"Critical theory," as used in this diary, refers to a theory with a definitive political and ethical purpose, one that informs liberation movements:
Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. "Critical Theory" in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. According to these theorists, a "critical" theory may be distinguished from a "traditional" theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human emancipation, "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them" (Horkheimer 1982, 244). Because such theories aim to explain and transform all the circumstances that enslave human beings, many "critical theories" in the broader sense have been developed. They have emerged in connection with the many social movements that identify varied dimensions of the domination of human beings in modern societies. In both the broad and the narrow senses, however, a critical theory provides the descriptive and normative bases for social inquiry aimed at decreasing domination and increasing freedom in all their forms.
Of course, "critical theory," properly understood, is nothing new to the Left. In fact the so-called "New Left" was heavily influenced by critical theorists at its height of popularity. But critical theaory represents more than an attempt at academic inquiry; because, at base, critical theory is concerned with liberation of human beings from "systems" of oppression. As Douglas Kellner illustrates when discussing the field of British cultural studies, this is an inherently political act with a political aim:
From the beginning, British cultural studies was highly political in nature and focused on the potentials for resistance in oppositional subcultures, first, valorizing the potential of working class cultures, then, youth subcultures to resist the hegemonic forms of capitalist domination. Unlike the classical Frankfurt school (but similar to Herbert Marcuse), British cultural studies turned to youth cultures as providing potentially new forms of opposition and social change. Through studies of youth subcultures, British cultural studies demonstrated how culture came to constitute distinct forms of identity and group membership and appraised the oppositional potential of various youth subcultures (see Jefferson 1976 and Hebdige 1979). Cultural studies came to focus on how subcultural groups resist dominant forms of culture and identity, creating their own style and identities. Individuals who conform to dominant dress and fashion codes, behavior, and political ideologies thus produce their identities within mainstream groups, as members of specific social groupings (such as white, middle-class conservative Americans). Individuals who identify with subcultures, like punk culture, or black nationalist subcultures, look and act differently from those in the mainstream, and thus create oppositional identities, defining themselves against standard models.
As it developed into the 1970s and 1980s, British cultural studies successively appropriated feminism, critical race theory, gay and lesbian theory, postmodern theory, and other fashionable theoretical modes. Thus, they turned to examining the ways that cultural texts promoted sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression, or promoted resistance and struggle against these phenomena. This approach implicitly contained ethical critique of all cultural forms that promoted oppression and domination while positively valorizing texts and representations that produced a potentially more just and egalitarian social order.
Cultural Studies and Ethics, Professor Douglas Kellner, UCLA, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
No definition of "cultural texts" is provided for the reader, but we can safely assume that Daily Kos and other political blogs would constitute such a "cultural text." In fact, the internet as a whole has been identified as a "cultural text" by critical theorists.
So what does it mean to subvert a dominant paradigm? First, you have to identify what the dominant paradigm is, in the abstract, and in more concrete and particularized ways. The wiki entry on paradigm is as good an explanation as any:
Another use of the word paradigm is in the sense of Weltanschauung (German for world view). For example, in social science, the term is used to describe the set of experiences, beliefs and values that affect the way an individual perceives reality and responds to that perception. Social scientists have adopted the Kuhnian phrase "paradigm shift" to denote a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality. A "dominant paradigm" refers to the values, or system of thought, in a society that are most standard and widely held at a given time. Dominant paradigms are shaped both by the community’s cultural background and by the context of the historical moment. The following are conditions that facilitate a system of thought to become an accepted dominant paradigm:
-Professional organizations that give legitimacy to the paradigm
-Dynamic leaders who introduce and purport the paradigm
-Journals and editors who write about the system of thought. They both disseminate the information essential to the paradigm and give the paradigm legitimacy
-Government agencies who give credence to the paradigm
-Educators who propagate the paradigm’s ideas by teaching it to students
-Conferences conducted that are devoted to discussing ideas central to the paradigm
-Media coverage
-Lay groups, or groups based around the concerns of lay persons, that embrace the beliefs central to the paradigm
-Sources of funding to further research on the paradigm
One example of an oppressive paradigm, or system, relatively new to critical theory analysis is "heterosexism." Heterosexism is considered a more appropriate term than simple homophobia by more radical critics in favor of LGBT "liberation," but it has also been adopted by liberal proponents of LGBT rights:
Around the same time, heterosexism began to be used as a term analogous to sexism and racism, describing an ideological system that denies, denigrates, and stigmatizes any nonheterosexual form of behavior, identity, relationship, or community (Herek, 1990). Using the term heterosexism highlights the parallels between antigay sentiment and other forms of prejudice, such as racism, antisemitism, and sexism.
