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I'm pretty sure the "critical" in "critical theory" refers to "consisting of or involving criticism" i.e. "the art of evaluating or analyzing works of art or literature, also : writings expressing such evaluation or analysis"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory
Critical theory is critical of existing society, rather than evaluating works of literature without challenging the underlying social structures that produced them.
Yeah, looks like I missed the mark. The guy who coined the term simply made up a new meaning for "critical":
It’s certainly unintuitive. A cynic might suggest that was the point.
You don't have to be a cynic to think that. The guy who coined it spells it out for you. All this far-leftist stuff is cynical and power driven, they explain why this is in detail in their writings. The conspiracy is out in the open for everyone to see.
Knowledge production as socially constructed and a means to power. The glorification of revolutionary violence. It's all there in Marx and all the various critical theorists.
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I would believe its purveyors may claim that, but I've never seen "critical theory" come to a positive conclusion about any real pretty much anything. There is a lot of pontificating about how pretty much everyone suffers from pervasive, say, racism, but I don't think I've ever come across "actually, X is good enough" except about some perfect hypothetical. I don't really see much depth to the field (happy to consider otherwise) beyond tearing imperfect things down and wanting to replace them with nothing.
As someone raised Christian it pattern matches really well into "all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God" (true), but lacks the radical forgiveness that is supposed to accompany that phrase.
As soon as you try to build something you're no longer a
critical theoristnag (one can do this with critical intent, but that's distinct from theory- "fine, I'll do it myself" is still productive).That's a weird framing. Nagging just to nag, nagging with the express purpose of building yourself up at the zero-sum expense of others, that's the sin.
So, back to the original wording, critical theory pattern matches really well into "all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, so continue sinning because God can take it- that's the duty of the all-powerful, isn't it?".
How would you respond to that question?
Given I bother to bring it up, the answer is, in a word, "no".
Which is itself kind of ironic, considering that the entire reason my username is what is it is, is to remind myself that I have better things to do than to sit here and critically theorize. That said, encountering certain views here (and being "forced" to think about them) has been helpful in other contexts; other than that I simply hope to offer responses that are less wrong than what came before.
If I'm going to be lazy and selfish it might as well be at least a little constructive.
Lol I had an inkling that might be what your username was about, but I wasn't sure. I've definitely gotten value from your posts though, if it helps. What would you tell that person was God's duty if not to bear our sin?
Depends on who it is.
To someone who does understand, I'm not sure God 'bears' sin at all (outside of 'bearing' the diminishment it takes to manually fix something and the frustration that the thing you made to accomplish a task does not, in fact, do that thing; grace is "didn't and shouldn't have to fix it, did it anyway"). I think God treats individual humans much like I treat computer programs- I guess I 'bear' wrong answers (and there is some physical pain that results when the program gives me wrong answers, don't get me wrong), but this is "I put a training sequence into an LLM and if it doesn't ultimately align to my desired outputs in [timeframe] I'm not bound to accept the results -> model that generated them". It's not like there's anything binding God to do anything, anyway. [Though 'bearing' does have implications if God operates/"simulates" the universe as part of himself.]
To someone who does/will not understand I'd emphasize it in the same terms they already do understand, where the [Living] Law/King/Father is [personally] aggrieved and angered every single time someone contravenes direct orders, either because they will intentionally misunderstand the spirit of what He said, because questioning the dominant interpretation of what He said is not an efficient or effective use of their time, or because they don't know/want to know how to start looking for that spirit.
For what it's worth I wouldn't come up with this answer without having encountered this framing referenced in another comment here and being frustrated by seeing people who don't quite know what to do with someone on the same 'level' as they are (and frustrated that most Christian content has the emphasis on the 2nd or 3rd 'child' as the Jewish one described above- I guess that explains why the Church is as anti-intellectual as it is but Judaism, with its explicit adherence to rules qua rules and not the... fuzziness of Christianity, doesn't have that problem as much). Which also answers a few other questions about how and what I should say, why, where I did this instinctively/unintentionally, and what to promote with people I know act on each of those levels- I do grow by reading and writing here, it's just that I have problems turning that growth into solid results.
