Kim Charnley: A response to Mckenzie Wark’s ‘High’ and ‘Low’ Theory

There are still important questions to be asked about the relationship between the Occupy movement and ideas. Although there is no shortage of theories that offer an up-to-date analysis of Capitalism, there is less confidence when it comes to the relationship between these ideas and political strategy. The crux of this problem is revealed, though not intentionally, by Mckenzie Wark in OT16.

In the interview with the OT, Wark criticises ‘Philosophy’, or ‘High theory’ for its attempts to ‘legislate for other domains’, whilst advocating ‘Low theory’, which is the ‘organic concept-forming practice of everyday life’. High theory tells us what to think, whilst Low theory has the potential to ‘invent new practices of knowledge’. This may seem innocuous enough – there have been many attacks on Philosophy in the history of politicised thought. Most famously, Marx’s eleventh thesis on Feuerbach states ‘philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it’. On the face of it, Wark seems to be saying something similar to this. However, the problem comes with the relationship Wark describes between Low and High theory.

In Wark’s analysis High theory is a kind of pantomime villain, driven by a ‘desire’ for ‘academic respectability and honours’. Low theory does not have this affliction, but can ‘borrow’ from Philosophy, perhaps something like the way that Wark ‘borrows’ from, or at least cites, Wittgenstein. But what is the nature of this ‘borrowing’? Marx, for example, does not simply ‘borrow’ from Philosophy. He critiques Philosophy and Political Economy, in order to develop a rich analysis of the iniquities and contradictions of Capitalism. Is this High theory in Wark’s analysis? And does this mean that we who practice ‘Low theory’ can only borrow from Philosophy, confining our activity to ‘organic’ concept-forming?

Perhaps it is unfair to place so much emphasis on the use of the term ‘borrow’, which after all could include the idea of criticism, even though it seems to be used in this context to stress the mere appropriation of ideas. But even granting this, the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ seems strangely immobilising. It becomes even more difficult when we consider that Wark himself is a successful academic, presumably one who practises Low theory and who achieved his success without desire. Either way, his social position is that of a professional intellectual, interviewed by OT because his ideas may be of use to the work of Occupy. And this means, of course, that his concepts have the power to ‘legislate’ what they describe. Ironically, the distinction between ‘High’ and ‘Low’ theory is a classic example of just such legislation. Wark’s theory apportions different places to different kinds of thinking that artificially limits the potential of intellectual activity.

Gramsci, the Marxist theorist and strategist, wrote that ‘all men are philosophers’, meaning that the natural relations between ideas and our life process are creative and critical. He also said that ‘all men are intellectuals but not all men have the social function of intellectuals’[1], emphasising that intellectual activity is a shared human power, although some people are socially positioned so that they can spend more time on intellectual labour. In political terms, the professional intellectual specialises in the development of ideas. The professional intellectual is not the only person with the right to develop ideas: everyone has this power. Whether or not we develop an elaborate analysis, we still act as intellectuals when we engage with and question the validity of ideas. The ideas of the professional intellectual must be subjected to scrutiny, in order to test whether they are of any use; indeed, all ideas must be subjected to this procedure. The distinction between High and Low theory actually conceals this relation, allowing professional intellectual discourse to imply that it is ‘low’, avoiding the criticism that it must receive if it is to have any political function. It also implies that Low theory should confine itself to matters of organic concept-forming and ‘tactics’, rather than other forms of intellectual debate. The vital role of criticism is suppressed. Subtly, everyone is given a role that they should stick to.

If we do not pull ideas apart and test their usefulness, they can only degenerate into quotation and name-dropping. Wark’s distinction between High and Low theory misrepresents the transformative potential of involvement in ideas. He associates Low theory with everyday life, which seems to mean, in political terms, the ‘tactics’ of direct action. But for Occupy there must be more than tactics. The extent of the movement demands some kind of unifying strategic discourse – hence the recent attempts to elaborate a Global Manifesto. Attacks on High theory simultaneously conceal their own social position and block the potential that Occupy has as a critical forum for Left thinking. Whatever else Philosophy has been, it has also specialised in critique: forming and contesting judgements about the usefulness and adequacy of ideas. This practice is crucial to unearthing the ideas that may unconsciously form from our experience, as well as forming the ideas that might help to effect radical social change.

The Occupy movement, whilst taking control of physical space, opened a symbolic and intellectual space in which a new broad coalition of Left thinking might emerge. However, as Mckenzie Wark inadvertently shows, ideas that seem radical and egalitarian do not always live up to their promise on closer analysis. A combative debate around these ideas in the pages of OT would, in my view, provide an important forum where positions that are in sympathy with Occupy, though in dispute with one another, might be read and criticised by all of those who want to see radical change.

By Kim Charnley