So why exactly is Critical Theory seen as a valid method of analysing anything? The whole concept seems utterly retarded.
At it's core, it makes massive assumptions on how society SHOULD work, based on someone's random opinions of how things SHOULD be. Shouldn't we be taking a more 'free market' based approach to society, giving people equal opportunities then letting most of the aspects of society sort itself out? I'm talking more about things like the distribution of wealth, or the distribution of sexes in certain fields etc.
No one knows how society 'should' be organised.
It also seems to rely on this mistaken assumption that everyone, no matter the age, gender, ethnicity etc are 100% identical, and that anything other than an equal distribution of all these groups in anything is caused by some kind of manipulation of the 'system', or through 'oppression'.
It ignores the basic biology of things like women generally being more nurturing and hence pursuing more careers in medical/nursing fields.
>>482322
Explain it then.
>>482334
Not him, but you can read the wikipedia at least before you start shitposting you know.
>>482334
A high level of discourse is expected on /his/.
Do your own reading.
Here are three encyclopædia articles you might like to start with:
The wikipedia article on critical theory
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on critical theory
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on critical theory.
as >>482338 says, stop fucking shitposting you useless cunt.
>>482361
I appreciate this post
>>482338
>>482361
>>482370
How about one of you explains what critical theory is? "A high level of discourse" =/= "Everyone is expected to know everything about every subject discussed here before posting here," this is fucking 4chan. I've read Adorno and I've read numerous sympathetic descriptions of the goals of critical theory and OP has a good point: most critical theorists are obsessed with utopian projects that demand the construction of a new society out of the ashes of oppressive current systems. The 'critique' is of society; the point of the critique is to change it; the point of the change is to improve it. Critical theory thinks revolutionary forces aren't just trumped-up angry mobs trying to seize control of industry and the state.
CRITICAL THEORY IS JEW PROPAGANDA!
>>482311
It's supported as valid because it's used as a way to explain why the proletariat haven't revolted yet, the main idea being that capitalism doesn't simply oppress but causes Freudian psychological repression as well. If the irrational and violent tendencies of the proletariat were unleashed there would be revolution.
>>482407
I'm not OP, I want you to tell me why critical theory shouldn't be discussed on the humanities board. I also want to know why you don't want to defend a school of thought you clearly care a lot about.
>>482412
That's fucking retarded, to be quite honest.
>Let's explain why this pseudoscience's predictions are incorrect by bringing in a new pseudoscience to predict new phenomena that will make the old pseudoscience correct
>Let's deal primarily in counterfactuals
>>482420
>I want you to tell me why critical theory shouldn't be discussed
It should be. OP isn't trying to discuss critical theory. OP is trying to discuss some personal strawman of idealist socialism as a way of smuggling a debate about ideal states (ie: politics) on this board.
>I also want to know why you don't want to defend a school of thought you clearly care a lot about.
Why would I want to defend a school I detest?
>>482420
I'm a different Anon, but from what I remember about reading those very same links a couple years ago it's basically supposed to be application of Hegel's dialectic.
This thread is a disaster. None of you have any idea what critical theory is.
>>482426
Yes, I mean, I think it's idiotic as well.
>>482439
There are several things called critical theory.
>>482311
In short; (at least for the critical theory that developed from the frankfurt school, there are other things that have also been called critical theory, but OP is baiting for this one)
Marxism proposes the notion of the revolution of the industrial state into a socialist, then a communist utopia.
Unfortunately there has never been a successful revolution in an industrialised state; only in pre-industrial ones, so clearly some revision is required. This just keeps getting worst as first world nations become post industrial and so some new theory is required to discuss society from a particular frame (one strongly influenced by, but separate to marxism).
It's no less valid than discussing society from an economic frame and seeing endless debates about what a nations debt should be.
>>482465
Underemphasises the social democrats.
Entirely unaware of Freud.
No analysis of class basis, contrast with Tankie parties.
C, 70.
>>482485
>Tankie
What the fuck does this word mean?
>inb4 'noob, etc.'
>>482485
(Jokes on you, I'm a physics major who's never formally studied history or philosophy, I am entirely cool with this mark)
But anyway, I would be more than interested for you to elaborate and see what I missed.
>>482498
The chief shock for the intelligentsia of Marxism was the betrayal by the 2nd International parties in 1914. This displayed clearly that the "ultras" and "impossibilists" were correct, and that the "immediatists" were incorrect.
Responses include:
Gramsci
Luxemburg
Lenin
Bordiga
Lukacs
The Dutch/German ultraleft
It wasn't consumerism that opened the ground for a deradicalised intellectual Marxism, but 1914.
Freudianism and Nietzsche are both pretty much essential to critical theory. One can be a critical theorist reading Nietzsche & Foucault or Freud and Lacan without interfacing with Marxist thought at all.
