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# Review of *Critique of Critique* (Stanford UP 2023) by Roy Ben-Shai

Jill Stauffer<fnref n="1" />

Accepted: 16 December 2024 / Published online: 13 January 2025
© The Author(s) 2024

Critique is a human activity, made up of thought and action, that is necessary to the human desire for justice, for a better world, for change in general. Like any human tool, however, it may be used well or badly. Like any thought or action, it may be profoundly generative of new possibility but, as Roy Ben-Shai points out in his book *Critique of Critique*, it may also end up misconstruing itself as reactive instead. And that may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So Ben-Shai’s task in the book is to rescue critique from itself—protecting what is vital in it while keeping careful watch for the betrayals it may perform—while also reminding us that critique is not the only tool we have for imagining better worlds or different futures. The book takes us through critique as an orientation, its basic elements, its aporias and its architectonics, all in the service of this balancing act between what critique may produce and what it may disallow. Its sources are wide-ranging, grounded in the history of philosophy—from Plato and Augustine, through Kant and Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche, to Adorno, Heidegger, Deleuze, and beyond—but also partakes in studies of literature, art, psychology, and language, all in a style of writing that is as erudite as it is engaging. Despite the seriousness of the topic and the razor-sharp quality of the analysis, reading the book feels like being engaged in good philosophical conversation—against a tendency in some philosophical writing that feels more like a winner-takes-all competition.

*Critique of Critique* is not only impressive in its own right; it promises to be part one of an ambitious and important trilogy of volumes on modes (or what Ben-Shai calls orientations) of critical thinking. He begins with critique because it is, you might say, the air we breathe. Everyone is familiar with the critical stance, so much so that many of us forget that we have other modes we might take up for interfacing with the world, its bounty and its scarcity, and each other. Ben-Shai begins the book by posing an inherent difficulty, whether it is “possible to genuinely critique a culture

<footnote>Jill Stauffer
jstauffe@haverford.edu</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ Haverford College, Philadelphia, USA</footnote>
of critique, or is that just a way of conforming to its norms and expectations?” (2). And yet, as he convincingly argues, it is incumbent on us all to think more carefully about this air we breathe so as to come to learn when we ought to breathe it and when we ought to look for other sources of oxygen. He fears that, as we might with a good piece of equipment, with critique we will forget to notice what we are using in the ease of using it (pointing to Heidegger’s analysis of tool use). And so Ben-Shai sets out to help us see the tool for what it is. I myself do not think tools disappear as easily as Heidegger does, but the point remains. A good tool might make you forget that you are using it, or it might help you appreciate the importance of tools. Critique might make you forget that it is one orientation among many or it might help you understand when to use it and when to reach for another mode of analysis. Ben-Shai promises further volumes on other orientations of critical thinking, including emancipatory thinking and revolt.

*Critique of Critique* stands on its own in the meantime. In the book we encounter a thinker whose questions are foundational. I myself am the kind of thinker who is always asking how to fix something, how to ask a better question about an entrenched problem. Ben-Shai enters the room and, after listening carefully, poses a question that would be devastating if it weren’t so helpful—he gets to the heart of things, to what is left unthought. Allow me to solidify this point about Ben-Shai’s foundational questions: My current work has focused on how some temporal stories enjoy privilege in certain settings, which means that other possible descriptions of what it means for time to pass (or to regress, stand still, cycle, distend, and so on) are either discarded as false or unhelpful, or never considered in the first place. Then *Critique of Critique* shows up on my doorstep with a fully formed discussion of the relationship between ends and beginnings that leads us straight to the heart of a form of thinking that seemingly cannot release itself from the goal of progress. It had not occurred to me to look for this temporal problem in the tradition of critique. Ben-Shai mentions how late-stage capitalist logic makes us think it is easier to imagine an end of the world than an end to capitalism (whether we attribute that observation to Jameson or Žižek). And his use of the idea transpires within a critique of a tradition of critique that ties the beginning of one thing to the end of another. “The need to end (the creed of the critic) thus gives meaning to the need to begin, while the desire to begin (the urge of the revolutionary) prompts the imperative to end,” he writes, adding, “But can a beginning that draws its meaning from the end ever reach that end?” (185). When we limit ourselves to critique as our critical stance, do we unknowingly limit what it is possible for us to think, or achieve?

Of course, beginnings, ends, progressive temporalities, these are not our only options. In Ben-Shai’s terms, “thinking outside of modernity is not the same thing as critiquing modernity or *moving past* it. It is, rather, thinking in a chronological register in which modernity and modernization are not operative terms” (198). It is fully possible for each of us to imagine—and live our way into—a temporal form that isn’t pathologically progressive. But to do that we have to allow ourselves to step outside of assumptions formulated in the attitude of critique. An orientation toward critique puts us in a structure that requires that one thing ends before another begins. Recognize that this isn’t the only possibility and not only have you made other temporal formations possible, you’ve also offered helpful steps toward possible reorientations,

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with which we might be able to *begin* something without seeking to extirpate anything already existing.

We do need more and different stories about time and temporality, and *Critique of Critique* sets us on a generative path in this regard. I would have liked to have seen some more discussion of alternate temporalities—something other than linear progression, such as diachronic, polyrhythmic, and circular temporalities—and perhaps discussion of traditions where endings and beginnings are less important, such as some indigenous groups in North America and elsewhere practice. But that is not a fatal omission given that the focus of this book is on critique as an orientation, and that orientation holds us to a progressive temporality.

