art of rejecting “personal” criticism documents that it is about legitimizing one’s view. This can not only be done quite well without dealing with the matter itself, it actually moves away from the matter to bring up points of view that cast a favorable light on one’s own attitude toward whatever and/or a very bad light on the critic’s faculty of judgment and true motives. So the rejection operates on the same level as the criticism that free personalities customarily level at their peers. This criticism is aimed less at correcting mistakes than at discrediting the criticized person by some standards or other of what is morally proper or should be socially useful. And in modern people’s open and equal dialogue, a criticized person does not in turn criticize this pernicious practice of wrong criticism, or shift to discussing what the contentious issue is actually about, but adopts the pernicious practice instead. People see a need to ward off an attack on their honor, insist they be recognized as individuals with their “own opinion,” which they would never let anyone “dictate” to them. An exchange of critical opinions in a free society is evidently a power struggle, and this means two things. Firstly, those making comments are out to assert their interests that are constantly being contested by someone. And secondly, their judgments are worth only as much to them as the right they think they are entitled to claim in support of their interests: their final argument is their inalienable human right to just have interests and opinions to match. Interpersonal communication really gets going with a relief attack or a counter-attack to show that one’s own standpoint is permissible, in fact superior, by putting the critic’s position outside the realm of what is morally reasonable and in keeping with the times, ultimately discrediting the critic personally. And nowhere does this anti-criticism differ in any way from the techniques of a criticism that measures other people’s behavior directly or indirectly against prevailing norms and values and claims it is not fulfilling them. It is a clash of moral positions — and the “use of force” also required here for deciding between equal rights consists in the publicly recognized authority of one of the two parties or in the authority of the public. At least as long as things remain civilized.

Defusing political criticism by offering/​demanding tolerance

It becomes clear where this custom of conducting critical disputes as a civilized competition to “have the last word,” to be right, comes from and still has its basis when more influential members of the free discourse community feel compelled to reject criticism. It is especially clear when the debate is joined by political leaders, who are ultimately held accountable for misconduct they failed to prevent, whether that of citizens, of their officials, in the end their own. The first thing they have to do is affirm that criticism is permitted and must fundamentally be accepted even, and especially, by those involved in upholding law and order in society. In other words, unbiased criticism is by no means to be taken for granted even in a free country; those in power could change their tune, and are in fact exercising restraint when not prohibiting people from expressing dissatisfaction. The freedom to criticize, like any political freedom, constitutes a concession that presupposes a relation between sovereign power and civic subordination. It does not overcome such a relation, but rather adds a citizen-friendly feature on to it. In this case, the feature is that no law-abiding citizens are barred from having their very own interests and articulating their own views on them and how they are hindered. This feature is supposed to be considered more important than the power relationship it is added on to. And that is how the granted freedom is generally understood. Mature citizens ever ready to criticize appreciate it that those in charge are willing to tolerate objections to their actions and omissions instead of muzzling them. They feel they are being accommodated even, and especially, when the actual criticism they utter is not complied with at all and the interests behind it continue to count for nothing. To the holders of a dissenting opinion, it is apparently more important that their opinion is tolerated than what it is about. When the crucial thing about a critical judgment is the right to express it, the judgment itself does not matter so much.

Of course, this freedom comes at a price. Tolerance on the part of the established power is tied to the counter-demand that people treat other opinions, including the standpoint of those in charge, the same way. That is, they should show tolerance toward the authorities and overlook the minor detail that this universal requirement means something quite different for citizens than for the representatives of state power. After all, what those in positions of high responsibility want people to accept is not just an opinion but their legally binding political actions. And what they tolerate in return is critical opining that is not out to meddle in the affairs of those in charge. What the two sides are “trading” under the banner of mutual tolerance is, in one case, the unconditional recognition of the rulers’ freedom to use their power and, in the other, the equally indiscriminate recognition of judgments about this, including negative ones, as merely subjective views without practical consequences; at least without any consequences other than those deemed appropriate by those in charge. Or, to put it the other way round, the license to opine about everything, including the practices of state power, is given on condition that licensees are willing to accept these practices, to qualify their negative judgment with the proviso that they are offering it to those criticized for their kind consideration, thus in practice accepting that their own interest as expressed in their criticism is irrelevant.

However, in a democracy, especially a “vibrant” one, this trade is by no means the end of the story.

