Bugaboos
Thinking tonight about critical theory. Yes, I think about things like that. It was about my own mini-narrative that I developed during grad school, which is this: Critical theory is extremely dangerous bullshit, and if it ever moved outside the English Departments into the law schools, it's the end of America as we know it.
Hard to describe, even now, just how insidious critical theory is. I spent, seriously now, about 10 years of my life (let's say 1992 to 2002) trying to come up with an answer to it. I did, but a critical theorist would counter it.
Here's why -- critical theories seem true. That's why they have withstood enough critical scrutiny to last in the universities. But critical theory is, well, very bad.
What's critical theory? I would argue that it's a style of writing, and a way of thinking. No one else would say that, but I would. It's an extremely abstract way of thinking -- I can't stress how abstract it is. These folks have not only built castles in the sky, they moved in and brought their friends.
It comes out of a weird Kantian problem, namely, if your experience of the external universe comes from nerve impulses that go through your sense organs into your brain, your brain really has no choice but to believe your sense organs. But really, does your brain have any basis for that? In other words, does your brain really know what's on the other side of your eyes? It just assumes this information is accurate. But for all you know, you're living in a simulation. The Matrix demonstrates this principle.
Now that you've been epistemologically unhinged from reality and you exist only in your brain, let's dispose of the brain itself and say, well, is there any real evidence that you have a brain or a body, since, after all, any experience of the real world occurs from sense organs telling us so. We don't really know anything ...
Now that you don't even know you exist, let's skip the rest of the 19th Century and move to Wittgenstein, who said the reason mankind can't answer the essential ontological questions with certainty is that the ... drumroll ... the questions are the problem. They are in language. So before we can answer the questions, we have to answer what language is.
At which point we get the rest of the 20th Century bogged down in that question. Language is not reality, critical theorists say, it doesn't reflect reality, it is OUR reality, a separate system from any physical world (which we don't know exists and don't know if it does exist, anyway) and we inhabit language.
At which point, guess what -- everything is just FUCKING TALK. Reason, ethics, love, beauty, truth ... that's just people talking, usually to oppress someone else and steal their possibly non-existent stuff.
At which point we move from philosophy to activism: We need to stop the people who are controlling language, specifically the narratives we tell ourselves that keep the entrenched powers, um, entrenched. We create counter-narratives that challenge, subvert, undermine, and vitiate the existing meta-narratives that oppress others that we might liberate the oppressed. I'm still making this too clear to be true critical theory.
Anyway, at which point we come to the law. Laws are part of the narrative -- they're just a story designed to oppress others. Come the revolution.
Now, of course, all this can be avoided by punching a critical theorist in the face, or point out that his paycheck is just part of the narrative and you're going to give it to the oppressed. At which point they'd call the police, and prove themselves hypocrites.
How any sane person believes any of this crap I don't know.
But here's the thing. The Biblical view of reality is "through the glass darkly." There are lots of unanswered questions. We really don't know who we are, we really don't know where we're going, we don't have an adequate answer to human suffering.
So let's take it as an article of faith that your sense organs are reflecting something that is orderly, consistent with others' experience, and follows rules. What matter is, or is not, is ultimately not relevant. The word reality and simulation break down at this point -- what's the difference between a simulated reality or a reality reality when in either case there is one concept that is unrefutable: You are going to die. There's nothing you can do about it. And you can relavitize it. You get no say in the matter. The simulated reality bullets will kill you; the real real bullets will kill you; if you duck, you might live.
OK, this is all screamingly obvious, which is why I say that critical theorists are BS artists.
And once we've taken that small article of faith -- let's just say that what we're experiencing is consistent enough that we're all experiencing, albeit in slightly different ways, we can bring back in the whole friggin' tradition of law and human thought.
I have no idea why critical theorists allow this thought to elude them. Actually, I do. They want, in some sense, to deny reality.
Now, critical theorists take their ideology to the umpteenth degree. They argue that concepts like equality under the law, and logic and the scientific method, are just arbitrary narratives to keep white males in charge.
All of this crap hasn't seeped in. Yet. But a lot of it does, mostly because critical theorists hide most of it when presenting it to the world. Most people on the left have no idea who they are in bed with.
That's why I've tried to distinguish between leftists and liberals. A liberal can mean anything from someone who thinks the whole world needs a group hug (at which point, I qualify as a liberal) to people who want to sign up the government to handle every social problem (at which point I'm not).
In other words, you're Joe Schmo and you think that yes, we should have some kind of national healthcare system. OK, fair enough, dude. We'll talk costs, details, etc. But you're dealing in reality. You're trying to make the world a better place. I may not agree with your answers, but we're both asking the same questions.
Now leftists think things more like this: The entire meta-narrative needs to be destroyed, and to do that, we need to destroy the current system. So let's have national healthcare so that we can run up the bills so high that they'll destroy capitalism. Then we'll replace it with socialism and create a better world. We'll handcuff the oppressors and give their stuff to the oppressed.
And guess what, liberals -- you'll be right up against the wall with me when we get shot. You'll just be more surprised than me.
By the way, the first stage of this leftist social revolution is nearly complete. It's to destroy the institution of marriage and the family. Strong, God-fearing families are enemies of leftists just as much as entrepreneurs, because they continue the alleged oppression.
The problem is, today's liberals are being duped by leftists. (Leftists are, in turn, often duped by Muslims.)
How do you know when you're inadvertently appropriating critical theory in your arguments?
1. When you forget human nature. That's the biggest one.
2. When you level all values as "relative".
3. When you ignore natural law. Deep conscience is the best way to inoculate yourself from critical theory.
4. When you're arguing from a position of resentment. Critical theory is all about resentment.
5. When you vilify those who hold to traditional values that were broadly held only a decade or two ago. (Gay marriage, anyone?)
Those are just five. Ultimately, critical theory strips out the common ground between people and turns everything into a power play. It's no kind of world to live in.
So let's all have a group hug and figure out a way to balance the budget and do something about healthcare.
