The Alarming Danger of a Return to Saniity

 

Many people are alarmed about Critical Race Theory in the schools; as in the “1619 Project,” which teaches that America was founded on the institution of slavery. But perhaps you do not realize that Critical Race Theory is just one tentacle of a kraken named Critical Theory that has suckered in far more than the public schools.

I have found a useful overview and summary, written by two declared Critical Theorists, in Critical Inquiry in Language Studies. 

The first and perhaps most important point to take from the paper is that the critical theorists themselves are running scared. One recent CT essay abstract ends with dire word of “a new imperative for survival in what are for many volatile and risky political and media community and civic environments.” The present piece’s abstract concludes: “it is necessary to confront neoliberalism as a new kind of domination.”

Neoliberalism means free market economics and human rights. Its heyday is commonly thought to be the Reagan/Thatcher years. There has been a lot of water under the Potomac bridges since then, and it is not clear that water has been rising. The Democrats just took two houses and the presidency; Trudeau’s Liberals are hunkered down in Canada. The Tories have been crushing it in the UK. In terms of visible politics, a mixed bag.

So how to account for this sense of embattlement? Rather than the votes, I suspect that the Critical Theorists feel they are losing the argument. Neoliberalism is not rising so much as that CT is collapsing, in a logical more than a political sense.

For later in the essay, the authors lament that CT has not accomplished anything.

“Has the increased recognition of critical language studies led to any concrete social change?

The answer is probably no.”

The article diagnoses that Critical Theory has been failing to make proper outreach to educate others. Yet this is an odd claim considering that it monopolizes the schools and universities. Most critical theorists spend most of their day educating undergraduates in their views. The explanation has to be, not that the arguments are not being made, but that they are not convincing. Too few students are genuinely buying the joy juice. Semi-aware that their essential premises are not salvageable, they turn to shouting them louder and more often as the only alternative. Along with suppressing any other voices.

Critical theory is doomed: take it from the horse’s mouth.