The standards of the anti-critical dialogue that democracy owes to itself

In a free country, all those who wield some power over others feel obliged to give good reasons for their actions. They are constantly compelled to do so by an institution called the public sphere, created by media that are partly run as private business and partly by the political power itself, and now augmented by an uninterrupted stream of critical opining on the internet. This institution, occasionally praised by its professional operators as the “fourth estate” in the democratic state, constantly demands that all those who have a say in the country justify their decisions. Criticism is no longer a private matter here, but is conducted as a nonstop affair for the entire nation. Just as constantly, this sphere gives those in positions of responsibility from all areas of social life the space and opportunity to express their own criticism — of their peers, of ordinary people less weighed down by responsibility, of anyone and everyone in fact — and to respond to criticism of their actions. This is the place, the modern agora, for the never-ending democratic dialogue between government and opposition, between the “political class” and the people, between business and the public, between theory and practice, between power and intellect. And above all, between criticism of the rulers’ actions and a democratic anti-criticism that has developed its own standards, just as the art of criticism has.

The techniques for legitimizing criticized standpoints are brought to bear here in a perfected form. Professional practitioners of democratic discourse have developed suitable patterns of argumentation that the general public have readily adopted for their own concerns. For example, it is not only in talk shows that critical accusations are deflated by quashing objections that are completely different from those raised, preferably objections the quashers have constructed themselves for the purpose of emphatically rejecting them. But an especially popular tactic is to refute opposing opinions by publicly doubting whether the critic has the moral justification or expertise for uttering them. Even when critics do not base their objections on being personally affected by the affair in question, it is considered a well-founded rebuttal that they have been discovered not to be among those directly affected. A non-local accent is already enough to invalidate a protest spoken with it; and anyone who is a foreigner has no business talking about national concerns anyway. It works the other way round too: a person who is speaking as a representative of an honorable profession or is merely assignable to a certain population group might thereby already be betraying their bias toward just one particular, i.e., irrelevant, interest. Objections to a person’s moral integrity speak even more strongly against any critical opinion they express. Just the suspicion, which is always easy to substantiate, that a critical argument is based on some self-serving calculation makes it considerably less persuasive. And accusing someone of having been involved with a criminal gang or subversive group disqualifies not only the person but also their objections to whatever. In political controversies of the kind that arise during election campaigns, it is much more useful to rail against a critic’s subjective credibility than to take a look at their arguments, and an entire segment of the sphere of public opinion is accordingly busy doing just that. Moreover, the mere act of voicing criticism can already earn a penalty. The accusation that a critic “just wants to run everything down” is not only denying the “naysayer” any reason or cause for dissatisfaction, it is taking the element of negation inherent in any criticism to be all it is saying, and attributing it to a purely negative, i.e., ill, intent. This type of anti-criticism is part of the standard repertoire of every government in its democratic dialogue with opposition figures, who are “bad-mouthing” what the nation is trying to achieve in good faith, with integrity and self-sacrifice — and the nation really is always doing its best since the rulers in office make their people perform the required services by law. A good example is the defense minister who cites his soldiers’ honor to reject concerns about the military operations he has ordered. Anyone who complains is subversive; and it goes without saying, even in a society that welcomes criticism, that subversion is quite improper.

Despite the popularity of large-caliber complaints, it is altogether far better to use recognized supreme values for putting critics in their place; and that is no surprise either. The general recognition of such lofty principles already proves that the nation in which they enjoy such respect, including the power in charge, is basically all right. Its administrators are therefore also the first to benefit from their governance being idealized this way. It is their decrees that are giving it a concrete form; no one else can claim that their actions are putting all the highest imperatives into practice. Of course, they also have to be measured by this standard. But whenever they are accused of falling short of idealistic norms and values, they are firstly being given credit for basically serving a higher cause through their rule, so that they can secondly always insist that they have at least achieved the best possible outcome from a difficult reality. When critics get too fresh in the name of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, ruling idealists will readily take the liberty of dismissing criticism as mere idealism, citing “realities” and asking that people please stick to the facts and keep their feet on the ground. Following the logic that certain conditions have to be met for something to work as desired in this world, all the imperatives that dissatisfied people think are being neglected in the real world and call on those in charge to comply with, can just as easily be turned into a flat-out justification for the affairs being criticized. Layoffs serve to save jobs; foregoing wages secures one’s livelihood; the only remedy for rising rents is rent increases for stimulating housing construction; keeping the peace occasionally requires war and always a readiness for it… Anti-critical doctrine has long since established that black is in fact white, and everything that someone deems reprehensible is in fact the very opposite and good.

