Well, round 2 of my discussion/debate with my son over an authoritarian root in Critical Theory went out yesterday.

I managed to whittle it down to 4.5 pages of single spaced text on a word doc. About a page and a half went to adding some new information, then another 3 pages of follow up.

 He and I had a discussion last week… well, it was more him just unloading on me. He’s very progressive, I’m conservative, and he feels there is a looming dangerous authoritarian threat from the right. I mentioned that I myself had concerns about the lefts own authoritarian streak. He couldn’t even fathom what I was talking about, so I mentioned the role of critical theory and figures such as Herbert Marcuse as influential in the current intellectual left’s development. He asked me about it in some texts, and I responded that it would be best to continue the discussion in an email, since I’m not proficient at texting on a phone.

So I sent what I considered a good argument detailing where critical theory came from and how it lends itself naturally to authoritarianism. He of course disagreed and countered with his own takes on CT.

I just sent my own clarifications off and we’ll see how it goes.

 My argument in a nutshell is that critical theory in general is defined in contrast to traditional theories. Traditional theories see to understand a subject. Critical theories seek emancipation from oppression. They must explain how specific practices in society oppress, they must offer methods to liberate from that oppression, and they must provide a normative, or moral, prescription for society… what it ought to look like.

Critical theories view all human dynamics through the lens of power, with every relationship being considered in light of dominance. Those with power or authority are considered to be oppressors and those underneath as oppressed.

 In light of these dynamics, CT sees it’s work as liberating, and those that oppose it as complicit in maintaining oppression. To this end, critical theorist do not see understanding of what they see as oppressive viewpoints, they don’t seek dialogue, and they seek to ‘disrupt and dismantle’ systems of oppression. Marcuse’s contribution was to see tolerance as allowing intolerant viewpoints. He reasoned that intolerant viewpoints needed active suppression and allowed for admittedly undemocratic means to accomplish that.

 Unfortunately, the view of relationships as based in power, means: what happens when Critical Theory gets power? Since all authority is oppression, and it can’t be otherwise, they seem fully comfortable accepting that they will be the oppressors in that case. As Ibram Kendi says in his book: The remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. This means that CT simply can’t see the world in terms of eliminating oppression, for them, justice is flipping the tables.

 There is, I suppose, an eye-for-an-eye view of justice that would fit that, but I’d rather work towards reconciliation that retribution. That’s me.

I hate the constant classification that goes on… the so-called ‘identity’ politics. Paul says in Galatians 3:28 that there is no more Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, and that we are all one in Christ. That’s the world I’d want to see- where differences are lessened, not made the entire focus of life. It’s an unattainable dream perhaps, humans being humans, but that’s what I’d want to see.