Hah, for once I'll be the first to write, even though I don't know that it's a good thing. But I have a writing schedule, and this thing is the next on my list, so let's get to it.

I must admit that I was puzzled as to why we were reading this in the first place. The Danish cartoons? And it took me a while to get it, until Asad's answer to Butler. What triggered me was when he asked: "What does this do to the way one is asked to--and actually--lives?" (140). Indeed.

My main issue when speaking about abstract things like "critique" is the way these things don't really connect with what I do or how I live. So I like that Asad puts "criticism" and "critique" on a scale, instead of separating them. As I was reflecting on this, I realized that this is an exclusively English issue of language. In French, there is no difference between the word for "criticism" and the word for "critique"--both are "critique". The verb "critiquer" has both the sense of criticizing and critiquing. The person who criticizes and the person who critiques are both called "critiques". Of course it doesn't mean they're the same thing--it just means that I think Asad is right when he says that both are linked together.

Let's think about literature for now. Let's say I'm reading a sexist Victorian novel. I think, "oh my, this novel is really sexist." That's a criticism: it is lacking in something, there's something wrong with it. Then it brings me to think: "so what's the ideological implications of this? What kind of message is sent through this narrative?" This is what we would consider "critique", at least in what I conceive to be my academic task. I can't really discuss Butler's intervention, because to be honest I had a hard time following it with all the Foucault and Kant stuff. And I mean, if we don't know that our conception of intellectual work is imbedded in the judaeo-christian foundations of our society, then our basic schooling is doing something wrong. Of course I'm aware.

Our so called "secularity" is really a de-mystification of religious values. Weber's classic Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism has clearly shown that specific religious values can be applied to something that doesn't seem religious at all. It's always been obvious to me, but then maybe I've read the right stuff to make me aware of it. Of course we must recognize this and be aware of it and see when it comes in the way of social justice and when it becomes a tool of oppression. But isn't this what we're always doing as literary critic(izer)s anyway?