Discrediting all criticism by the yardstick of “reality”

Prior to, and alongside, the techniques of delegitimizing critical objections and setting them right by citing values, the very first and most compelling objection to them in the public sphere of free countries, so proud of offering a license to be critical, is to point out that it is utterly useless just to criticize. It has virtually become a conditioned reflex to demand that any critic should please say how they intend to better manage the things they object to, and what alternative measures they have to offer if they do not like the ones being taken. Even the last opinion-polled passerby is ever ready to shoot back at people who don’t find something as good or even only as self-evident as he does, “What do you want then?” This makes it perfectly clear that the only criticism that deserves listening to is one that basically takes sides with the thing being criticized. It has to adopt the standpoint of responsibly managing the thing, i.e., assess the world from the perspective of the regime over it and find it in need of improvement solely from that angle. It is completely irrelevant whether those asking for alternatives are demanding constructive suggestions for improvement or ignoring ones already put forward. They are not out to argue about the matter or reach an agreement on it anyway; they are neither seeking a response nor do they wait for one. They are instead saying that whatever the matter is — at least if it’s part of “prevailing conditions” — it can definitely not be had in any other way, so it’s pointless to criticize it. The possibility that the criticized matter itself might have to be rejected is simply beyond the horizon of democratic anti-criticism; that in any case does not count as criticism of a kind that professionals and amateurs of democratic dialogue know how to deal with.

When that constructive criticism is put forward that leaps to respond to demands for suggestions on how to improve every stupid thing, it is not just countered polemically by the question about alternatives. There is a core set of always-available anti-critical arguments that are applied and liven up public discourse. Providing models and and setting standards is here once again the democratic party contest:

• First of all, the more ethical and more efficient ways that well-meaning world-reformers have in mind for dealing with low-wage earners and the unemployed, invalids or stock market speculators, homeowners and asylum seekers: these are simply not possible if only for legal reasons. Politicians, whose primary job is to make laws — that is, to give legal standing to interests they deem inadequately protected and to legally restrict others — do not hesitate to counter demands they are simply unwilling to fulfill by invoking the existing legal situation. When citizens are in dire straits, politicians’ hands are tied by the law, very much to their regret of course. However, politicians and the debating public do not go so far as to pretend that all are completely powerless in the face of the law. After all, those in charge do not want to be merely enforcing the law, they are "shaping things," “the future” for example, and the like, and thereby serving the people. This makes for a second anti-critical argument in a democracy:
• Dissenting opinions lack a majority, which is already evident from the fact that they dissent from the status quo, i.e., what is democratically approved. As long as a proposed change is not endorsed by those who hold a majority as governing politicians, or who possess some legitimate command as protégés of government power, the criticism underlying the proposal clearly has no majority backing and is therefore disqualified as irrelevant, unjustified, or both. To keep it that way, politicians equipped with power and a majority, as well as free supporters of the existing order, like to employ a third argument, invoking the highest of all market-economy constraints, money:
• Anything not yet listed as an item in the public budget or another respectable statement of expenditure and revenue is already more or less financially unfeasible by definition. Politicians who annually decide on a budgetary item entitled “net new debt,” and experts appearing in public to report daily on stock market activity and volatile bond prices, are not ashamed to dismiss criticism of the way budget funds are allocated and even the most modest requests for reallocation by stupidly maintaining that you can’t spend more than you’ve taken in. Anyone who nevertheless suggests loosening the purse strings for purposes other than those actually being financed — not least through debt — “cannot handle money,” and would therefore be a liability to the national budget.

