One of the great Bait and Switch swindles of the last century has been the use of the word “Critical” in education. Parents hear the word Critical and they immediately think of “Critical Thinking.”
Critical Thinking is defined here as:
Critical thinking (The Bait) is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgment. The rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis or evaluation of factual evidence. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking.
It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities as well as a commitment to overcome native egocentrism and sociocentrism.
Sounds like exactly the kind of valuable skill set you’d like to teach to kids in inner cities to prepare them for college in a highly competitive global marketplace.
Instead, what they get is Critical Theory which is a Marxist pile of steaming horseshit.
Critical Theory (The Switch) refers to a school of thought practiced by the Frankfurt School of theoreticians Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, and Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them.”
Although a product of modernism, and although many of the progenitors of Critical Theory were skeptical of postmodernism.
Kids in classrooms are being groomed by political predators to be Marxist revolutionaries. To be clear, the educators are not teaching Communist Economic Theory, they’re just learning how to criticize everything through a lens of “systemic power structures.”
This isn’t done to discern truth or to find agreement from sources other than authority or use of force. It’s a method to assume everyone’s key motivation is to get power or to keep power.
Students are trained to look at every situation or problem through a lens of losers and assholes.
Who are oppressed and who are the oppressors? Who are the losers and who are the assholes?
This isn’t designed to do anything useful, but instead to oversimplify, prevent collaboration, and drive division.
Critical Thinking – What is the Argument?
The study of logical argumentation is relevant to the study of critical thinking. Logic is concerned with the analysis of arguments, including the appraisal of their correctness or incorrectness.
Critical Theory – Who is Making the Argument?
Critical X Theory, by contrast, is concerned only with the power dynamics and the group identity of who is making the argument.
Is this person from an Oppressed group or an Oppressor group?
NOTE: if a person from the Oppressed Group is making the argument against an enlightened person or someone with heightened critical consciousness (woke), they are suffering from internalized misogyny or racism.
A perfect system for gaining power at the expense of truth, logic, reason, or ethics.
If you end up looking hypocritical, it’s okay, you’re morally superior, and if you get caught, just lie. Scream loud enough and someone else will come to your aid.
You can make a Critical Theory out of any group who can lay claim to having suffered historic injustice or oppression.
There’s Critical Gender Theory, (Marxist Feminism) Critical Race Theory, (Marxist Racism) Critical Queer Theory, Critical Fat Theory – you can literally make one out of anything. If you want to sound academic, you can replace “Critical” with “Colonial,” or replace “Theory” with “Studies.”
It gives stupid, mean people a sense of moral superiority by simplifying things down to a simple set of rules.
The moral of the story is: If you want to control it, call it (Racist / Sexist / Homophobic / Transphobic / Islamophobic / Fatphobic) until you control it.
Hopefully we’re nearing the end of this racket. More and more people are waking up, and it’s working less and less.
