Facing the Future

After the latest US elections, it is clear that something is coming to an end—the end of an era. There are thousands of current pieces of thought and opinions about this fact. The recent spate of post-election analyses usually falls into three main categories: the “what happened” pieces, which critical scholars such as myself are not interested in. Then, there are retrospective pieces that attempt to name what is dying at the era-ending moment. Finally, a third type of scholarship attempts to guess what might be born from this world-shifting moment.

This third element—where scholars, pundits, and writers attempt to guess what may come next—is rare. We seem unable to imagine a future for the reasons Mark Fisher outlined in Capitalist Realism. I won’t go into Fisher’s work here, but I suggest re-reading his seminal book.

At any rate, while on my recent sabbatical, I have been unable to find any pieces that accurately and plausibly suggest what may come next—not just in America but the world. Granted, there are plenty of doom-laden pieces, and rightfully so, given the contexts and conditions we are currently facing. However, these pieces ultimately offer nothing new or are simply a continuation of the doom-laden literacy of the first Trump era.

I am no optimist. However, my concern revolves around actionable elements of critique that might work in the face of a decaying empire. I am also not a priest; it is not up to me to give Last Rites to the American project. The US is facing a conclusion, not a cause. The US that emerges after January 20th, 2025, will be the exact outcome of what fifty years of bad policy results in. There will be a vast amount of destruction, inhumanity, violence, and injustice. Understanding this diagnosis is all that is needed.

So, where do we begin as critical scholars? Do we keep our heads down, hope the funding for our latest works doesn’t dry up, and try to avoid making institutional waves at our universities? The temptation to do this is exceedingly high. However, it also means forfeiting all right to call ourselves critical scholars.

Developing an Ethical Rubric

I would borrow from Bernard Harcourt and his work in Critique and Praxis here. Fundamentally, we have to develop some synthesis for our work to which we can subject our efforts to determine if we are becoming part of the institutional problem or offering a genuine counterweight to the incoming tides of ills that are bearing down.

Fundamentally, we must consider that we are entering a stage of radical and disjointed illusions, tropes, warpages, and distortions that will make determining the truth from the false increasingly difficult. Thus, our jobs as truth-seekers and truth-makers will be at the center of the attack. So, we must layer in more profound critical methodologies to find Nietzsche’s “spark” of truth between warring swords.

Harcourt offers us at least a solid preliminary idea: first and foremost, we must resign from imminent critique in most cases. In the age we are about to face – a veritable hall of carnival mirrors, I think it is safe to assume that whether some element of injustice, oppression, or violence is embedded within the analytical object is an irrelevant point. Harcourt is right; immanent critique cannot open new territory for praxis under these conditions. It won’t be enough to point out the institutional capture of elite interests, right-wing fascism, or structural forms of violence and oppression. Instead, we need a method of analysis that will unveil new territory for us to incorporate and formulate experimental praxes.

Finally, essential to any form of praxis that we may create is the necessity for self-reflective means to analyze our praxes and methods—that involves the development of ethical evaluations of our critical work. I have this fantasy that critical scholarship as a profession will develop a rigorous ethical framework for evaluating all critical scholarship. I would love to see critical scholars asking one another, “Okay, and well, what do we do about it”? The answer to that question involves a moral understanding that can keep us anchored to the larger project of humanity. Ideas of justice, direct democracy, redistributive forms of materialism, and even an understanding of what “ethical” political violence may look like. (As a side note, if you believe that what comes next in America won’t require forms of violent confrontation, you should probably hang up your critical scholar street cred now).

So, moving forward, if we consider all forms of analysis and practices that have arisen in the face of violence and oppression, how do we determine what practices we participate in, what movements we seek to advance, and what fights (real or metaphorical) we choose to take up? Again, in a nod to Harcourt – all political options for resistance must remain on the table, and new experimental methods of resistance must be attempted. As critical scholars, it is up to us to enter into the intellectual fray of this and take seriously the fact that we will not be idle observers but participants in upheaval.

References:

Fisher, M. (2022). Capitalist realism: Is there no alternative? John Hunt Publishing.

Harcourt, B. E. (2019). Critique and Praxis. Columbia University Press.