Thus, critical ideas for improvement are stereotypically dismissed in the name of the law, democracy, and the market economy — precisely the conditions that have caused the dissatisfaction and that critics want to correct in the first place. So it is only consistent that the anti-criticism customary in a free country boils down to saying that, when all is said and done, what the critic would like is simply unrealistic. As an objection this is somewhat absurd insofar as every criticism, no matter how flawed, is invariably about altering the given reality, that is, it addresses things that are not yet real. So the objection says nothing more than that the critic should stop criticizing. People are thus expected to go along with a denunciatory kind of mix-up, equating the desire to change “reality” with the inability, or a completely unreasonable refusal, to even acknowledge it. The critic is accused of being “blind to reality” or “denying reality,” with “real” being synonymous with “indisputable.” It is enough to label a suggestion for improvement as Utopian to disqualify it as mere fantasy, naive, and the person making it as a do-gooder, which in bourgeois parlance is a synonym for troublemaker and crackpot. What does indeed make “reality” a term to be invoked for justifying its being unchangeable is no secret, and already evident from the usual distribution of roles when using this argument. “Reality” stands for the power that has established and is enforcing the actually existing social conditions; and it serves as an argument exactly as long as the particular power holders are in power or until they themselves put changes on the agenda. Then the actually existing conditions are suddenly known as “entrenched interests,” already indicating that they can simply no longer be upheld. And the changes to “reality” that are considered due, if not overdue, are referred to as reforms, which in a democratic society refers to the need to change things so that they can basically stay the same.

That is why reforms are what constructive critics tend to call for in a free country. This makes their suggestions for improvement appear safely within the bounds of realism, recommending them to those responsible for the existing conditions as a contribution to maintaining them long-term. And that is precisely the ultimate intention and essence of criticism as it is practiced in a free country: democratic critics are urging those in charge to exercise their authority over the living conditions of the governed in an effective, lasting, and successful way. In the final analysis, they are aiming to optimize the prime, crucial condition for any expedient use of force, namely, the power holders’ control power itself. Thus, they admonish those in charge to fulfill the first and foremost purpose of their responsibility. And when it comes to that, critics never meet with anti-critical rejection.

The final argument of free anti-criticism: the “violence question”

In a free country there is no guarantee that criticism will remain within the bounds of what is constructive and ultimately respect the demand to stay “realistic.” It is not even necessary for the exceptional case to arise where critics make objective judgments, moving from dissatisfaction and indignation to a reasoned rejection of some component of social reality, and pressing for harmful conditions to be abolished. It is enough that critical citizens feel their national leadership is disregarding them, that they stubbornly refuse to submit to the alternatives of good governance that have been declared feasible, that they insist more on their dissent than on the constructive spirit of their dissenting ideas: then, too, democratic anti-criticism is no longer sufficient. This is a challenge to the democratic state’s tolerance, and a point of clarification is due. The license to criticize freely does not merely come with a price to be paid voluntarily. Those guarding the principle of tolerance assert an indispensable condition for putting up with criticism: critics have to be willing to leave the shaping of reality to the power holders committed to law, majority rule, and financial feasibility, and to reduce their objections, along with the damaged interests expressed in them, to a mere matter of opinion.

Accordingly, public demonstrations of opposition standpoints aiming to disrupt the nation’s daily business are restricted by the state to prevent any disruption. This forces protesters to choose between recognizing the democratic state’s inviolable monopoly on the use of force as the premise of all protest — and being considered to be attacking public order and its guarantor, and thus committing a punishable act of violence. However, a free democratic state’s tolerance does not end only when critics take the momentous step of holding a protest demonstration and clash with public-order measures. When critical opinions are evidently going beyond the sphere of what is customary in partisan politics and established public opinion, and revealing a decided unwillingness to conform, they are viewed as virtually violating the sovereign law-and-order authority and thus trigger its direct and practical interest, even when they do not lead to any unlawful acts of resistance. When critics of this kind merely advocate for their point of view, which is a quite natural thing to do, they essentially forfeit their license and find themselves on the radar of the relevant security agencies. They are listed in domestic intelligence reports and extremist databases, and become the target of surveillance and of denunciation that damages their reputation and career prospects. Such official governmental exclusion from the realm of what is ideologically permissible creates its victims — and, moreover, acts as a compelling counter-argument in a free country. Nothing so thoroughly discredits criticism before the forum of democratic public opinion, and so effectively makes sure it is excluded from public debate, as the accusation that it is unconstitutional. For this does not merely condemn it morally, but means to a bourgeois mind that the criticism is suffering from a fatal contradiction: it is directed against the very constitution that is guaranteeing its freedom to be voiced!