>class basis
Critical theorists are entirely bourgeois in class background or required to perform bourgeois ideology for a wage and reject Marx's Thesis 11 organisationally.
In contrast, while the Tankie parties maintained ideology, their rank and file's success and the parties' successes were based on and in the rank and file organising. It doesn't matter what Togliatti says when the Turin Plant Cells as fostering Autonomism.
>I am entirely cool with this mark
You shouldn't be.
>>482311
>At it's core, it makes massive assumptions on how society SHOULD work, based on someone's random opinions of how things SHOULD be.
This can be applied to literally any political position ever. I hardly see how it's exclusive to critical theory, you personally just happen to disagree with social justice.
>Shouldn't we be taking a more 'free market' based approach to society, giving people equal opportunities then letting most of the aspects of society sort itself out?
>Shouldn't we
Oh, so they don't know how society should work, but you do. Okay.
In all seriousness, what does a "free market approach" with respect to social norms even mean? If bigotry and nepotism are the natural way things emerge, the SJW response to that is also just as natural. Do you think these ideas were beamed to our minds by aliens, or something? People suffer discrimination, people complain about it.
>equal opportunities
>I'm talking more about things like the distribution of wealth, or the distribution of sexes in certain fields etc.
How do you know opportunities are equal? Humans are not perfectly rational actors free of bias, and if the power-holding part of society is overwhelming older white men, they will view the capabilities of people similar to them more favorably. Of course, it's much more tempting to just say you're inherently superior and everyone pulled-emselves-up-by-them-bootstraps in the face of social change, but this doesn't really prove anything. It's basically shouting THE STATUS QUO IS NATURAL DON'T ATTEMPT TO CHANGE IT EVER ;_; although clearly obeying that would benefit only a select group of people.
>>483031
>Oh, so they don't know how society should work, but you do. Okay.
Pretty sure the point was letting things sort themselves out naturally, rather than force an artificial 'equality'.
>People more interested in posturing than trying to explain things
What a bunch of snobs. The basic idea is that dominant forces of society there because they're strong and bad, so we have to challenge him.
The problem with it is that it doesn't prove that the dominant force is bad or that their solution is actually better.
>>483189
You know Engels dealt with this in Socialism: Utopian & Scientific in the NINETEENTH FUCKING CENTURY.
Yeah, never mind that, we're Dr. Hab.
So what actually is critical theory, how does it relate to social justice, and what are some legitimate criticisms of it?
>>483299
Wiki
IEP
SEP
>>483152
Missing my point. Social justice is no less "natural" than your reaction to it, or the discrimination that inspired it in the first place. You adopt a meaningless usage of the word "natural" to paint your ideal society in a positive light because you don't want the state of affairs to change.
>>483305
I like having /his/-torians explain stuff though.
>>483319
You won't get a decent explanation here. Discussion about critical theory is dominated by the conspiracy theory of the frankfurt school. At least read other places alongside any explanation you see here.
>>483319
$2700 an hour.
>>482311
>No one knows how society 'should' be organised.
God does.
>>483348
So post a fucking theology thread inshallah.
>>483322
I was planning on it.
Isn't it true that it's essentially taking Marxist dialectics and applying it to contemporary social groups though? I'm not making judgements off of that one way or another, but that seems the to be the jist of it as I understand it
>>483368
>Isn't it true that it's essentially taking Marxist dialectics and applying it to contemporary social groups though?
No, that would be Marxism. (Nick Dyer-Witheford.)
>>483370
How would you explain it then?
>>483434
wiki
IEP
SEP
Come back after that
>>483438
You can't seriously expect me to read something longer than a twitter comment.
>>482396
Its not something that can be explained in a 4chan post. Read a fucking book, and when you are done come here to discuss it further. A minimum level of understanding is required before such a discussion can take place.
>>483368
Not really. You can't have Marxism without the economic element, and critical theorists themselves continued on from old Enlightenment thinking that predated Marxism by over a century at least. It was a relatively obscure vein of social criticism unique to the Frankfurt school. It did not invent concepts like opposing racism or sexism as stormfags tout it.
>>483883
>Not really. You can't have Marxism without the economic element
I should elaborate on this. Marxism sees as social interaction as fundamentally economic and material. This would be the total opposite of a social critic who was say, a radical feminist, because she would give this role of central social importance to patriarchy, or an anarchist who would probably emphasize the state over both patriarchy and capitalism. It's like the inverse of how each right wing ideology has their own ideas of what makes a certain person/group better and more suited for authority than others; from theocracy to monarchy to fascism to objectivists/ancaps that basically worship the market.
>>483556
This is a shitpost, right?
None of what's discussed here can really be explained by a 4chan post, this is a major copout.
