Unstable serious-nonserious critical speech is itself a critique of theoretical vanguardism

Evidence

But also, to repeat, the charge is precisely against that seemingly impenetrable but ultimately perhaps even stupid seriousness of the academic intellectual; that is the “condition or effect— take your pick” of ethico-political repression. And one should give Derrida the benefit of the doubt that, when he asks such a question it does not only mean “you can’t tell, can you?” but that, “given the implications of my critique, I can’t tell either; yet I will take my stand and make the critique nonetheless.” It is a critique of the vanguardism of the theoretician. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 776

Categorization

• DEFINE: Spivak here clarifies the nonserious mode of questioning as an ethics-of-critique stance, not just irony.
• XREF: connects to: Critical dialectical language exposes contradiction while Orwellian language hides it — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 411; Dialectical criticism occupies a non-position between immersion and externality — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 53

Broader Connections

• Critical dialectical language exposes contradiction while Orwellian language hides it #expands (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 411
• Dialectical criticism occupies a non-position between immersion and externality #expands (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 53