Whoever criticizes is making use of a permission; this already places the authority granting it beyond criticism. Whoever attacks this by their criticism is violating the very basis on which their own critical thinking operates. On this point, the constitutional state and loyal-minded critics are in complete agreement.

5. The false promise of critical science

This much is clear: anyone who seriously applies the standard of their own interests to the world in which they live, anyone who wants life to be worth it, needs knowledge — knowledge about what is supposed to be of use to them, about what they intend to use, and above all, about what harms them. They need objective judgments that allow for one of two conclusions. Either they are right to expect the world to meet their interests, and if a situation thwarts them it is because their basically rational purpose has not been properly realized or they have made some mistake in dealing with basically useful conditions. Or they realize there is something inherent in these conditions that necessarily conflicts with what they want, and that is a reason to reject them and take steps to overcome or get rid of them. But it is also clear that everyday bourgeois life is not at all conducive to using one’s judgment so rationally; the will to adapt regularly gets in the way of the necessary objectivity. Alongside, however, the modern world has developed an extensive, highly esteemed, firmly institutionalized sphere of reflection that promises just that, incorruptible objectivity and practical knowledge: professionally practiced science.

Science delivers on this promise, being exceedingly successful when it comes to the natural world. It does produce some misinterpretations here, for extraneous reasons such as the commercial interests of those commissioning it, or a bias due to personal ambition — and in many areas the sciences are also far from complete. But the extent of “solidly established,” i.e., objective, knowledge, is enormous, as is that of scientifically grounded practice. This knowledge is not critical in the sense that one could dismiss natural phenomena one dislikes once one has understood them; but for combating harmful things it is definitely useful, not least for putting the prevention and cure of diseases on a sound footing. And all in all, scientific judgments, when they are correct, are the most important means for making aspects of nature match and serve one’s own interests, albeit in accordance with the social relevance of these interests.

Things look a bit different when academics take a look at the interests of a free country’s diverse inhabitants and the conditions under which they are relevant, the reasons why they are irrelevant, and altogether the institutions of society and resulting living conditions. The theories produced by the various humanities and social sciences fill libraries, now overflow even large data repositories, and will not be discussed in detail here. What is striking and revealing, however, is firstly the diversity of the disciplines themselves. By their own account, they do not simply deal with different states of affairs, but adopt different perspectives on more or less the same subjects from the realm of the specifically human. They define their particular subject matter through their particular view of it, or even claim that is how they gain it in the first place. While every judgment, by its very form, shifts from a subjective involvement and standpoint to an examination of the thing as it is in itself — and all “solidly established” knowledge does the same by its content — the sciences dealing with people and society actually claim that their particular viewpoint ranks so much higher than the object under investigation that one cannot even speak of a “thing in itself,” a state of affairs with its own determinations that one might grasp. Secondly, in this area there is a scientific ethos that grants each scientist within the individual discipline the right to their own “research approach,” even making it a duty to be “original” when implementing the discipline-specific perspective. There must expressly be a “pluralism” of scientific “approaches” to the discipline’s topics. In other words, it is not merely taken for granted that researchers give primacy to their subjectivity over the inherent nature of their research object; it is demanded as the condition for rigorous scientific practice.

To begin with the latter point, it is indeed expected that an effort be made to be objective, to arrive at judgments grounded in the nature of the particular subject matter, to achieve knowledge of what constitutes the thing itself. But it is clear from the outset that this effort is doomed to failure. The criterion for scientific rigor that experts are required to meet is to relate their findings and assertions to the theories and research results of other researchers, as many of them as possible. They are not supposed to reject these other theories as factually incorrect (or only in exceptional cases), but to accept them while explaining why and how their own theoretical approach to the subject is precisely what is lacking. They are not only permitted, but required, to make critical and even dismissive judgments about competing “approaches,” but only, or at least primarily, to claim other researchers have missed something, inadequately applied various theoretical preconceptions to the subject, been unaware that the perspective they are adopting is outdated, and the like. It is crucial to harp on about one’s research methodology; and what would be way off the mark would be even just to insinuate that one has not merely offered a fresh perspective on some familiar thing, but actually found something out that is final, because true. Scientific integrity is demonstrated by being modest when it comes to the question of truth, and boasting in the prescribed way about how much “literature” one has consulted, how incredibly deep one’s insight is, how complex the subject matter is, how new the problem posed, et cetera. The criteria are therefore quite strict; but they have nothing to do with objectivity. Correctness is required in the sense that formal criteria of the particular discipline have to be fulfilled (which does require discipline!), and that is all researchers need to do to have carte blanche to pursue any whim. Thus, the dialectic of free speech — any properly formed judgment is allowed as long as it is irrelevant — enters the realm of scientific reflection under the title of “pluralism.”

