Derrida, Discomfort, and the Real Magic of Learning: What Academics Get Wrong!

Do We Still Need Derrida? Why "Critical Theory" Is the Most Dangerous — and Essential — Subject in Humanities Today

Walk into any humanities classroom and you’ll likely hear it whispered — if not declared outright: “Why do we need all this Derrida nonsense?” From seasoned professors to eye-rolling undergrads, the skepticism is everywhere: Isn’t Critical theory just an endless maze of jargon, a parade of difficult names like Derrida, Kristeva, or Butler, each more cryptic than the last? Isn’t the world complicated enough without deconstructing every poem, play, or piece of history?

But here’s the twist: What if this suspicion — the urge to dismiss, to shake our heads at the so-called irrelevance of “theory” — is exactly why we need it now, more than ever? What if all that discomfort and confusion isn’t a bug, but the feature?

Critical theory wasn’t invented to coddle us in the comfort of “common sense” or to pad our essays with intimidating citations. It was born from irreverence — a refusal to bow down to dogma, to accept the world as it is simply because that’s how it’s always been. It’s not about memorizing Derrida; it’s about inheriting his impulse to turn the world upside down, to ask uncomfortable questions, and to see with new eyes what others insist is natural, obvious, or inevitable.

So before you roll your eyes at the next mention of Derrida in your syllabus, pause — and consider: what if getting lost in theory is the first step to finding new ways of seeing, being, and changing the world?

Introduction: The “Why Derrida?” Question and Beyond

The recent chorus of voices — sometimes even from academicians — questioning the need for Critical theories in the humanities is worth examining. Common refrains like, “Why should we learn Derrida?” or “What’s the use of all this ‘theory’?” pop up in classrooms and public discourse alike. But reducing Critical theories to a mere game of quoting the Usual Suspects — Derrida, Kristeva, Butler — is to miss the real significance entirely.

What are Critical Theories, Really?

Critical theories are not simply ‘texts to be mastered.’ They are frameworks - critical lenses — that let us see the world, and ourselves within it, with sharper focus and deeper understanding. Through these lenses, the apparent ‘obviousness’ of culture, history, gender, race, and power is dismantled, exposing the constructed and contested natures of the realities we inhabit.

Why It’s Not Just About Famous Names

It’s tempting to think of Critical theories as a parade of difficult philosophers. But names like Derrida, Kristeva, Butler — these are not just citations to be dropped for academic cachet:

• Derrida’s deconstruction isn’t just about word play; it exposes how histories are written, whose voices are privileged, and who gets erased in ‘official’ narratives.

• Judith Butler’s work on gender isn’t just jargon — it radically rethinks how gender and identity are created, experienced, and regulated in society.

• Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection isn’t just literary criticism; it illuminates how society polices ‘others’ and manages anxiety around the unfamiliar.

Learning to See: Examples That Matter

• Affective Feminism without Sara Ahmed?
  Understanding the nuanced ways emotion, power and feminism intersect is nearly impossible without engaging with Sara Ahmed’s concept of affect. Ahmed shows how feelings circulate in public cultures and shape feminist politics in ways that go far beyond traditional theories of oppression.

• Subaltern Experience without Husserl?
  Without Husserl’s phenomenology, we lose the methodological rigor to actually listen to lived experience. For studies on subaltern identity - whether Dalit narratives, Black experiences, or Indigenous epistemologies — phenomenology provides vital tools to understand voices on their own terms.

• Historiography and Derrida: Who Writes History?
  The notion that history is merely a series of ‘facts’ collapses when you read Derrida. His work compels us to interrogate how histories are constructed, whose memories are preserved, and whose are forcibly forgotten. Engaging with historiography through this lens is not an abstract game, but a political and ethical necessity.

Why Rejecting Theory Is Short-Sighted

Academicians who claim that Critical theories are "of no more relevance" often assume:

• that students will 'naturally' learn how to critique the world through poems, plays and stories. 

• that 'common sense' or tradition is sufficient to understand the complexity of human experience.

• that theory is divorced from real-world stakes.

This is not only naïve, but potentially dangerous. Without critical theoretical frameworks, we risk:

• Uncritically reproducing dominant narratives and biases

• Ignoring marginalized voices and lived realities

• Foregoing the intellectual tools needed to challenge injustice, exclusion, and oppression

Critical Theories as Ways of Living

Engaging with Critical theories is not a luxury — it is a fundamental skill for any humanities student serious about understanding the world. The point is not to memorize Derrida, Kristeva, or Butler, but to cultivate a stance of critical engagement:

• Interrogate texts and systems, not just receive them.

• See the “taken for granted” as constructed, contestable, and open to change.

• Apply theoretical lenses to everyday life, politics, and social institutions.

The Real Cost of Dismissing Critical Theories

To dismiss Critical theories as insignificant is to do a profound disservice to the next generation of students. Such an attitude not only narrows intellectual horizons but risks raising a cohort ill-equipped to question, analyze, and transform the world around them. If we convince students that Critical theories are nothing more than academic hurdles — exhausting and irrelevant — we undermine their capacity to confront complexity, ambiguity, and contradiction in society and culture.

The exhaustion that comes through grappling with these theories is not a flaw — it is essential intellectual rigor. Critical theories ask students to step out of the comfort zones shaped by familiar narratives and 'common sense.' It demands discomfort, self-examination, and sustained engagement with challenging ideas. This process is how genuine growth happens:

• Opening new ways of seeing: Students learn to interrogate what is presented as normal, natural, or inevitable.

• Building tools of resistance: Critical theories provide language and methods to recognize and challenge structures of power and exclusion.

• Fostering empathy and solidarity: By engaging with theoretical frameworks, students better understand experiences different from their own.

The Art of  Irreverence: Unleashing Critical Theories' Transformative Power

What if Critical theories’ greatest gift is, in fact, irreverence? Not irreverence for its own sake, but the radical act of refusing to bow down to the dogmas and ‘sacred cows’ entrenched in society, culture, and tradition. Irreverence means daring to ask:

• Why is history written this way, and by whom?

• Who gets to decide what matters?

• Why are certain truths or identities or voices always on the margins?

Critical theories encourage students to turn the world upside-down, to play with ideas, to find the hairline cracks in systems that seem set in stone, and to let light pour through. It is the discipline of purposeful mischief; the intellectual courage to roll your eyes at the emperor’s ‘new clothes’ and say what others are afraid to even imagine.

So, if we want our next generation not just to inherit the world, but to remake it - give them the irreverence to challenge it. That’s not just the value of Critical theories. That’s its magic.