the practice fetish – educational voodoo

This post relates to my September 22nd ‘06 post of the same title. A fetish, a thing abnormally stimulating, is a concept picked up by Marx in volume 1 of ‘Capital’ (p.165) and related to capitalist commodity production and consumption. Usefully, we know the concept for its alllusion to attracting sexual desire in a particular object, often man made: useful since the currency of meaning of the term itself has a charge which is carried over in its signification. Far from being a transcendental signified, executivezen would like to re-spice the term within a Marxist and capitalistic frame on the commoditized products of leadership education labour – namely the sovereignty of ‘practice’ over theory and the practice (!) of theory. Following Lyotard, one key aspect of poststructuralism (and my practice) is the denial of the theory/practice distinction – executivezen does not believe that theory is separate from practice, nor that theories are applied to practical situations; rather that they emerge in them. There’s nothing radical in this: the Marxist concept of praxis stems from the ancient Greek designation of the term meaning ‘doing’ or ‘acting’. The general thrust of praxian dialogue is to undermine the traditional theory and practice split, where praxis-oriented endeavours “antedate both theory construction adn the construal of practice as mere application of theory” (Schrag, Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, p.731).

Now executivezen thinks a lot of leadership (and exec.ed) education has lost – has stopped practicing – this praxian discourse. This is manifested in the triumphal return of the bifurcation; of the hierarchical placement of practice over theory; of the boast to serve practicing managers not with abstract theory but with practical, pragmatic (doublespeak) practices! Executivezen is not demonizing practice: just reinstating the blur between the theory and practice. In short, executivezen is stating that we should stop fetishizing practice, in the same way we should stop fetishizing theory. We should stop using ‘practice’ as if it were a master-word, imbued with secret transcendental voodoo powers that draws, pied piper fashion, edu-consumers through the practice-hallowed halls of institutionalised education. We are not closer to an educational essence by chanting the litany of practice: education has no essence, no telos, no perfection by reference to proximity to such essence.