Idealized Non-Ideal Theory

Idealized Ideal Theory is a kind of permanent intellectual temptation to exit the real world from which nobody is exempted, critical theory included.

In “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology,” Charles Mills criticizes what we could summarize as “idealized ideal theory,” which I’ll call IIT for short. IIT in his view goes beyond the standard level of abstraction characteristic of any theory, which by its nature must simplify what it represents in order to make understanding more tractable. IIT adds something else: the abstractions become models against which the thing represented are determined.

What distinguishes ideal theory is the reliance on idealization to the exclusion, or at least marginalization, of the actual…ideal theory either tacitly represents the actual as a simple deviation from the ideal, not worth theorizing in its own right, or claims that starting from the ideal is at least the best way of realizing it.

This type of idealization refers to its ideals not necessarily as models in a moralized sense. Rather, they show what the perfect version of something would be like, if it were realized with no friction. A perfectly functioning energy generator would be an instance of IIT in this sense. You measure any actual generator against it, and treat the actual as in some way a failed version of what it could be in reference to the perfect.

Mills’ primary target is Rawls. He argues that Rawls’ theory of justice creates a kind of IIT that blinds us to the realities of power, domination, and inequality. Faced with the reality of patriarchy and white supremacy, a Rawlsian IIT would say: of course the world does not live up to its idealized form, but that is not our business. We are trying to articulate the social equivalent of the perfectly functioning machine. How and why some cases fall short is a different question, and not ours.

This attitude is pernicious according to Mills. It almost guarantees the theorist never gets to the questions of greatest living import, about how and why some persons dominate others. Because IIT lives in the realm of the perfectly functioning society, it ignores those questions, and deems them beneath serious concern. They are perhaps asked, but as afterthoughts. Whereas in the real world, they are the most central dimensions of social life.

Other types of theoretical traditions, such as those arising from critical theory and sensitive to white supremacy and patriarchy, tackle those issues, according to Mills. This is because they are forms of non-ideal theory that describe the ways of the world in all their imperfection. They have meta-theories “mapping how systems of domination negatively affect the ideational” in which oppression is "not a minor "deviation" from ideal-as-idealized-model that is involved.” Given this orientation, these traditions are willing to look them in the face and grapple with them directly, in Mills view.

There is something very right about this line of thought. Clearly any type of activity, theoretical or otherwise, is worthy of criticism if it has the effect of blinding us to important aspects of reality. But the line of thought also is misleading in some important ways.

Mills seems to more or less identify IIT with Rawlsian liberal theory as such. At any rate, he presents Rawls as his paradigm case, and critical theories as seemingly exempt from the dangers of IIT . This I think is a mistake. IIT is even more pervasive than Mills envisions. IIT and NonIdeal Theory are methods or ways of theorizing, not camps, and IIT is a temptation to which all theories are subject.

To see why, we can do an experiment, and imagine whether non-Rawslian critical theories of the sort Mills’ favors can themselves become forms of IIT. I believe they can. Call these types of theories Idealized Non-Ideal Theory, or INIT. INIT is a form of theory that, while focused on injustice and imperfection, constructs a totalizing model of domination so powerful that it displaces empirical inquiry. It sees the world not as messy or contradictory, but as perfectly aligned toward a singular oppressive logic.

Take the Theory of White Supremacy. What would this look like in the mode of INIT? It would elaborate a conception of society as a kind of perfect oppression generator, in which every practice, organization, or institution gears together toward oppressing non-whites and propping up whites. It would not moralize this conception. But it would hold it up as what the most fully realized, most ruthless white supremacist society would be like.

And it would go even further. It would treat this perfect oppression generator not only as a critical lens but as the implicit tendency of society itself, as an idealized ideal type toward which real institutions are presumed to converge unless actively disrupted. The model would therefore itself offer a kind of evidence by which we can evaluate the real world, without requiring any serious empirical study of how or why the real world may or may not conform to it.

Let me give an example. This document discusses ways to dismantle racism in mathematics education. It attributes many practices in mathematics education to white supremacy. Commentators have criticized some of the more egregious statements, such as the proposition that the search for a right answer is a symptom of white supremacy.

What’s striking, however, is the lack of empirical inquiry. The document does not argue from evidence that particular pedagogical practices harm non-white students or benefit white ones, nor does it show that proposed alternatives would yield better outcomes. Perhaps the authors believe such evidence is unnecessary, i.e. that the structural logic of white supremacy makes the case self-evident. Such evidence may exist elsewhere, but its absence here illustrates a hallmark of INIT: the model supplies its own confirmation

One might wonder why this is. A Millsian answer is available. The perfect oppression generator certainly would utilize math to harm non-whites and help whites. It would gear every single practice together to do so, including math. At least in theory it would do that, and we can spend a lot of time explaining how, in this idealized image of the perfect oppression generator, math would contribute to oppression. Living in this realm of INIT, evidence from the real world is irrelevant. You see an instance of math, and already know what it means. Its meaning is determined not by its reality but by its implications within the idealized nonideal theory.

What do we learn from this experiment? It is not that we should not care about inequality or power differentials, nor that research into educational inequalities is unimportant (quite the opposite). Nor is this a vindication of Rawlsian theory. We should not identify IIT or the blinders it can throw up with any particular theoretical content or school, including those that feature power and inequality.

This is not a critique of the Millsian notion of non-ideal theory. The point is about methodology, not the reality of oppression. Any theory or theorist can fall victim to the delusional forms of IIT, critical theorists included, when they make their own assumptions into evidence of their claims about the world.

This is because IIT is not a feature of what we theorize about, but how we do so. A theory about very “non ideal” facts of life, such as power and domination, is equally subject to the distortions of IIT. In fact, such theories may be even more subject to those distortions, precisely because their topics can mask their idealizing tendencies.

Idealized Ideal Theory is a kind of permanent intellectual temptation to exit the real world, from which nobody is exempted.