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original target of criticism (cf. ibid. 177). As Jaeggi writes,

      external criticism applies an external normative standard to an existing society. This standard is external in the sense that it is supposed to be valid regardless of whether it already holds within an existing community or an existing social institutional structure and of whether it is ‘contained’ in a given state of affairs, and it judges the given situation according to whether it satisfies this standard. Criticism in this case aims to transform, supersede, or reorient what is given on the basis of norms that are brought to bear on it from the outside. (Critique 178)

      Intending to harvest the power of external criticism, the critic is defined by her reluctance to share the norms and values esteemed in the given society and thus chooses to distance herself from that society (cf. ibid.). While Jaeggi herself does not illustrate her argument, it is an easy task to conceive of one oneself: the West criticising the role of women in Arab countries externally, for instance, is a relevant and highly debated example in the context of post-colonial criticism and the supposed moral superiority of the West.

      Jaeggi goes on to introduce her next category, which she terms ‘internal criticism’ – a category related to an everyday understanding of critique and frequently used to detect inherent contradictions. This form of criticism assumes that “although certain ideals and norms belong to the self-understanding of a particular community, they are not actually realized within it” (ibid. 179). Jaeggi introduces examples to make her point clear: the Christian community which preaches the gospel yet rejects refugees; or a CEO who champions women’s rights in public, yet favours male employees when hiring new staff (cf. ibid. 179f.). Contrary to external criticism, which imposes its standards externally, ‘internal criticism’ rests on the conviction that “the standard of criticism resides in different ways in the matter itself.” (ibid. 180, emphasis in the original) Criticism grows out of promises made but not kept, general principles, or norms that might have been proclaimed, however which are not (fully) realised by the community. Internal criticism is at its heart a conservative technique, advocating the re-establishment of certain norms and practices by illuminating “an inconsistency either between assertions and facts, between accepted norms and practices, between appearance and reality, or between claim and realization” (ibid.). It does not champion an alternative system, but rather results in upholding of the status quo (cf. ibid. 182) – the source of its persuasiveness and power. Jaeggi argues that this type of criticism is employed regularly, for it demands very little effort. Its “practical and pragmatic advantages” (ibid. 183, emphasis in the original) lie in the fact that this type of criticism merely reminds the community of what they signed up for in the first place: “[n]o one, we assume, can wish to remain in an internal contradiction” (ibid.). Essentially, critic and the object of criticism are part of the same in-group since they belong to a community that has already accepted certain norms and values.

      Jaeggi’s third and most ambitious type of criticism is subsumed under the term of ‘immanent criticism.’ Similar to internal criticism, this mode appeals to a normative yardstick already inherent in the object/person they want to criticise. This form of criticism is thus “not conducted from an imagined Archimedean point outside of the reality to be criticized“ (ibid. 190) like external criticism. But, as Jaeggi claims, immanent criticism is “normatively stronger” than external or internal criticism for it “find[s] the new world through criticism of the old one” (190). As Hans Arentshorst summarises,

      [i]mmanent criticism differs from both these approaches because it starts from the problems and [inherent] contradictions of a life-form. In this sense it is more negativistic and formal than internal criticism: it is not interested in recovering certain values, but it wants to contribute to the transformative potential of a life-form by raising consciousness about its internal problems and contradictions. In this sense, immanent criticism is context-dependent, since it analyzes the internal problems and contradictions of a life-form, but it is also context-transcending because it aims at the transformation of the current life-form in order to overcome its problems. (273)

      Assuming that the standards set by the object of criticism are “contradictory in themselves” (Jaeggi, Critique 190, emphasis in the original), immanent criticism, then, anchors its method within the criticised reality itself, encountering it (ideally) without any ideologically framed preconceived ideals. It is therefore a new type of criticism due to its inherent objectiveness.8 It does not “merely proceed from the critic’s subjective critical intention” (ibid. 191f.) but creates parameters for the object of criticism to criticise itself. Fundamentally, immanent criticism is only possible in constellations, in which “the object of criticism […] has succumbed to a crisis of itself” (ibid. 192). Immanent criticism operates thereby to a certain degree outside of any ideology, since it refrains from approaching the object of criticism with preconceived normative standards.

      Applying a theoretical framework, the critic’s task is to – so to speak – ‘detect’ a crisis: “the crisis qua crisis of the objects (as a problem lying in the social relations) must always be analyzed and uncovered in the first place at the theoretical level” (ibid.). Therefore, it is imperative to frame the criticism theoretically: “[w]hereas internal criticism is a mundane procedure that is applied in one way or another in a variety of situations, immanent criticism is guided by theory” (ibid. 191). Immanent criticism constructs links and connections between two seemingly unrelated phenomena and thus originates in the school of thought of dialectics as popularised by Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel in Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) and Science of Logic (1813). This philosophical method “relies on a contradictory process between opposing sides” (Maybee), that is to say, observing two seemingly antithetical concepts, such as life and death. Upon closer inspection, however, Hegel argues that binary distinctions are dissolved into a continuum, in which one concept embodies the other: life depends on death (in the form of digestion, consumption); death does not exist without life (cf. R. Winter); conceptual boundaries merge and flow into another until they are declared invalid and shown to spring from one origin.

      Jaeggi’s immanent criticism docks onto Hegel’s idea of ‘positive Vernunft.’ This mode of criticism refuses to remain caught in dichotomous patterns. On the contrary, the aim of immanent criticism is to decipher when and how concepts flow into each other, showing “that there is a connection here at all, and in doing so to distinguish the two (‘separated’) moments as part of this connection, which as a result is marked by a contradiction” (Jaeggi, Critique 198). Eventually, without immanent criticism and the use of theoretical analysis, certain co-dependant phenomena might not become visible at all. Jaeggi calls them ‘genuinely immanent problems,’ shortcomings arising out of the inconsistencies of a system. Contrary to problems that have their cause externally (a people suffers from starvation because of a draught) or internally (a people suffers from starvation because they struggle with the climatic conditions and fail to make adequate provisions in form of food reservoirs etc.; cf. ibid. 165ff.), these problems are a direct result of systematic inconsistencies and only perceivable by thinking consequently in dialectics. These problems arise because of and out of a given form of life and are therefore to be analysed according to the standards of immanent criticism (cf. ibid. 167f.).9

      Fleshing out her ideas, Jaeggi introduces Karl Marx’ critique of bourgeois society, arguing that his criticism of capitalist society relies on the technique of immanent criticism. Criticising the capitalist system, Marx points out the immanent inconsistencies of the system. He talks about the ‘laws of motions,’ for instance, the paradox of social relations within free-market capitalism: while the system encourages people to cut off their social ties and propagates individual responsibility within the market in order to prosper from rags to riches, it paradoxically relies fundamentally on the safety net that is constituted by the social unit of the family.10 Mark Fisher has summarised the points made by Marx quite concisely:

      The values that family life depends upon – obligation, trustworthiness, commitment – are precisely those which are held to be obsolete in the new capitalism. Yet, with the public sphere under attack and the safety nets that a ‘Nanny State’ used to provide being dismantled, the family becomes an increasingly important place of respite from the pressures of a world in which instability is a constant. The situation of the

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