Posted on 08/08/2021 11:54:20 AM PDT by Mariner
1.1 THE CONCEPT OF CRITIQUE
Whether viewed as a tradition, as a set of questions, or as a ser ies of distinct thinkers, critical theory has continued to attract attention in academic circles throughout the post–World War II era. The reasons for this should come as lit-tle surprise. The members of the Institute of Social Research at the University of Frankfurt in the years leading up to the victory of Nazism in Germany— what we generally know as the Frankfurt School—had in view some of the most compelling problems and questions of modern society. Critical theory is not, however, simply a subfield within social theory, philosophy, or the social sciences. It is a distinctive form of theory in that it posits a more comprehen-sive means to grasp social reality and diagnose social pathologies. It is marked not by a priori ethical or political values that it seeks to assert in the world, but by its capacity to grasp the totality of individual and social life as well as the social processes that constitute them. It is a form of social criticism that con-tains within it the seeds of judgment, evaluation, and practical, transformative activity. Critical theory is, then, a radically different form of knowledge from mainstream theory and social science, one that the chapters contained in this book will explore and chart.
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.edu ...
Summary: A bunch of German Commies got together and engaged in pinnacle intellectual masturbation.
This in the sure knowledge that millions of stupid people would take them seriously and actually do what they recommend.
Yeah, there's a bunch of jargon and circuitous logic too...
But as long as charlatans are spouting this stuff, or actual policies to bring it about (yes, fundamentally the philosophy calls out action) the foundations of reason and universal truth are under sustained assault.
To them, there are no indisputable facts, no universal truth, no universal language, no universal construct of any kind, whether abstract or real.
To them, all in the world is the individual perception. And because all in the world results in differential outcomes to individuals (oppression), it is incumbent on people to destroy it (the world of man) in a very practical sense, and build utopian perfect democracy in its place. And to guarantee equal outcome.
It's a whole 'nuther level of stupid.
For those that don’t care what makes them tic, just know they are your existential enemy and they see you them same.
Predators
The neo-fascists always try to dignify their lies with bullsh*t titles like “Critical Race Theory”. Propaganda is propaganda. Das Kapital, the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf; it’s all just pricey toilet paper.
Blame Whitey for all the evil in the World.
On this basis Horkheimer founded what he called "critical theory", which was to be the systematic critique of capitalist culture, by relating it to the "bourgeois relations of production" on which it depends. Reason, he argues, is corrupted by the capitalist order and loses its natural focus in human life...
By returning philosophy to its "material" base, by exposing the secrets of its own production, we see that a mode of reasoning may merely tacitly confirm the corrupt social order that produces. We then pass beyond philosophy into "critical theory" and discover the true possibility of emancipation, which begins with the emancipation of thought itself.
The emancipation of thought from "bourgeois" truth, in other words. And the objective of this sort of philosophy is not truth, but power. It's an amazing piece of self-deception.
The overall idea was that the post-WWII middle class, labeled by then as Marx's "bourgeois", was enjoying an unprecedented level of economic plenty and was therefore, as Marx feared, not a revolutionary class. This plenty the Frankfurt School condemned as mere consumerism, not because it was inimical in its own right but that it stood in the way of world socialism. And consumerism was easy to condemn because of its visible excesses. And worse for a Marxist, it enriched the working class as well, elevating it out of its putative role as a revolutionary class. If you notice that today's "proletariat" has cellphones, car loans, and obesity issues, you begin to see the problem.
Critical Theory is ultimately self-defeating if only because its adherents tend to be members not of either the middle nor the working class, but an entitled academic and political elite whose own prosperity is a function of the classes they resent. If they do succeed there will be no one left to plunder. That isn't a prediction, it's a historical precedent.
Nattering over the term “critical theory” is stupid.
The issue is anti-white propaganda designed to hurt white children. That is the correct name for this.
What a gaggle of German Jews called it in the 1930s is unimportant.
“Nattering over the term “critical theory” is stupid.”
Endeavoring to understand what they mean and intend is not stupid.
But knowing they are an existential enemy is enough.
To identify critical theory with fascism or "neo-fascism" is comical.
Extirpating critical theory from Germany was a principal reason for the rise of fascism. Dachau and Buchenwald were built to house the proponents of critical theory.
Atomization and destruction of unchosen identities is the purpose of critical theory. Support and strengthening of them is the raison d'etre of fascism.
To them, all in the world is the individual perception. And because all in the world results in differential outcomes to individuals (oppression), it is incumbent on people to destroy it (the world of man) in a very practical sense, and build utopian perfect democracy in its place. And to guarantee equal outcome.
They started to introduce this crap when I was an undergraduate. It's intellectual carbon monoxide. Thank God I recognized it for what it was when I got a whiff of it and got out of my then-course of study.
It's a whole 'nuther level of stupid.
It's a fundamental rejection of God, His authority, and His objective reality as expressed in creation.
Communism makes many promises - they're all lies. Look at the commie hellholes in the world today. Is there even ONE you would want to live in? Cuba? North Korea? China? Valenzuela?
Fools vote communism in - but the only way to get rid of them is to die. As soon as commies take over - all 'freedoms' for everyone except a small group at the top - ends. Forever.
“objective reality”
They vehemently insist no such thing exists. And that it is incumbent upon every individual to not only perceive their own reality, but to express it in real terms.
Making human society and civilization impossible.
If a Freeper should open the provided link (as I did), I suggest clicking on the authors name.
The new page says little about the author’s background but just reading through the titles in the list of his papers and books will reveal he has nearly 20 years invested in the academic study of politics from a Marxist perspective.
Clearly hopelessly infected.
“Clearly hopelessly infected.”
Certain.
So much so that he does not see the full implications of his advocacy.
But he does a good job of illustrating how they think and what their philosophical underpinnings are.
Because his advocacy would take him from his lofty position as a paid academic and put him to work in the lettuce fields.
We don’t know what Adorno or Horkheimer would have thought of today’s “critical race theory.” In their last years they were very pessimistic about the possibility of political change. They didn’t care for the student radicals of the Sixties and retreated more and more into abstract speculation. Marcuse, though, might be more supportive.
It is the evil twin of Jacques Derrida’s “Deconstructionism” literary theory. It was never meant to be applied to social or political issues in fact it is the exact opposite - an attempt to apply by force a singular interpretation.
It's actually as silly as it sounds, a form of revolutionary hair-splitting that reminds us of Monty Python's People's League of Judea versus the Judean People's League, but the adherents take such distinctions very seriously indeed and are willing to shoot one another over them. They certainly did in revolutionary Russia.
Bump
There was always a lot of abstract parlor speculation in the original Frankfurt School, as though they valued a good theory over anything actually done in the world. That explains why they had some popularity in the university left, but also why they weren’t exactly relevant to what activists wanted to do. There was a period in the forties when Adorno and Horkheimer advocated a reeducation program to prevent what they saw as fascism developing in America, but a short time later, the two had returned to Germany where fascism hadn’t just been a concept.
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