In terms of content, the whims of the modern humanities scholar are disciplined by the respective subject’s preconception — presented as the “formal object” and elaborated into a method for thinking — about what people and society should be viewed as within their theoretical purview. What the various discipline-specific perspectives agree on is that they all, each in its own distinctive way, ascribe a meaning to their subject areas, which are at least largely overlapping if not identical. This meaning may relate to important norms and values that a society’s life is to be seen as more or less successfully fulfilling. Or it may relate to a fundamental problem facing humanity that, for example, the same society’s economic activity can be detected as solving. At the same time, all these academic disciplines see themselves as critical insofar as they will not accept any social “phenomenon” or intellectual product as a more or less estimable given “just like that.” They see their mission as being to question given realities in accordance with their own discipline, roughly meaning to relate them to some underlying principle, some functional relationship that the object will have to reveal, some higher purpose preceding any conscious purposes, some universal significance that is not immediately apparent. What it is that scholars must ask their particular object of study about, what “question” they must put to it in order to “make it speak,” is fundamentally determined by the discipline they belong to. What they think about is whether and to what extent the studied object fulfills or fails to fulfill what the scientific discipline takes its “true” meaning to be. Each individual science derives its basis and its justification from its particular perspective and the corresponding method of making a problem out of human and social concerns, that is, seeking a meaning that is inherent in things but can also be fallen short of. Each discipline, in its own way, treats reality as a matter whose success is crucial, and as a set of conditions and circumstances that are essential for such success in pursuit of basically worthy goals. That is the end that experts want their insights to serve, across their various departments.

As all disciplines share this concern for the world at large to proceed successfully, they practice peaceful coexistence with each other. None disputes another, they all allow each other’s particular perspective on the world. No discipline is bothered by the fact that other sciences see the same world at large as pursuing a different objective and concerning themselves with different conditions for success than it does. It is up to the experts of the various disciplines themselves to decide whether to recognize each other as complementary external perspectives or dismiss one other as inconsequential offshoots, or even as rather silly byproducts of the academic quest for meaning and solutions to problems. They all belong to the realm of the humanities and social sciences because they all focus on the human world as the object of their solicitude, quite self-assuredly construing it from the point of view of how they are specifically concerned about it. Thus, these sciences achieve the kind of objectivity they are striving for by bringing the principle of false immanence to bear: whatever social institution they are looking at, the premise for analyzing it is to take for granted that it serves a good purpose, this is an ‘a priori’ constitutive of the discipline. Variants of false immanence explain why the humanities are diverse and exist alongside each other.

The academic world reflects on what it is doing, of course. Its division of labor even includes a special discipline that focuses on the epistemic capacity of the human mind. But the many different, if not disparate, yet more or less peacefully coexisting theories that this field of study, too, has produced have one striking feature in common. Their explanations are less concerned with the knowledge that exists and can be comprehended than with the question of whether and how knowledge is at all possible. In accordance with this question, they seek the answer not in comprehending a scientific line of argument, but separately from it. These theories do relate to and focus on what knowledge is — the fine intellectual achievement of understanding what a thing is really about — but in the strangely vacuous, alienated form of matching mind and object as two distinct things. Whether the two properly match is to be judged by the epistemologists, that is, from a standpoint outside the sciences in question and independently of their correct — or false — findings. It is from this external vantage point, a perspective supposedly having a superior view of scientific matters, that they issue the blanket judgment, prior to and beyond any real verification, that there fundamentally can be no knowledge, in the “naive” sense of a theoretical grasp and synthesis of the objective determinations of a research object and their necessary interrelation. This is not surprising, since it is the only result that such a question can lead to. The question already demands that the work of a scientist’s intellect be assessed as an individual’s undertaking whose prospect of success cannot be judged within this undertaking and that therefore can definitely not involve one thing: knowledge about its object. The very formulation of the question already defines knowledge as an open problem that can be solved or not solved only outside the process of acquiring knowledge itself. Whatever conditions epistemology identifies for solving this problem, they invariably involve a negation of scientific explanation, which has its own arguments for deciding on its correctness, and on which questions are still open. And this is the conclusion the various theories of science and epistemology as a rule expressly subscribe to: they credit the mind with all manner of abilities but deny it that one capacity to objectively grasp what a thing is about.

