Paths to Critical Theory

humanistic gestures of politicking, making veiled threats and uneasy alliances, and devising ad hoc surprises. Survival depends on being unpredictable, using the loopholes and insisting on the right to define our own reality and get the benefits to be extracted from our society. Yes, yes, the doubters always say at this point, was all very well in the 60s, but what about the 80s? I reject the notion that each decade brings with it obligatory rebirth with amnesia. The texts of the 60s gave us the optimistic respect for individual rights: Realpolitik showed us how state power militates against the individual and groups of traditionally oppressed peoples. What we did not produce was a blueprint for surviving the co-optation of the 70s which have led to the present encroachment of world fascism. Too many of our most gifted thinkers became petrified in postures of political correctness and purity. Often we are victimized by our own naivite at accepting the trivializing vision of the media which define and dismiss revolution as an event rather than seeing it as a long and incremental process. In my own struggles as an educator, living within this spiral of contradiction, I have gained inspiration from the writings of Kozol and Friere. I have also been moved by less eloquent writers: my students who have neither the language nor the metaphors to describe their truncated dreams and impotent rage. Living through these times with them is being true to my own beliefs in the revolution. I am confident that out of this process, texts will emerge that will heighten our retrospective understanding. This is not the time for compulsive big-shots of the revolution to jet about, offering slick and costly speeches to privileged audiences. The most that many of us can do in these days of darkness is to crouch hopefully over our light and

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• Object Lessons in a time of tolerable suboptimisation

  Open Access•James Bli, James P Bli et al.•Feminist Theory•2023

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