Activism versus Criticism? The Case for a Distinctive Role for Social Critics

Bibliographic Data

ID3256306
AuthorsLaurent Gilson (0000-0001-5419-833X, Bates College, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume118
Issue2
Pages862-875
Publication date2024-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s000305542300045x
OpenAlexW4378379859
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited45

This essay makes a distinction between the roles that activists and social critics can play in democratic societies and defends the separate tasks of a non-activist social critic. Drawing on Ralph Waldo Emerson's writings, I argue that non-activist social critics are better situated than activists to reach certain audiences, cultivate certain democratic capacities, and preserve their audience's agency while doing so. In Emerson's case, his concerns about his activist contemporaries led him to craft new ways of critically engaging his peers. At the same time, as Emerson's life also illustrates, non-activist critics are limited by their roles and must forgo some of their distinctive advantages in order to do activist work. Clarifying the scope of the social critic's role in this way helps critics to draw on the benefits of their position and avoid overstepping its constraints, thereby allowing them to more effectively promote political reform

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Art · Craft · Criticism · Democracy · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Scope (computer science · Situated · Social criticism · Social science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · American Political and Social Dynamics · Law · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society

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