This verdict is sometimes made plausible by citing false beliefs that were long considered true until scientific progress proved them wrong. However, this shows exactly the opposite, eliminating an unscientific view by drawing correct conclusions from the material to be explained; it was certainly no epistemology that ever helped. It is also popular to invoke the notion of “absolute truth,” which is supposedly inaccessible to the finite and fallible human mind if only because the mind itself is not a bit “absolute” but hopelessly relative. As if a proper science were out for something entirely different than a few objective judgments about a few things that are themselves relative, but relatively important. As if it were after a “philosopher’s stone” that would suddenly explain everything. In any case, anyone striving for knowledge, and especially anyone engaged in the world of science, is urgently warned not to consider objective knowledge an attainable goal but to understand it as a heuristic idea. Everything by way of “established knowledge” should be regarded from the outset and on principle as a preliminary, expertly devised conjecture that has not yet been refuted. The emphasis here is on “from the outset” and “on principle.” It is never about just trivially warning that some explanation might be incomplete, or not to overlook or ignore a gap in knowledge. Outside a scientific inquiry into a thing, one cannot determine what progress has been made and what remains to be explained anyway, and such matters are always part of the inquiry. It is instead about the preconceived notion, untouched by any knowledge and available to any fool, that science is a mental construct that can never truly be verified. There is a certain irony in the fact that those who explain science and knowledge themselves claim that their blanket judgment about objective knowledge being impossible is something a priori and irrefutable, i.e., pretty much an “absolute” truth itself, and take it for granted that they have seen through both the world of objects to be explained and the achievements of scientific thought, and understand them well enough to know that the former cannot be grasped by the latter. Seemingly providing an immanent critique aimed at improving science and the human pursuit of knowledge, these critical theories reject the very thing they are admitting in practice, what scientific knowledge is all about: gaining insight into the objective determinations and inherent necessities of a particular object of investigation.

They are not doing any harm to the progress of the natural sciences — or only in one respect. They talk scientists into having a false understanding of their own work and a self-image that is more likely to justify positing questionable theories based on their own ideological preferences and assumptions than to encourage criticism of such theories. If everything is ultimately just a hypothesis anyway, then anything goes! What the discipline of critical self-reflection contributes to the error of pluralism in the humanities and social sciences and their ethos of disciplined originality is to provide a comprehensive demonstration that this is the only way science can function and, above all, it cannot even aspire to anything else because the prime condition for respectable scientific work is to abandon the claim to objectivity. That, after all, is what epistemologists are proud to have found out by thoroughly examining scientific thought as such a priori, separately from all efforts in the “individual sciences.”

What has become the great model for such epistemological expertise is Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, with its program of setting science on a safe course quite generally by examining the capacity or incapacity of reason in advance. Such an “examination” separates scientific knowledge from its content and object — indeed in advance, i.e., fundamentally — thereby placing itself above the reason to be examined, on the one hand, and the reality untouched by rational knowledge, on the other. It can then come up with nothing other than the mental construct of a “capacity” containing an intellectual toolkit that “reason” uses to get going on an object world accessible only to mindless sensation and try to make sense of it. This simultaneously confirms and contradicts the researcher’s idea (which can be nothing more than a hopeful fantasy from this perspective) that the human mind might mentally grasp the object world as it truly is. According to Kant’s “transcendental idealism,” reason has already acted to structure and shape its toolkit when one apprehends the external world, and consequently rediscovers itself in things. The fact that Kant was using this circular argument to explain how the natural sciences manage to produce secure knowledge does not alter the fact that knowledge is no longer on the table once the “conditions of the possibility” of it are being sought. For if one disregards the actual act of acquiring knowledge in order to seek and investigate a faculty that itself says how the world is to be understood, one is not acknowledging what the mind achieves, but rather postulating a mind whose ability is to be determined independently of what it is achieving. This reduces understanding, in principle, a priori, to the fabrication of mental constructs devoid of objective validity.

