Discussed are paradoxes and tensions inherent in Critical Applied Psychology (CAP), which is both rooted in critical social theory and has a mission of engagement with practice. This dialectic is illustrated by combining Adorno's dictum that "there is no right life in the wrong one" with Marx's famous thesis that philosophers have "only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it".
Revolutionary societal macro-emancipation, however, has been shelved as unrealistic in favor of modest versions of micro-emancipation in the workplace. This motion and associated contradictions were demonstrated by Critical Management Studies (CMS), transitioning from radical structuralism of labor process theory via poststructuralist and linguistic turn to deconstructionist and hermeneutic approaches. The extensive debate on anti-performative intent and critical performativity in CMS is reviewed with regard to implications for CAP.
Scrutinized are suggested principles of pragmatism, potentialities, affirmative stance, ethics of care, and normative grounding as well as concrete examples, such as involvement in worker recuperated enterprises, social movements, and academic activism. In the performativity-debate in CMS, different traditions accuse each other of meaningless symbolic radicalism versus selling out to subtle forms of managerialism. Similar discussions have ignited within CAP and are likely to increase as this stream gets more diverse.
While lessening the suffering of people at work is an intrinsic value that should not require justification, it may have system-stabilizing function, giving rise to the reputation of applied psychologists as handmaidens of capital and servants of power. This dialectic is expressed in Oscar Wilde's paradox that the "worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves", making a monstrous system look less horrific. Of course, this sounds cynical from a humanitarian point of view, illustrating the dialectic double bind that will be reflexively deliberated here, rather than resolved.