For the policy analyst, being relevant means offering an alternative to what is criticized. But there are other ways for criticism to be good-enough without offering an alternative. Critique, for example, is pertinent when solutions are not on offer and where “offering solutions” may well make bad messes worse. Indeed, the position of permanent critique resists anything like aiding and abetting sanctioned modes for “acting practically.” Then there’s bearing witness, which can make silent critique very loud indeed (e.g., the Black Sash in apartheid South Africa).
It seems to me that criticism is good enough when it provokes (even if discourages), disturbs (even when debatable), and sharpens attention even because it goes no further.
An example. Science and economics have been much chastised as: religion (e.g., each with metaphysics); imperialist (e.g., colonizing the traditional “why?” and “how?” of the humanities); and for being socially-constructed (i.e., not “the truth”). Also, critiques of science and economics as Big Business stress their production of so much Bad as to shadow any Good.
Good-enough criticism, I think, doesn’t take the position that Bad cancels out Good, as if a profession’s blind spots cancelled its strengths, when on reflection the former are clearly part of the latter. It differs from the kind of critique that wants to buttonhole people and positions once and for all. It’s good enough when the other side of a criticizing “no” is “yes, but.”
WHEN COMPLEX IS AS SIMPLE AS IT GETS 