Bruno Latour has argued that “critique has run out of steam”, and proposes a new mode of critique as “compositionism:” bringing different practices, worlds and values to bear on each other. This paper argues that the research programme that Luc Boltanski calls the “pragmatic sociology of critique” answers both the specific problem posed by Latour and more general concerns about the relationship between practices of critique and the institutions they encounter. The paper is based upon an analysis of On Justification (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006) and The New Spirit of Capitalism (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005), as well as the field of inquiry that informs them. In these works, the authors present both a study of critique and a methodology for further study in that mode: both a pluralistic description of the “economies of justification” in everyday life, and a guide for effecting change. In particular, their research programme modifies critique in three ways: it acknowledges that everyday life is filled with critical moments; it draws analytical categories from the field itself; and it poses critique in a way that can be understood by those it addresses. This paper charts important methodological considerations for any study of culture that might desire to be “critical”.

1. symmetry and
composition:
on the pragmatic sociology of critique
luke van ryn
university of melbourne
@myspaceghost

2. outline
what’s wrong with critique?
what is the pragmatic sociology of critique?
what is to be done?

3. what’s wrong
with critique?

4. “the capitalist system … has
discovered routes to its survival in
critiques to it”
boltanski and chiapello (2005) the new spirit of capitalism

5. what is the
pragmatic sociology
of critique?

6. “a situation that holds together …
demonstrates its own justness”
boltanski and thévenot (2006) on justification

7. economies of worth
inspiration
domestic
fame
civic
market
industrial
network
artists, children
traditions, families
opinions, esteem
collectives
prices, competition
experts, efficiency
projects

8. modes of critique
corrective situation is polluted
nepotism
radical situation is framed wrong
networking

9. dimensions of critique
artistic
social
freedom, authenticity
société du spectacle
equality, justice
#occupy

10. “semantic work and police work go
together”
boltanski (2011) on critique

11. what is to be
done?

12. “the critic is not the one who
debunks, but the one who
assembles”
latour (2005) why has critique run out of steam?

13. “each time [sociologists] interpret
their surveys they inform the
leviathan, transforming and
performing it”
callon and latour (1981) unscrewing the big leviathan

14. “the process of composition always
takes place in a terrain informed by
power relations”
mouffe (2013) agonistics

15. “my point is not that everything is
bad, but that everything is
dangerous”
foucault (1997) on the genealogy of ethics

16. applied pragmatic sociology of critique
thévenot, moody & lafaye (2000)
in search of a ‘green’ polity
morgan, marsden & murdoch (2006)
logics of food ecologies
fordyce & van ryn (forthcoming)
critique and ethical branding

17. symmetry and
composition:
on the pragmatic sociology of critique
luke van ryn
l.vanryn@student.unimelb.edu.au
@myspaceghost