However, Kant’s conception — that there is a world for us that can be perfectly understood scientifically, being rationally pre-structured and therefore situated on this side of the unknowable world that in itself is beyond — has been found by his epistemological followers to require some changes. Some have aimed to prove the possibility of “exact knowledge” by relieving it of the claim to factual accuracy from the outset; others have had the opposite aim of proving that science is indeed about providing general information about the world, but always subject to the proviso that it can be “falsified” at any time. Some wish to maintain that reason’s toolkit, while never leading to the thing itself, does lead to unambiguous results when used properly — they call it “logically.” They identify or postulate principles of correct inference according to which determining necessary factual relationships can only mean combining statements regardless of what they are saying. In the interest of these combinatorial operations, they formulate, or demand the formulation of, artificial languages that are purged of ordinary-language references to an object world existing separately from language. Their ideal of scientific exactitude requires signs that mean nothing. Other epistemologists start with the idea that the knowing individual comes with an “a priori” that already determines how the object world is perceived and that science, as it were, rediscovers in the world. They then treat this as the indisputable finding that knowledge consists of nothing other than imposing interpretations on the world, and objectivity in science is nothing more than a matter of convention among experts about which interpretation of the world should be taken seriously as an intellectual undertaking — a decision made with binding authority within academia through the existence of a recognized guild. That is then called intersubjectivity of the scientific method, and is the only true reading of scientific objectivity, which epistemologists forever feel obligated to stop subject-specific researchers from misunderstanding to mean proper knowledge.

It is not that modern epistemologists feel this obligation simply because they want to help their colleagues develop an appropriate self-image. Since Sir Popper opened their eyes to this, many in epistemology have considered the intellectual fight against pursuing objective knowledge to be vital to Western freedom and a service they owe to democratically minded “open society.” To them, any judgment that fails to present itself from the start as a mere hypothesis is an attempt to violate free thought, supposedly not allowing anyone to think any other way. This shows not only that scientific explanation is not what they are after. They see judgments, conclusions, and theories only as worldviews by which thinking people commit to, or allow themselves to be committed to, a given interest. The claim to validity that a theoretical statement always has is, to them, automatically an attempt to nail others down to recognizing an intrusive claim. So the only way to protect people’s thinking and volition from being controlled by illegitimate authorities is for every worldview to be explicitly non-binding, complying with whatever idea its originator likes, and even counting as science as long as no counterexample has yet refuted the universal claims it involves. The fact that — exactly the other way round — damaged interests give rise to a need for objective explanation; that proper knowledge is an indispensable means not only for making use of the natural world but also for taking action against a system of rule; that people who are being exploited and “controlled by others” to their detriment definitely do not stand a chance against encroaching rulers unless they have correct thoughts; that, in short, objective knowledge is necessary for a free society — all this is completely alien to those epistemologists who zealously advocate academic pluralism and democratic rule. They see theory a priori as an intellectual instrument for domination, and are so convinced of this that, to them, freedom goes hand in hand with negating objective knowledge. As elitist intellectuals, they consider any theory they perceive as restricting their freedom of thought to be the ultimate instrument of oppression; so much so that they no longer see any form of domination at all, but only freedom and “open society,” when anything goes in terms of worldview, objectivity is forbidden, and instead the valid norm for all theoretical endeavor is the never-resolved competition of non-binding interpretations of everything. The world makes sense when everyone is allowed to see it as making sense in their own way — and the exalted rule standing above goes unchallenged by any genuinely objective criticism and the interests articulated in it.

This brings such philosophers of mind quite close to what democratic freedom of thought is all about. What they additionally accomplish is to condemn reason in a way that has become popular outside academia. Nowadays, pursuing a modicum of reason and correct judgments is considered in the enlightened West almost unanimously to be a mistake that has brought dictatorships, war, and Auschwitz upon humanity. The world is accordingly all right if worldviews of all kinds coexist under ideologically neutral supervision, if no correct explanation interferes with any prevailing ideological craze or rulers’ real freedom of decision, i.e., if “reality” gets the final say, uncomprehended and uncriticized.

There is no doubt that the actually existing power relations get along just fine without being exalted by the philosophy of science. But the scientific mind, with its pluralistic concern for the success of the prevailing order, can apparently not quite make peace with itself without using the philosophy of science to justify its lack of objectivity. In its domain it gets the final say, thanks to its philosophically grounded ban on criticism.

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