In Theory

‘Theory’ is today a frequent object of polemic. The critics of ‘Theory’ sometimes speak as if it were only a comparatively recent academic trend, an empty category, a camouflage for political saboteurs. It was perhaps timely of Pas Au-Dela, then, to re-discover this Adorno piece, in which the question of Theory is addressed directly and the existence of Theory defended against its critics. The most elementary definition of theoretical thought, A. reminds us, is in contrast to practice and practical thought. Theoretical thinking is an activity not simply subordinate to current practical ends, it is not instrumental. Not ‘how can we sell this commodity’ but ‘what is a commodity’.

Another way of putting this is that theory sullenly refuses the continual command imperatives of the world in which we live, and is prepared, A. again reminds us, to think an idea or concept through to its roots – even if that means uprooting it - rather than asking only how can it be used. Practicality is indeed a kind of ‘call’ - the world solicits us, impatiently, to direct our attention to the reproduction or extension of what is, and frowns on genuine thought as mere dallying. The crude reproach of schoolmates on learning that one is pursuing a philosophy or English degree – ‘But what will you do with that?’ contains the categorical imperative against which theory has to dig in its heels.

For Adorno the very existence of theory, as non-instrumental thought, is, like the very existence of art, utopian in-itself prior to any specific contents. At the same time, the relative autonomy of theory, and of art, is both a symptom and an illusion. Any genuinely Marxist approach cannot really posit that theory is innocent of practical concerns. Indeed, critics like Aijaz Ahmad(In Theory) have convincingly demonstrated some of the ways in which theory can indeed be the instrument of group self-promotion within the academy. Similarly, the retreat of art into its own sphere in the end performs a familiar role within bourgeois society. Both theory and art are both impossible and necessary. They retain, in their name and their concept, the possibility of a freedom which is at once confiscated by the world in which they exist.

A nicely indicative example of the 'anti-theory' position.