Theory as Liberatory Practice

Summary

bell hooks opens her 1991 essay with a confession: “I came to theory because I was hurting”. Yet theory “is not inherently healing, liberatory, or revolutionary”: it must be directed there. She faults academic jargon and activist contempt for ideas alike, since “any theory that cannot be shared in everyday conversation cannot be used to educate the public.”

Rationale

People can, hooks observes, “practice theorizing without ever knowing/possessing the term”. Deep disposition work is like that: already everywhere, mostly unnamed, which is why we hold labels lightly.