Free Republic

Acclaimed theologian Tim Keller recently addressed the issue of critical theory which has become popularized in some Christian circles. In a lengthy essay published at Life in The Gospel, the former pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan articulated the differences in the many theories of justice presently swirling in culture, including postmodernism. "There have never been stronger calls for justice than those we are hearing today. But seldom do those issuing the calls acknowledge that currently there are competing visions of justice, often at sharp variance, and that none of them have achieved anything like a cultural consensus, not...

It seems critical theorists won't stop until they've denied, rewritten, and scrubbed every semblance of Western Civilization from the education system. It started on July 5 when Nikole Hannah-Jones, who penned the lead essay for The New York Times’ 1619 Project, was trolled with a meme. The meme came from philosopher James Lindsay, whose upcoming “Cynical Theories” book on identity politics co-written with Helen Pluckrose is already an Amazon bestseller. Lindsay summarized the exchange: [I]t appears someone put this Woke Mini into the employ of satirically replying to Nikole Hannah-Jones on the fifth of July in response to her tweeting,...

If people are only racist or 'antiracist,' your ideology is easy to enforce after a certain point of proliferation because people believe it's bad for business to be on the side of alleged racism. “If you voted for Donald Trump, you are a racist. You have no wiggle room,” tweeted Jemele Hill on July 19. Hill is a writer at The Atlantic and the daughter of a Trump voter. While her contention might puzzle the average American, it would raise few eyebrows on college campuses, where racism and bigotry have been defined differently for years.Those expanded definitions, so broad they...

Is mathematics next on the chopping block to be deconstructed as a form of "Western imperialism"? A young woman describing herself as a teacher, Ph.D. student, and "social justice change agent," recently gained notoriety for tweeting, "The idea of 2+2 equaling 4 is cultural," a product of "western imperialism/colonialism." Yes, even mathematics, held up as the most objective and neutral of disciplines, is being reshaped by critical theory, which claims that all ideas are social constructions by groups using their power to advance their own interests. *snip* Critical theorists argue that mathematics is just another arbitrary human creation that has...

George Washington University is urging students to read Conservatism and Racism, and Why in America They Are the Same in an effort to educate them about the dangers of stereotypes and discrimination. The "Solidarity Resource Syllabus" released by the Washington, D.C.-based school's Office of Diversity provides students with a reading list that focuses on racism in the United States. Among the 126 books that the university says "actively and effectively … [combat] injustice" is San Francisco State University professor Robert Smith's 2010 book that equates conservative beliefs with bigotry. That label applies to all who subscribe to right-leaning beliefs, including...

The leftist rot has burrowed so deep into the timbers of the nation that it is moot whether it can ever be pumiced clean. The minions of the left -- unhinged academics, ignorant politicians, radical feminists, “social justice” warriors, global warmists, Deep State operatives, the Democrat party and similar political organizations throughout the West, media fifth columnists, the various agents of institutional culture, left-wing sans culottes, union syndicalists and metrotextual intellectuals... *snip* Where did all this come from? A starting-point is always elusive -- one recalls the lone provocative idea of deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, namely, that origins always recede. Was...

The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) casts itself as a spontaneous uprising born of inner city frustration, but is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded communist/socialist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades. The Black Lives Matter movement claims that only whites can be racists. And while justifying violence to achieve “social justice,” the movement’s goal is to overthrow our society to replace it with a Marxist one. Many members of the black community would be shocked to learn that the intellectual godfathers of this movement are mostly white Communists, “queers”...

... Mr. Sanders wouldn’t be this close to the White House if not for the complicity of Democrats and the liberals who dominate the academy and media. Rather than fighting the ideas that animate him and his millennial voters, they have indulged and promoted them. They created the political environment in which he could prosper. Consider the intellectual currents he is riding: • The attack on capitalism and markets. Like Tony Blair in Britain, Bill Clinton’s New Democrats accommodated the economic lessons of Ronald Reagan. By the Obama Presidency, all that had changed. The left blamed markets for the 2008...

Mary Grabar's book, 'Debunking Howard Zinn,' takes aim at the celebrated historian who is as influential as he is ideological and dishonest. Howard Zinn’s book, The People’s History of the United States, is one of the most famous American history textbooks ever written. His goal was to change the way Americans saw their own history by writing from the perspective of those he called “underdogs.” In doing so, he thoroughly distorts the true historical record and paints America as an inherently unjust nation.Mary Grabar believes that at the root of his agenda is a desire to see America turned into...

