As someone on the left-wing of the political spectrum and as a student of the Arts and Humanities, last week’s article “Leftist Politics Should Prioritize Lived Experiences Over Theory” left a bitter aftertaste. While I share in some of the author’s views regarding academia’s elitism and the need for allyship—the majority of their arguments felt specious and misrepresentative.

A key problem, which induces further misunderstandings, is the way theory gets defined in the original piece. Theory, I would argue, does not “put into sociological terms what is experienced by oppressed people every day”. That is sociology. Theory, as a concept, is about transdisciplinary criticality. It is the study of the structuring of our conditions and experiences. It is analysis towards abstraction, which reveals the mechanisms of power and subjectivation. Theory locates individuals and communities within various systems and discourses. It renders domination and resistance legible. It shows us the entangled geographies of colonial-capitalist modernity. And it gives us, more often than not, a vocabulary to read our struggles in relation.

The original article leans heavily on its invocation of the theoretical, the practical, and lived experience. One of its central criticisms is that theory is disconnected from lived experiences and practical efficacy. I would ask, what theory have you been reading? Whole disciplines (and post-disciplines) in the arts and humanities privilege lived experience as the primary mode for coming to know the world. Performance Theory, for example, and a range of Black thought—Afropessimist critique to Afrofuturist speculation — base themselves on the feeling, knowing, dominated yet resisting body. In fact, theory would argue that “purely theoretical arguments'' do not exist. The idea of a distant, all-seeing, unbiased observer is a colonial hangover we must overcome. Our contexts shape the substances of our investigations and we must acknowledge this if we are to denaturalize oppression. Theory offers conceptual empowerment, reorganizing our ability to comprehend injustice. It does not precede action — often it is concurrent — but you can only dismantle frameworks once you know where and how to look.

The article notes that there is a difference between understanding gravity, which requires a complex and equation-filled education, and an awareness of the existence and effects of gravity in our daily life. The argument is that theoretical knowledge is secondary to lived experiences. The ventriloquized worker does not need “Marx’s labor theory of value” to comprehend her “[routine] exploitation.” The issue, of course, is that unless the worker understands how she is exploited, she cannot mobilize mass solidarities, cutting across narrow affiliations, to precipitate radically equitizing social change. Leaving her to the immediacy of her own suffering is myopic. Theory is what abstracts and connects, mapping the complicity of various systems that go into oppressing the one.

There is, according to the article, “a selective tendency to emphasize certain forms of oppression over others.” In the popularity contest for exploiters, “some systems of oppression gain more attention.”

Firstly, these statements gesture, cynically, towards a necessary practice. Critiques of certain systems are more prevalent. But this is because many theorists are trying to identify the crucial operative structures of dispossession in our present. If colonial modernity was founded on the exploitation of bodies of color, then race must undergird a range of contemporary discussions. It must crop up more frequently than emergent problems such as homelessness or drug abuse. The inceptive ruptures — of slavery, misogyny, heteronormativity, among others — have generated a profusion of issues today.

Secondly, the choice to neatly classify and define “[c]lass consciousness, critical race theory, gender theory, abolition theory, decolonization theory” points to a deeper confusion about how theory works. Neither these theories nor, especially, their objects of study, stay separate or stable. They are dimensional lenses that are meant to work together, trying to clarify inter and intra-actions in a fluxing reality. The goal is for theory, in its diverse sum, to keep up with the gestalt of society.

I agree that “intersectionality in the writings of Kimberle Crenshaw or Angela Davis” and the “circumstances of disabled bodied, fat and neuro-divergent folks'' are areas that must be brought to the fore in theoretical discussions. The lived experiences of vulnerable and precarious populations must be emphasized, supported, and given platforms for expression. Nevertheless, the idea that these groups are “barely ever dealt with the intricate attention that they deserve'' is problematic. Empowerment and care are our responsibility, not patronizing affectations. They are not objects to be “dealt with'' based on what “they deserve'', but partners most acutely affected by a capitalist system dismissive of bodies perceived to be non-productive and deviant. And there exist numerous theorists enhancing and complicating our understanding of these identities, showing how their oppression bears consequence in each of our individual struggles. It is our duty to find their words, to educate ourselves and our peers.

While elitism is an issue in academia, the article conflates the for-profit institution with the workers therein. The institution’s makeup is not a homogenous whole; it is fragmented along lines such as the contingency of labor. It is imperative to recognize this fact and also locate the scenes of rebellion, subversion, and care that crisscross the academic sphere. We must refrain from essentializing any of our co-extensive spaces.

Again, theory is less a means of “sympathiz[ing] with marginalized people” and more a critical toolkit that seeks to elucidate the conditions of our suffering, empower the oppressed, and foster community amongst diverse populations.

As it concludes, the article shifts, misidentifying theory’s ends.

Theory does not manifest violence; it is a critical apparatus for approaching our constructed realities. While it might desire to change a situation by identifying what has broken, it does not preach revolution. Even when polemical, it is absurd to think a method so invested in supporting “people of color, gender non-conforming people and disabled bodied people” would remain blind to any “crackdowns” these very groups might face.

After all the talk of theory’s usefulness, this section tries to recast socially-engaged theory as a modality of knowledge-production unaware of revolution’s discontents. Theory. Really? Apparently, the study that is intensely concerned with the workings of our contemporary systems does not anticipate the violence of revolution.