Critique, Up Close and Personal

This chapter examines the dialogue between Joseph Vogl and Alexander Kluge, which illustrates the origins and consequences of Kluge's theory of feeling for critique. Kluge explains that the critical capacity—the capacity to differentiate practically at the crucial moment—is an undercover characteristic that people know nothing about. He then mentions that Sigmund Freud speaks of the two-staged development in humans. First, an entire being, along with its sexuality and capacity for differentiation, is formed between infancy and the age of six or seven. This is followed by a latency period when the creature can learn—humans have a genuine period of learning—until puberty upends everything again and a second being, equally sexual, develops. This is the adult. Kluge then claims that classical writers use the word “critique” much differently. He says that critique is the positive capacity to differentiate between something new and an old falsehood.