The ideological dusk of contradiction

Abstract

The argument of this article is as follows: at the very moment we witness the return of “contradiction” to the lexicon of social critique, we also observe its loss of critical potential as a concept. In other words, we are witnessing a complete disconnection from the notion of determinate negation, which, at its most profound moments, characterized “contradiction” as a critical category. This decline, identified as “ideological,” is attributed, as I attempt to argue, to a “phraseological return” present in the uses of the term by Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi. Contradiction as structural dysfunctionality (FRASER) and contradiction as a practical obstacle to self-understanding (JAEGGI) constitute, in line with the original vocabulary of critical theory, an “ideological simulacrum” or a “return to traditional theory.” To develop this argument, the text is divided into five sections: (i) an introduction; (ii and iii) a reconstruction of Nancy Fraser’s and Rahel Jaeggi’s respective conceptions of contradiction; (iv) an attempt to demonstrate that these concepts do not, in fact, qualify as contradictions and, therefore, represent the decline of the critical meaning of the term; and (v) a concluding evaluation of this decline as ideological.