Critical Theory has been a rather vexing and disconcerting topic to research. Tracing it from its beginnings in the 1930’s in Nazi Germany, the Frankfurt School, which coined and established the idea and philosophy of Critical Theory. It is heavily influenced and deeply connected and inspired by Marxism(which has been adapted and twisted into two main-stream theories, Critical and Conflict). The theorists of the school were forced out of Germany and were welcomed with open arms, by Columbia University in the late 1930’s. At this point, Max Horkheimer, the founder and director of the institute and one of the main cogs in the first generation of the theory, published a book called Traditional and Critical Theory(1937). This book laid the first patch of groundwork for their theories to be more learned and widespread in the large education market of the United States.
In 2005, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy released a 300-page study and deep dive into Critical Theory, that I would thoroughly recommend at least skimming through for a better and deeper understanding on the subject. In that research article the author put in their words Horkheimer’s description of Critical Theory, “It follows from Horkheimer’s definition that a critical theory is adequate only if it meets three criteria: it must be explanatory, practical, and normative, all at the same time. That is, it must explain what is wrong with current social reality, identify the actors to change it, and provide both clear norms for criticism and achievable practical goals for social transformation.” This concept desires a consistently morphing society, that must go through the process of being “socially transformed”, a disheartening and shuttering terms of services, for people who enjoy the way our society is set up to function. Without a doubt, there are several wrinkles. But these disparities and flat-out neglecting of the citizens that public officials have been awarded the Responsibility should be dealt with in compromise, reason and recourse.
Read more here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/
As I looked into Critical Theory and what has derived from it and taken shape in our modern world of education and sciences, it is mainly packaged in the form of “social sciences”. For those that don’t what in particular that is, it is defined as, the study of human society and social relationships. With it’s main aim or function in these areas of study being to criticize societal entities and emancipate people from anything that has oppressed or enslaved them to any set of principles or another ideology, that is not a critical one. There have been three generations of these theorists and they have all focused on different aspects of society and social sciences. The first generation looked into the consciousness of actions in the economic, political, and psychoanalytic “crisis”. Jurgen Habermas defined the second generation and changed the direction of targeting speech as the focus of his work in Critical Theory. While the third generation piggybacked on Habermas’ ideas on speech, but took to further level of in sighting human feelings as the primary subject of critical thought. We see Critical Theory coexisting within multiple kinds of new-aged theories and studies that fit into the more modernized time we live in such as: feminist theories and studies, critical race theory, cultural theory, gender and queer theory, and media theory and studies. It has now ensconced itself into the world of corporate counseling and many HR offices around the country with a book called, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and her work as a corporate consultant. It is growing and entrenching into modern Western civilization, slowly indoctrinating a Need for social transformation. “Cancel Culture” and “wokeness” are the key popular terms that have directly stemmed from these theories as well as ingratiating and supporting any social movements that have the slightest bit of wiggle room to push their agendas on top of whatever social issues that the movements are suggesting. Quite an ingenious and complex way of spreading ideology, but for most people faced with the social change required by these theories it is either a concept that confuses them or it’s belief are taken to religious form of “spreading the message” and that is never received well by the people who are being forced to change. Because for a Critical Theory to really take full shape, all of humanity must partake in it, at least under their conditions, which is all rather hypocritical as they gain more leeway and domination in the education market and the world of business. In there own belief of a critical theory must be explanatory, normative, and practical, and if there are not, would they too be subject to the same type of intrusive criticisms?
Dark overtones are all around us now, the executioner, in form of a social justice warrior, has knocked on your door and is calling for white privilege to be washed away while you kneel at the foot of your front door and relinquish your once great power. It’s gone and that serves you right, you fool. Thinking it was okay to just limber around and stay silent? Nope, silence is violence. Get with the new times, man. Societal norms will be attacked, pilfered and ransacked like the Vikings and Scandinavians, in the days of Roman Empire, when they flooded into Europe to rape and murdered the people living in Germany and England. They changed the culture and rabidly inflicted their social norms onto those people inhabiting those lands, no traces of any kind of critical theories in a Viking society. But nevertheless, swift and brutish attacks forced those people of that day to form behind a leadership of land owners that eventually made themselves into a ruling class and leaving the majority of the population under that rule, for their own protection of course. There is a clear divisionist stance in most critical theories, that claims to be for the betterment of that society, but the mantra they’ve cultivated into 2020 has now become tear the whole damn thing down. Start anew, a redo if you will. I encourage all to take a long deep breath and some time for reflection, after reading about Critical Theory from The Frankfurt School and the influences that it has on our society today. We’re exposed as a society through misinformation, and we should look to change and grow, sure. But taking the word from the government officials, institutions and organizations, and the spineless and always encroaching political parties that are hustling us out of information, inalienable rights, the right to educate, and taking constant shots at our 1st and 2nd Amendment Rights would be rather ill-advised. Which, by the way, they will always attack and criticized those two rights of the Constitution because for one it’s in the name, Critical Theory, they see it as the way the world actually works. If something isn’t working, criticize it until it’s changed. Sounds good and all, except that for too long we’ve been blind dogs being jostled around by our masters on the other end of the leash; and now the blindness is fading away, but we’ve wound up to a point where we’ve missed so many governmental mishaps and mistakes that they take us all for ignorant swine, incapable of understanding who is really culpable for all the turmoil. So lets just clean house. Get a whole new leadership, like Joe Biden, a man in power as at least a Senator or holding of a higher seat of power since 1973? That’s not new leadership, that’s the old guard.
There has been a shake-up this last week of the news cycle or social media bubble of American politics with Kanye West’s announcement that he’d be running for president along side a Wyoming preacher, Michelle Tidball, under the party name, the Birthday Party. Ha! What a performer, huh? Imagine if Michael Jackson had teamed up with Joel Olsteen as his vice to help John McCain and Sarah Palin win in 2008, to deter some of Obama’s black populous vote. That’s what we’ve got here, except Kanye has one of the smartest Americans and maybe humans on his side, Elon Musk, who like Ye has a rather cultist and cut-throat core of fans, that no matter what will support and hail everything they do. Kanye says he would wind up appointing the Tesla CEO as the head of NASA, which in many people’s head I’m sure means a vote for Kanye is a vote for Mars occupation. Is Mars the next step of our societal evolution? Will all the geniuses and brightest minds ship off to Mars to colonize and expand the American Imperial dream? Lets stifle that talk for now, further down the road maybe. Essentially, his platform consist of pro-life, pro-religion, and most other conservative ideals as well as deterring anyone he can from Biden. It feels pretty safe to say our field is set for November, obviously there are a few more months that will irrefutably drag on and bring “scandals” and numerous amounts of news puff, but hopefully more clarity. With that, the United States will be given the choice of Donald Trump(Republican), Joe Biden(Democrat), Kanye West(Birthday Party), Jo Jorgenson(Libertarian), and Howie Hawkins(The Green Party). This is the cream of our crop? Well like the fathers of this nation and Kanye West would say, “In God We Trust.” I’m not sure that an intellectual revolution is what we are facing in this election. If anything there will be a massive cultural shift that will only be minimally affected on the basis of how the cookie crumbles, I think we’ll see parts of the U.S. take drastic dips in overall quality of life and others will experience major upticks in their already growing secular areas of society.
Once again, GO register to VOTE in the 2020 election and make your voice heard! It’s your country, you’re living in it.
#Vision2020, #Vote2020, #Unity2020
Thought provoking……i hope you lean the way I think you are. Great job.