Multiple forms of socialism, from hard Stalinism to European redistribution, continue to fail. Russia and China are still struggling with the legacy of genocidal communism. Eastern Europe still suffers after decades of Soviet-imposed socialist chaos. Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, and Venezuela are unfree, poor, and failed states. Baathism—a synonym for pan-Arabic socialism—ruined the postwar Middle East. The soft-socialist European Union countries are stagnant and mostly dependent on the U.S. military for their protection. In contrast, current American deregulation, tax cuts, and incentives, and record energy production have given the United States the strongest economy in the world. So why, then,...

Here are some of the messages the left has been giving America’s young people: —Your past is terrible, and your future is terrible. The American past is a story of genocide, slavery, racism, patriarchy, and colonialism. You should be ashamed of it. As regards your future, your very existence is in jeopardy. You may well die at a young age unless society completely shifts from fossil fuels to wind and solar power. In fact, your future is so bleak you should probably not consider getting married and having children. —If you are a girl, you should know that American society...

(Skip) Cries of "social justice," "affirmative action," "racial prejudice," etc., ad nauseam, enfranchise the Left to wallow in a fictitious self-regard of moralizing sentimentality. Anyone who opposes leftists is automatically demonized as inhumane. Cowardly Republicans, large corporations like Procter & Gamble, and bureaucrats are shaken down and extorted to comply, for fear of appearing insensitive toward "oppression." Any evidence of political incorrectness can damage employment prospects or even get one fired. We are being thought-controlled and speech-tyrannized. How can we push back against such imperious "bleeding heart" compassion? The ideology has a stranglehold on academia and is being rolled out...

To assume an English major took a class in Shakespeare is a pretty safe assumption, or at least it used to be. Now, not even the Bard of Avon is safe from censorship, as university administrators and faculty use the education system to drive their own agendas. At the University of California, Los Angeles, English majors are no longer required to study one of the greatest writers of all time. Instead, they have to take classes in “Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability and Sexuality Studies” and “Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies,” in addition to critical theory and creative writing. Dost thou...

Rep. Ilhan Omar called for advertisers to boycott Fox News host Tucker Carlson after he offered her as an example of why the U.S. immigration system is dangerous. "Fox News is now giving a nightly platform to white supremacist rhetoric. It’s dangerous. Advertisers should not be underwriting hate speech," the Minnesota Democrat said Wednesday on Twitter. Omar said in another tweet on Tuesday that Carlson was a "racist fool." "Not gonna lie, it’s kinda fun watching a racist fool like this weeping about my presence in Congress," the freshman congresswoman said. "No lies will stamp out my love for this...

In a significant way, "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg is the embodiment of his father Joseph — and, by extension, Antonio Gramsci. Buttigieg Senior was a professor of critical theory and the relationship between culture and politics at Notre Dame University from 1980 until his retirement in 2017.  (The man, a smoker who wouldn't quit, died of lung cancer in 2019.)  Academically, Joseph Buttigieg spent his entire professional life editing the journals of Antonio Gramsci.  According to a N.D. alumni newsletter, Professor Buttigieg's work on Gramsci has been spread far and wide, with his work having been translated into German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Japanese. ...

An Accuracy in Academia Address by Bill Lind. Variations of this speech have been delivered to various AIA conferences including the 2000 Conservative University at American University If you enjoy this speech, keep up with political correctness and how it continues to emerge on college campuses by following our Faculty Lounge blog. Where does all this stuff that you’ve heard about this morning – the victim feminism, the gay rights movement, the invented statistics, the rewritten history, the lies, the demands, all the rest of it – where does it come from? For the first time in our history, Americans...

RUSH: First, Jim Geraghty. Folks, this is so right on the money. “The more time I spend covering politics,” Mr. Geraghty writes, “the more I’m convinced that a significant chunk of grassroots political activists aren’t really arguing about politics at all. These folks are actually grappling with personal psychological issues and projecting it onto the world of politics. Every problem they had with a parent is projected onto authority figures. “Every religious person who ever scolded them or made them feel guilty becomes the embodiment of organized religion and demonstrates its menace. Because they’ve had a bad experience with a...

It’s taken me a while to craft a concise wrap-up to this little series. I’ve realised via the responses to my previous articles that the typical XYZ reader is well-versed in the machinations of the loony left, so I’ve been asking myself “who am I writing these for?”. Bringing it back to my original question, I suppose it has always been a slightly selfish conceit – someone once said writing is therapeutic, and forcing myself to read, research and write these has been its own therapy. Truth be told, I never intended to write 10,000 words on anything in particular,...

William Alfred "Bill" Whittle (born April 7, 1959) is an American conservative blogger, political commentator, director, screenwriter, editor, pilot, and author. In this segment, he talks about the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School and how they created a form of neo-marxism.