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Critical Theory” Study of “Critical Theory” Examine the following terms. Consider whether they sound familiar, where you have heard them and in what context. Would you be able to define any of them? Institutional racism White privilege Implicit bias Systemic racism White fragility Microaggression Structural racism White supremacy Cisgender Ableism Heteronormative Social justice Marginalized groups Transphobic Intersectional Woke Identity Politics Cancel culture People of color Virtue signaling Hegemonic power Familiarity with these terms will tell you the degree to which you already have some acquaintance with the subject we will be examining. What are we studying here? It is a popular social perception and cultural movement based on a kind of worldview. The main ideas go back to some influential thinkers who influenced areas of scholarship many years ago. Now it has moved into the popular culture and taken the form of a movement with a religious feeling, a moral cause, and energetic activism. The emphasis of this movement is on power, oppression, identity groups, equality, justice, etc. Other names for it: Within “Critical Theory” are applications of it, such as “Critical Race Theory.” It has spawned new areas of study like “Queer Theory” and “Whiteness studies.” Some call it “Cultural Marxism.” Advocates are sometimes called “Social Justice Warriors” (SJWs) or “Wokes” (being “woke” means you “get it”). Why is it important? Understanding this way of thinking has become urgently important because: ✭ It has a stronghold on the major areas of culture: the education system, academia, entertainment, legacy media, social media, the corporate world ✭ It is the thinking behind huge controversies and division of recent times: news stories, legislation, months of riots ✭ It is making inroads into churches. Basic guiding concept of “Critical Theory”: Two basic classes of people: an oppressor class and an oppressed class. The degree to which you are one or the other has to do with your identity along the lines of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, etc. Oppressors often do not realize that they are oppressors. They may not be so individually, but the emphasis is on systems/structures not individuals. All inequities (unequal outcomes) are due to systems that favor or privilege some (in the oppressor class) at the expense of others (the oppressed). The fight for “justice” in this regard is the effort to dismantle the systems or structures that perpetuate privilege for one group at the expense of oppression for others. All of the key ideas in this description will be explained further. Main Historical Influences: Karl Marx (1818-1883) - from a Jewish family & a line of rabbis, his father’s birth name was Herschel Mordechai Levi before he changed it to “Marx” & joined the Prussian state church (Lutheran) for professional reasons. At Univ. of Berlin studied the hugely influential philosophy of Hegel, who had a view of history as unfolding & the conflicts of ideas (thesis - antithesis - synthesis). Marx was also exposed to urban industrialization & the plight of workers. At age 23 he earned a doctorate & got noticed by important thinkers, but they were leery of his associations with radicals & “free thinkers.” Marx was influenced by another philosopher, Feuerbach, who took Hegel’s ideas & stripped them of the idealism or spiritualism. Instead, the focus was on material factors only, with higher ideas (religion) being only products of man’s desire for better material circumstances. Chased from Prussian & German lands to Paris, Marx fell in with radicals there. He met Comte de Saint-Simon, who taught him that class conflict was the source of economic determinism. Marx formed a decisive life-long friendship with Friedrich Engels, son of a wealthy German manufacturer leading a movement on behalf of workers in England. In 1850 Marx settled his family in London, where he would spend the rest of his life, writing & researching, while being the intellectual leader of various movements like London’s “International Workingmen’s Association,” the more militant “Social Democratic Party” of Germany and the infamous “Paris Commune” that ruled that city in the Spring of 1871. Marx spent years working on Das Kapital, which was to be his magnum opus, while living in poverty, with minimal pay as a freelance writer (contributing to the NY Daily Tribune & others) while supported by Engels as well. He commented on popular events such as the American Civil War (defending the Union). He engaged with Adam Smith’s work, agreeing with his “Labor” theory of value. Bad living conditions led to the ill health & deaths of his wife & daughter, then himself. His grave was modest, his funeral had only eleven people; Engels eulogized him as the greatest thinker of his age. It would be 70 yrs before the Communist Party of Great Britain would erect a grand monument & a granite bust with the ‘Manifesto’ words “Workers of the world, unite!” The Massive 20th Cent. Influence of Marx Marx’s ideas would become, in the 20th Cent., far more influential & widespread than he could ever have imagined. At one point nearly a fifth of human beings on earth lived under governments inspired by them. Though he envisioned & designed his philosophy for Western industrial nations, none of them ever adopted it (the Nazi Party echoed some aspects). Instead, it would be underdeveloped countries in other places: Russia, China, Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. Radical egalitarian thinkers & leftward economic theorists have long been enamored of Marx. University departments in the Western world have always had some level of affinity for his ideas. The U.S. had a period of great suspicion of Communist sympathizers in high places. Marx is connected to contemporary Critical Theory as taught in institutions today. This is from the description of a course entitled “Marx and Critical Theory” offered at a prominent university: A "critical theory" has a distinctive aim: to unmask the ideology falsely justifying some form of social or economic oppression—to reveal it as ideology—and, in so doing, to contribute to the task of ending that oppression. And so, a critical theory aims to provide a kind of enlightenment about social and economic life that is itself emancipatory: persons come to recognize the oppression they are suffering as oppression and are thereby partly freed from it. Marx's critique of capitalist economic relations is arguably just this kind of critical theory. Key Marxist Ideas in Critical Theory ★ Class Struggle - Critical Theory (CT) highlights identity groups more than “class” but it is the same principle: oppressor groups vs. the oppressed. The Communist Manifesto (1847) begins with these words: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” ★ Materialism - While some who advocate CT may have spiritual or religious backgrounds, and may use such language (even Christian language), most of the primary intellectual architects of it have followed Marx in a strictly materialist interpretation of the world, many professing to be atheists like Marx. Recall that Marx took the views of the philosopher Hegel & made one major change: he removed all of the spiritualism. Hegel’s “dialectic” of ideas through history involved a divine-like unfolding of truth from an absolute source. Marx converted the process to one that involved only the material world & society. Marx called his view “dialectical materialism.” Marx’ view of religion was that it satisfies the psychological need of the oppressed like a drug. Marx wrote a critique of Hegel where he famously said, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.” Influential writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, well known & read by CT activists, was the son of a black panther & openly professes his atheism. He differs from Marxism in that his atheism leads him away from utopianism & toward pessimism. Listen to the activists for “social justice” today & you will typically hear very little of the Christian basis of MLK Jr.’s activism in the 60s. There is no place for redemption, no desire for true reconciliation, no idea of God’s will or purpose in the events of history, nothing about forgiveness. ★ Revolution / Activism - Marx called for the “ruthless criticism of all that exists,” followed by action. In 1845 he wrote “Theses on Feuerbach,” which was eleven brief statements on how he adapted the philosopher’s views & differed from (improved) them. From Feuerbach he got his materialistic interpretation of the world, but he believed that interpretation is not enough. Feuerbach was too theoretical, Marx wrote, & failed to see that his views must be put into “revolutionary practice.” His last thesis reads: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” This is why Marxist movements, right up to the present, have emphasized revolutionary activity & the forced taking of the means or tools of political/economic control. ★ Utopianism - history’s “dialectical” process, one revolution after another from more to less oppressive conditions - that process finds a culminating goal in the overthrow of the capitalist system & a “dictatorship of the proletariat” (which is the oppressed working class). That brief period of revolution transitions or settles into an equilibrium - a classless society that for Marx was the communism he envisioned. The stated goals of radical leftist groups, influenced by Marx by way of Critical Theory, are filled with this same kind of idea that the mob overthrow of all of the systems will, after a small amount of transitional chaos, lead to a wonderful society of peace, love and equality.
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