Impossibility of 'Auto-Critique' (was Re: Irony, or, theImportance of Being Earnest)

[rc-am]

>>>I think that 'auto-critique' fundamentally works to preempt
(expected
and unexpected) critiques by others. One criticizes oneself in the
secret
hope that one won't be (badly) surprised by becoming an object of
others'
>criticisms. In other words, 'auto-critique' protects our fragile ego
from becoming wounded. In this sense, 'auto-critique' is a defense
mechanism one
>develops in order to manage the fear and shame of having one's own
>(inescapably) partial vision exposed in front of others. It is what
we do so as not to get 'caught with our pants down,' so to speak. It
is a
sign of the lack of solidarity (or of trust in our
friendship/comradeship
with others). That is why I heavily discount the value of navel-gazing
about 'privilege.' It is not just an impossible task; it is also a
smarmy
gesture.<<<

sure, it is this.  but in order for this to anchor itself as a
generalised practice, it would also entail a certain introjection of
the other as critical.  there are numerous difficulties with this, but
I think it might come down finally to how you define the self in the
first place.  if you define the self as enclosed and constitutionally
monadic^, then sure, self-critique would also be doing little more
than unpacking and repacking one's own baggage.   hence, it might well
be more accurate to say that auto-critique does not repel the wounding
of the self by others but rather restages the wound that the self is
predicated through.

the precondition of narcissism then is not whether the object of
critique is oneself, but whether or not the self is seen (by my
self) as self-sufficient, complete, etc, wherein my relations to
others is immediately aggressive.   this is what you describe above in
part. (it may also be that an aggressive self is promoted by
capitalism, but that would not be anywhere near saying it is
guaranteed.

it may well be that you don't define the self in this way, but there
is a tendential hint of doing just this from a previous post, where
you wrote:


>>However, irony works differently, even for progressive purposes,
when
knowledge in question concerns _real social contradictions_, not
simple
logical contradictions within statements or incongruities between
statements and implied knowledges of enunciators. <<

a different topic to be sure, but here, there is a sense in which you
separate contradictory utterances from real social contradictions
(where the latter must be somehow defined as not including
contradictions of speech or writing in order for the distinction to
make any sense), whereas in the above you separate the self from its
constitutive relation with an other (big and otherwise).  i think the
neat distinction does not quite make it.

angela

^anyone have any ideas on the debate between singularities and
dialectics (a la deleuze for instance)?  a complex discussion to get
into, but it might be more pertinent to this particular discussion.