So with all this talk about "critical race theory", I decided to revisit my notes on critical theory
Last edited Tue Jun 29, 2021, 01:20 PM - Edit history (1)
This is from 2015, between lectures about Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault (Also both great theorists), you will find few direct quotes here, this is all from me, when I saw or heard something interesting, I decided to jot it down in my own words. I will also add a few new notes here how I think it applies to the screaming we hear when it comes to critical race theory...
Critical race theory - Frankfurt school
* Society's not that great
* "Progress" can also be a source of domination and dehumanization
* Culture, science, and technology can be ideological forces distorting human progress
* "Critical" refers to critique, not having assumptions
There is no real scarcity anymore, so we go ahead and create new forms of scarcity, new needs, new lacks of things.
---
Me in 2021: We have multi-billionaires and corporations approaching assets of a trillion dollars. So yes, scarcity does NOT have to be a thing. And yet some people are more concerned that they didn't get that minimum wage job and they think some immigrant refugee or affirmative action is responsible?
Critical theory has a concern for the loss of individuality.
---
Me in 2021: How much individuality do we let get subsumed by race? Take a look at race vs individuality and one will see that is always, ALWAYS, restricted choice rather than expanding and enhancing it. Race has been used to exploit labor, tell you where you could sit on a bus, where you could live, if you go into town after sundown, who you could love and marry, etc. Or today, one can be "white" and "poor" but it seems like a lot of people would rather be a part of the "white" "us" and struggle against the "non-white" "them" rather than be part of the "poor" "us" and struggle against the "rich" "them".
Distinction between aspiration and false need. Culture has declared what we need now. (I jotted down "Black Friday" next to this, I remember thinking that this was a good manifestation of culture declaring we need "that thing" and right now)
---
Me in 2021: You don't need to not hear "press 1 for English". You don't need to be told "Merry Christmas" at the cash registers, yet they have become needs for some people.
Eclipse of Reason - Horkheimer
* Decline of the individual
* Reason used to be an instrument of our selves, we used to use technology to further our interests, the machine has dropped the driver.
* More concerned we are with power over things, the more things dominate us and the more we lack genuine individuality.
* A desire for conformity has become openly proclaimed
Repression and the social order
* Happiness has been reduced to banality, leading a "normal life" is considered "happiness" today
* Idea of truth has been reduced to a useful tool alongside the control of "nature"
* If repression was truly abolished, people would turn against the social order and question the status quo
Technocrats and industrialization
* Our minds are closed to a different world, we will get upset when people violate the rules of the game, but we do not question those rules
* It is not really technology that destroys the individual but is social relations specific to industrialization
A way out
* Can escape repression, not linked to technology but to social relations
* Individuality can break free from industrial discipline state
* A better understanding of fascism and the totalitarian state can help with this escape
One-dimensional man - Marcuse
* Choices are not real
* Productivity and freedom are linked
* Contemporary society is totalitarian
* True freedom can only be expressed in negative terms now. Freedom "from" something? Hard to do. "Crazy" if one proposes something new altogether, like a whole new economic system in today's world.
---
Me in 2021: We're told we should be colorblind, that "red, yellow, black, and white we are all precious in God's sight", and race is a social construct... yet if I, 9,999 other white people, 10,000 Asians, 10,000 black people, and 10,000 Hispanic people all got together and said "We no longer identify as our former race, starting today, we are all the some-shade-of-brown race", what would happen? How much would that choice truly be respected? Could we put it down in the census? Could we put it down if we wanted to adopt? Would the people screaming at schoolboard meetings be OK if their child suddenly identified as some-shade-of-brown? Or if they brought a some-shade-of-brown person home to meet the family for the holidays?
It's funny, going over these notes, I remember there was a lot of criticism, ironically, of critical theory. A lot of it is considered rumination and navel-gazing. Goffman worked in a mental health facility and ended up dissecting total institutions and concepts of stigma, honestly, I think if THAT was more widely disseminated and digested in popular culture, that would do far more damage to right-wing thought than any critical theory could.
Critical Race Theory