There are other questions I might raise with regard to some of Ben-Shai’s argu-
ments in the book, but they are all similarly non-fatal. Rather, they are the stuff of
good philosophical conversation. For instance, when he states that injustice “is not a
fact but a structural premise of an orientation of thought,” (25) I understand that he
means interpretation is what makes a thing just or not just, and that revolutions must
therefore do more than change what the facts are, but I wonder whether the certainty
of the phrasing grants too much to the critical stance. In other words, I doubt whether
it is always true that “whichever way we define [justice], reality would fall short of it”
(25). I know that Ben-Shai’s point here is that critique, as an orientation of thought, is
structured such that you are either for it or against it, and thus, to paraphrase him, it is
both philosophically and socially difficult to critique critique (27). And perhaps all he
means here is that, as it is structured, justice remains outside of critique even if it is its
aim. Ben-Shai’s reading of Augustine, Hegel, and Marx as thinkers whose accounts
rely on sin or injustice being on the scene prior to the arrival of theory—which arises
in response to those “bad things,” to seek redemption, spirit, or a socialist utopia—
shows that all three of these thinkers, in different ways, describe for us “selves that
are helpless and lost because they fail to recognize their essential community” (82).
Per this account, sin and injustice are things committed by individuals with agency
who forget they are part of a larger collective. Progress aims to correct these individu-
als’ mistakes, leave the errors in the past, and reunite selves with a collective. “This
depiction of the past as catastrophic, as a process of decay and death, is, I think, the
implication of an orientation and, indeed, provides an angle on an oft-forgotten impli-
cation of progress: the old is crushed under the surge of the new, killed by the new,
replaced by the new, critiqued by the new” (179). But, Ben-Shai points out, Marx
(or Hegel) might have done better if they had, rather than theorizing their utopias on
the ground of the chronology of critique, revolutionized that chronology—because
“understanding structural premises and sophisticatedly elaborating on them does not
undo the premises, let alone put them to question or consider alternatives” (189).

So, as I’ve said, Ben-Shai points out that, for critique, “whichever way we define
[justice], reality would fall short of it” (25). I find myself wanting to resist rest-
ing with that idea, because I think I’m closer to Eve Sedgewick on this question,
wary of paranoid reading (where we always already know that the world is full of
unjust disasters waiting to be revealed), always seeking to leave space for reparative
approaches (where we are more aware of how much we do not know and so less
likely to prejudice the outcome of encountering something new toward disaster).
Ben-Shai seems to want to show that critique strands us in an unfinished project,
and that we have other options. So it seems that he and I may agree. And yet I think I find in the *how* of parts of his argument the difficulty of the struggle. His point is permanently in danger of being recaptured by the attitude of critique. (He admits as much). My point is that performing the reparative reading may help draw attention to the structure hidden by the presuppositions of critique. And then Ben-Shai and I may end up on the same side of this question, despite having differed on how to get there. Or, as Ben-Shai puts it toward the end of *Critique of Critique*, "it is hard not to accuse someone who says the present state is good and only getting better of being somewhat uncritical, if not downright reactionary. What chiefly concerns us here, however, is not whether the world or history is a sordid affair but whether it can be otherwise, that is, not whether change in general is possible but whether this basic ontological fact about the world—that it appears sordid to the critic—can change" (195). I agree. I want to know more about how to do it. To me it seems that reparative reading is one such strategy, among others. My sense, borne out by the concluding chapter of the book, is that volumes two and three, on emancipatory thinking and revolt, will also fill out the shapes that are here shown in contour. My sense also, borne out by my experience of what academic book reviews tend to do, is that I may want this because of who I am rather than because it is needed by the argument made in *Critique of Critique*.

I want to conclude with a further note on the style of the book's writing. Ben-Shai and I share interest in the work of Jean Améry, a fact I mention here because it bears on how I read *Critique of Critique*. Ben-Shai has a deep respect for Améry's uncompromising—and often bleak—philosophical positions on time, resentment, and aging, and what that all means for morality. In his larger work Ben-Shai unpacks Améry's work with great care, and shows why Améry deserves to be considered amongst the more canonic philosophers—and also why his work differs from what we tend to find in that canon. Amery's work rigorously undertakes the work of thinking and yet what he is doing aims to keep us anchored to what we cannot rise above rather than leading us only to our excellence or, as Ben-Shai puts it in his article “Without Love or Wisdom,” “Améry's brand of thinking methodically pulls us down” (205). Ben-Shai points out that Améry is suspicious of philosophy's sometimes fatuous profundity (or its lack of clarity); its impersonal stance—Améry prefers to stick to what is lived, even when it is barely livable; and its professionalism.

I think what I admire most about *Critique of Critique* is how readable it is—something I think Ben-Shai learned from Améry, not in terms of taking up Améry's style, but in grounding even his most profound and professional ideas (remember Améry's worries about these categories) in lived experience. In the book he is working with difficult ideas and focused on analyses of difficult thinkers, and yet Ben-Shai has a way of anchoring his work in concerns we all have. Even the opening anecdote in the book's preface about the funny long-term conversation he and his wife have—critiquing the ill-wrought high-rise being built across from their apartment in New York—that humorous, human, and intensely intelligent ethos pervades Ben-Shai's writing style. And, like Améry, I think Ben-Shai's writing aims to tell readers about themselves, rather than only about what Kant, Adorno, Heidegger or anyone else might say. Ben-Shai's writing style is beautiful but also unsentimental. Unsparing but not cruel. It is an achievement.

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**Author contributions** Only one person authored this manuscript.

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**Declarations**

**Competing interests** The authors declare no competing interests.

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