Brown, in her introduction to Is Critique Secular? writes the following blurb (referencing Marxist heritage):
“Critique in this tradition has prided itself on explaining both mystifications and human consort with these mystifications from a place imagined to be their opposite in every respect. Thus does the rational, material, real, scientific and human aim both to explain and supplant the religious, the ideal, the unreal, the speculative, and the divine.” (13)

Asad, in his section “Historical Notes on the Idea of Secular Criticism,” writes (as one of three responses to Said) that, “since criticism employs judgment, since it seeks conviction – of oneself and others – to what extent does it therefore seek to overcome skepticism?” (47)

In light of our previous discussions in this class, and the “crisis in the Humanities” which we reference ad nauseum, I’m curious about the relationship between the speculative and conviction as it manifests itself in our critical discourse. I find a continual sense in my classes (largely through critical articles assigned for reading) that the purpose of a critical argument is to ‘supplant’ another person’s (previously ‘accepted’) claim with a new, more rational, way of understanding a particular concept/piece of writing. As a critically engaged member of an academic practice, I learn to see through such postures of conviction (understanding in particular the slippery nature of language and the way my perceptions of the world are created by the particular social and linguistic contexts in which I develop, as both person and scholar). By doing so, I can then, with equal degree of ‘conviction’ (really I always feel like an imposter) I lay my own thoughts open to the world and await the judgment of my fellow thinkers, continually prepared to supplant my supposed ‘ideal’ or ‘unreal’ perceptions of the world with their own rational arguments.

While this may come off as a rant, what I’m really interested in asking is: do we continually support a certain sense of ‘righteousness’ in our own thought-production? If we do, what impact does this have on our understanding of the academic landscape as secular? And, if we accept Brown’s split between ‘rational, material, real, scientific and human’ on one hand, and ‘the religious, the ideal, the unreal, the speculative, and the divine,’ on the other, just what sort of judgments are we attempting to assert through ‘critique’ when we position our own work as supplanting that of our colleagues?

I realize that many of us see our own work as building upon, rather than replacing, the work of other scholars. But the continual need to find the flaws in other people’s arguments suggests to me that while we may want to refine these thoughts of others, we do it in a way that diminishes their work, even if it doesn’t invalidate it. In what ways are we limiting our freedom (as writers, as critics) in perpetuating this practice? Does this practice negatively impact the way our discipline is perceived by a broader public? Could adapting our standard critical practices help address our current humanities ‘crisis’?