ABSTRACT
This chapter intervenes into today’s paradox of inconsequential criticism by examining the tensional interplay of the critical imperatives in the discipline of sociology. It takes as its starting point, what it refers to as, the sociological tribunals of critique, reflecting upon the paradigmatic significance of this phenomenon. The chapter proceeds by inquiring as to the origin of the sociological uses of critique and applies the analytical frame developed in Part I of the book to reflect upon the critical dispositions of positivistic, classical and contemporary sociology. It maintains that the sociological imperatives implicitly rely upon the strategic coordinates characteristic of the modern conceptions of ‘non-critique’ and ‘counter-critique’, thusly reproducing their respective proclivities with regard to the notion of social change. Illuminating the complex and ambiguous relationship between sociology and governmental power, the chapter argues that whilst critical sociology compels the transvaluative subtraction from the commonsense and daily routine, the contemporary critics of critique are driven by the revisionist imperative towards the management of critique. It subsequently explores the polarisation of these two distinct imperatives by emphasising the dynamics instigated by their appeals to different temporalities of critique – the appeals that it exposes as constitutive of our contemporary critical paradox.
