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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Bump
The keyword is theory-it’s not proven.
“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. “
After reading that unintellible paragraph full of contradictions I know even less then before.
So it’s not a set of a priori ethical or political values, but contains the seeds of passing judgment.
How can it pass judgment without first having a set of values?
Critical theory is nothing more than a stupid name for the other stupidly named “deconstructionism” which is part of the stupidly named “postmodernism” philosophy which is the scourge of our society.
The most generous interpretation of deconstructionism (ie, critical theory) is that it is nothing more than an indepth, objective analysis of of whatever subject, or concept you wish to analyze and thus arrive (hopefully) at a deeper understanding of it.
Where it fails miserably is in the objective part. It usually starts with an “analyst” with an a priori theory and what he does is look for evidence that supports his theory while ignoring all the other evidence that might prove his theory wrong.
Critical Theory - the idea that you can destroy anything if you simply and only criticize it. Only look at the bad points, invent them if needed, e.g. “Bird watching is racist”.
The very idea of a just society itself is an impossibility without a standard that is impartial and also received after some fashion, something by which justice can be actually measured.
In a way, this is on steroids what I’ve long said about those Continental liberals from the 18th and 19th centuries — well before the Cultural Marxists — who would deride common law forms as the basis for laws as somehow arbitrary … for all they could possibly offer in place of them could only be expressly arbitrary.
That’s like the chamber pot calling out the silver service’s flaws.
And now their heirs are like chamber pots who break themselves and everything they can around them … all because they think the silver service, long cast aside, is responsible for them being crap pans to begin with.
“To them, there are no indisputable facts, no universal truth, no universal language, no universal construct of any kind, whether abstract or real.” “Ideas” and “morality” arise from physical conditions, and thus meaningless and idiosyncratic.
Isn’t it fascinating that in practical application, CRT artists select a set of “facts” (while telling us that facts are malleable) to draw moral conclusions (oops, morality is situational and an illusion) to justify holding targeted people collectively responsible for the deeds of others, on a purely racial basis, while pointing out that “race” is an artificial construction of 19th white scientists and social theorists, used to oppress targeted groups.
CRT is a tactic for shaking down them whats got. Shouldn’t CRT proponents have the most interest in “critiquing” groups with the most serious “pathologies”? Oh, those groups don’t have anything to steal.