Critical Theory for Grownups

American Thinker.com ^ | September 7, 2021 | Christopher Chantrill

[Kaslin]

Here’s a line to amuse your liberal pals: When gubmint bureaucrats deploy Critical Theory it ain’t Critical Theory.

Which is to say that when gubmint teachers teach your kids Critical Race Theory, it ain’t Critical Theory; it is just regime propaganda.

Official, Wiki-approved, Critical Theory says -- after Frankfurt School dean and rich-kid Max Horkheimer -- that a theory is “critical insofar as it seeks ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them.’”

Hey, how about a Critical Welfare Theory that argues that ending welfare will liberate welfare recipients from the slavery of gubmint handouts?

Or, this: a Critical Education Theory that argues that ending gubmint child custodial facilities will liberate children from the slavery of gubmint indoctrination?

Now, I always thought that Critical Theory began with Kant and his Critique of Pure Reason, which I usually reduce to “we cannot know things-in-themselves but only appearances.” E.g., what is a quark-in-itself? We don’t know, but they sure look good in LEDs.

That is the essence of critical theory. Nobody knows the really real. Nobody is the ultimate authority: not the scientists, not the priests, not the gubmint, not the Glorious Leader, not the rich kids at the Frankfurt School, and certainly not your local unionized woke gubmint teacher teaching the kiddies CRT before a meat-free fat-free lunch.

[sauropod]

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[Wildbill22]

I prefer Critical Thinking.

[DeweyCA]

Poor analysis. He tries to simplify the concept (take out non-essentials in order to clarify reality), but instead he ends up being simplistic (takes out essentials that then distorts reality).