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Well, yes, but that's the point to a certain extent. The philosopher is a professional nag - that's his job, ever since Socrates. So one can argue that critical theory is actually quite traditional in this regard. (Of course if you asked the classic Frankfurt school guys what they wanted to build, they would have unhesitatingly answered "communism", but that just moves the question back a step, as the content of that term is itself very ill-specified).
The Apology really should be required reading in schools. Socrates went to the statesmen, the poets, and the artisans, for he was told they were wise; but when pressed and questioned, their wisdom amounted to nothing. When the oracle at Delphi was asked who the true wisest man was, she answered that it was Socrates, for he knew that he knew nothing. And this is the ideal by which philosophy has attempted to conduct itself ever since (but, as with all ideals, mortals fall short).
The philosopher isn't in the business of building things; he's in the business of criticizing, poking holes, formulating problems but no solutions. He is the grim, persistent reminder that you might not know as much as you think you do. Understandably, people tend to find this frustrating (in the case of Socrates, frustrating enough that the Athenians put him to death).
Western philosophy, sure, but I don't see the Socratic school having much influence on Confucius, Mencius, Han Fei, Laozi, Zhuangzi, or any pre-20th century Chinese philosophy. Many of them seem like the sorts who'd object to holding up a guy who trolled Athens so hard he got cancelled from life (as I once heard it put) as an example for sages to imitate.
(I've been slowly working my way through Thomas A. Metzger's * A Cloud Across the Pacific: Essays on the Clash between Chinese and Western Political Theories Today*. I also remember reading a comment on a forum thread about philosophy over a decade ago, from a Chinese individual arguing that Western philosophy went off the rails with Socrates and Plato, and has spent the last two millennia and change building airy edifices of dangerous nonsense.)
Yes, that's certainly correct. I think that's what makes the European (and specifically Socratic) tradition distinct from any other philosophical tradition; the emphasis is on a dynamic process of conflict, rather than a static body of received wisdom. There's someone in our midst who claims to be wise? Very well then, let's put his wisdom to the test, let's see how much he really knows. The principal figure is not the sage, but the prankster, the rabble-rouser. (I would speculate that this impulse in the European mind is part of why empirical science, industrialization, and broadly speaking "modern civilization" in general, arose first in the West and not anywhere else.)
Right. Well, this position is not alien to Western philosophy itself. You can find it in Heidegger (Plato as introducing the terrible mistake of thinking that Being as such could be identical with a specific being, the Form of the Good, the Christian God, or what have you), you can find it in Nietzsche (Socrates as physical symptom of a degenerating and sickly organism), and others.
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As a matter of taste, I mostly disagree. Poking holes can be worthwhile, and is necessary to some level, but I think it's the lesser part of the work. One could say that philosophies are like houses: none are empirically perfect, all are flawed, but many are nevertheless inhabitable. Finding weak points is an important part of structural engineering, but that's because you want to build stronger, better structures in the future. It's totally valid to say 'yes, we know Benthamite utilitarianism produces distasteful results in circumstances X, Y, Z but we think it's a pretty good way for mathematically-inclined people to make large-scale decisions'.*
Likewise, sometimes you have to destroy old buildings because they're obviously defunct beyond repair and you need the space for something else. 'Ruling philosophies' can become impervious to criticism through arrogance and social pressure, to the point of forgetting that their assumptions are assumptions and losing sight of their weak points. Sometimes you need a bloody minded bastard to stand up and keep nagging. But I think it would be perverse to value the demolisher more than the builder.
*Like software programming, really. Loads of problems don't have an accepted perfect solution, but instead lots of standard imperfect solutions that you can select depending on how the tradeoffs stack up for your use case.
** Sorry for inserting random thoughts, perhaps it will help you understand where I'm coming from. When I read your quote: "Socrates went to the statesmen, the poets, and the artisans, for he was told they were wise; but when pressed and questioned, their wisdom amounted to nothing. When the oracle at Delphi was asked who the true wisest man was, she answered that it was Socrates, for he knew that he knew nothing" it just seems like sophism to me. Yes, you can't prove that anything except your own mind exists, and maybe not that. It's worth knowing, and I've met very unreflective people who could use the reminder. But there's not much you can do with that except say "whoa". Sooner or later, you have to do what we all do: accept that the world probably does exist and so does your need for nourishment, and go and make a bacon sandwich. I find the latter wiser and more admirable.
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