I’ve been pondering this idea for some time. I have come to a few conclusions. I’m not sure how they’ll be received, but as a thinker, amateur philosopher, and educator, I find I am compelled to at least put my observations out to anyone who may read this post.

Introduction for 2020

2020 was marked by the unanticipated, the unexpected, and the unprecedented. The words have been so overused that they have lost much of their meaning and all of their power. Still, no one could have predicted back in January just how the next months would unfold. First a pandemic, followed by controversial responses to mitigating the illness, and then a series of abuses of power by individual law enforcement officers that led to months of civil disturbances ranging from protests to riots, ironically none of which seemed to be concerned about controlling the still raging pandemic. Natural disasters from an early hurricane season in the Southeast and early wildfire season in the West led to mass evacuations an devastating loss. The economy, which had been the best in years, tanked; between government quarantines to control the viral spread, businesses damaged and destroyed by riot-induced looting, and nature’s wrath, there wasn’t really any way to maintain a robust economy. Workers were first furloughed before being let go, the result of not enough work to do. White collar jobs moved out of offices into homes, and schools went remote, requiring quick thinking by creative teachers and a paradigm shift about the role of technology in the classroom.

People around the world felt the uncertainty of a pandemic in the Internet Age. Opinions of fault for the spread of the virus began with its source in Wuhan, China, but quickly spread to national and world leaders, criticized for their responses, no matter how they responded. Some were quick to shut down their countries, mandate mask wearing, and force people into isolation. Other countries chose a measured approach, choosing to leave things open and let a herd immunity help slow the disease. Neither extreme approach made a major difference: COVID19 affected the weak and elderly first and hardest, but no particular group was unaffected, and the long term effects are still unknown.

In the middle of the chaos, a social movement gained traction and Critical Theory entered the general lexicon. It is not a new philosophy, but it has become central to a number of groups in the US, particularly in academia, in some protests movements, and even in some churches.

Critical theory is generally known as a Western European tradition that strives to merge philosophy and activism to provide liberation from slavery leading to a world where everyone is satisfied (Horkheimer, 1972). Critical theory (CT) is distinguished by its emphasis on a practical and moral response to inquiry that transforms culture by “decreasing domination and increasing freedom in all their forms” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Early Critical theorists focused on humans as agents of societal change with a capitalism in a “real democracy” as an entrance to a system where life operates by consensus (SEP). Social inquiry led to rational and practical knowledge that people could use to create the cultures in which they wanted to live. Human reason was a path to liberation.

Problems with this view began to emerge almost immediately. Horkheimer argued against the Marxian concept that solidarity of impoverished workers would overcome capitalism because most of the time capitalism helped people build better lives. He added that freedom and justice were dialectical in nature: “The more freedom, the less justice and the more justice, the less freedom” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBaY09Qi-w0). He said that we who live in a society cannot determine what a good society looks like, but that people can bring up the negative things that need to be changed. The problem with this view is simple: every individual can find negative things that need to be changed, but criticism alone does little but create misdirected dissatisfaction, which increases human misery rather than relieves it.

2020 was a year of many things, and the re-emergence of CT, particularly of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is among them. In the midst of a pandemic and natural disasters, CRT has migrated from academia to the vernacular, and the result has been less of liberation and more of strident division, even among friends. But CRT cannot define racists or racism. What it can do is make people aware of the lenses through which they view the world and give them an opportunity to learn through a different lens.

Continuing in 2021– coming soon