Democracy and the critical imagination: Rethinking the political import of dialectical reflection.

摘要

Motivated by a general interest in how critical reflection operates in American democratic life, this study is concerned with how a particular style or kind of critical orientation might enrich, or be made to enrich, our image of the strong democratic citizen. In recent years, the idea of a critical orientation has emerged most profoundly in certain strands of theoretical work informed by postmodern or poststructuralist thought. Theorists have sought to explore the democratic import of genealogical critique and deconstruction in an effort to open up political space for different or alternative modes of human being and interaction. And while this work certainly enriches our thinking about the interconnections between social criticism and democratic life, questions remain as to how effective these approaches are or can be in political practice, how well they speak to problems facing many ordinary citizens, and how they might be made to better address deficiencies in democratic participation. Drawing on Hegel and Marx broadly, and with specific chapters on Jean-Paul Sartre, Theodor W. Adorno, and the West Indian writer and activist C.L.R. James, this study aims to supplement recent theoretical work by revisiting the generally forgotten language and conceptual resources of modern dialectical reflection. Working from a self-consciously late modern perspective, and emphasizing generally the rhetorical import of modern dialectical thought, I argue that a reconsideration of select dialectical motifs can help theorists attend to some of the psychic and material constraints that often prevent the kinds of democratic outcomes we desire.