Like institutional racism and sexism, heterosexism pervades societal customs and institutions. It operates through a dual process of invisibility and attack. Homosexuality usually remains culturally invisible; when people who engage in homosexual behavior or who are identified as homosexual become visible, they are subject to attack by society.
Examples of heterosexism in the United States include the continuing ban against lesbian and gay military personnel; widespread lack of legal protection from antigay discrimination in employment, housing, and services; hostility to lesbian and gay committed relationships, recently dramatized by passage of federal and state laws against same-gender marriage; and the existence of sodomy laws in more than one-third of the states.
Although usage of the two words has not been uniform, homophobia has typically been employed to describe individual antigay attitudes and behaviors whereas heterosexism has referred to societal-level ideologies and patterns of institutionalized oppression of non-heterosexual people.
What is Heterosexism? Definitions, UC Davis Psychology Department
While critical theorists may favor this terminology and share it with their more liberal counterparts, the political solutions proposed by liberals and radicals could not be more different. Jasmyne Cannick, who regularly rails against "white gays," considers the marriage question one of white privilege:
While I am not saying that marriage isn’t worth fighting for, I am questioning the constant use of the "equality" as a means by which to measure its worth in contemporary society. I also question marriage taking precedence over the issue of HIV/AIDS, homophobia, the ENDA, and hate crimes—all of which affect Black gays I on a daily basis way more than being denied the right to marry.
It’s kind of hard to walk down the aisle if you’re lying in a hospice dying from AIDS. It’s even harder to do when you’re confined to a coffin with a bullet in the back of the head. I’m just saying. And while I know the first argument of defense from marriage proponents is always that marriage provides benefits to couples, if you ain’t got no job or you were fired from your job because you are gay, you ain’t got no benefits.
Marriage proponents can holler equality until they are pink in the face, but until the gay civil rights movements puts the same amount of resources, effort, and energy into combating some of these other issues, that’s one thing it will never be.
Now if they want to start admitting that gay marriage is equality for wealthy (mostly) white gay men and women, you’ll get no argument from me.
A White Gay’s Guide for Dealing with the Black Community: Chapter 6: Why Fighting for Gay Marriage is a Privilege
Because Cannick is a race reductionist who sees all social action through the prism of white privilege and black disadvantage, it never occurs to her to question many of her basic assumptions, a common error among the critical theorists from which she borrows her shallow analysis. Indeed, it is "kind of hard to wak down the aisle if you're lying in a hospice dying from AIDS." It is also hard to receive treatment after an HIV diagnosis if you lack access to health insurance, and in our society marriage is one of the ways to access quality and affordable health care. In fact, many heterosexual couples marry for that purpose alone. The incidents of marriage are not so limited, of course. A 1989 decision in New York expanding the definition of "family" to encompass long-term same-sex couples provided relief for Miguel Braschi, after the death of his partner threatened to result in his eviction:
Appellant, Miguel Braschi, was living with Leslie Blanchard in a rent-controlled apartment located at 405 East 54th Street from the summer of 1975 until Blanchard's death in September of 1986. In November of 1986, respondent, Stahl Associates Company, the owner of the apartment building, served a notice to cure on appellant contending that he was a mere licensee with no right to occupy the apartment since only Blanchard was the tenant of record. In December of 1986 respondent served appellant with a notice to terminate informing appellant that he had one month to vacate the apartment and that, if the apartment was not vacated, respondent would commence summary proceedings to evict him.
Appellant then initiated an action seeking a permanent injunction and a declaration of entitlement to occupy the apartment. By order to show cause appellant then moved for a preliminary injunction enjoining respondent from evicting him until a court could determine whether he was a member of Blanchard's family within the meaning of [the rent-control regulation]. After examining the nature of the relationship between the two men, the Supreme Court concluded that appellant was a "family member" within the meaning of the regulation and, accordingly, that a preliminary injunction should be issued. The court based this decision on its finding that the long-term interdependent nature of the 10-year relationship between appellant and Blanchard "fulfills any definitional criteria of the term 'family.' "
The Appellate Division reversed, concluding that [the regulation] provides noneviction protection only to "family members within traditional, legally recognized familial relationships." Since appellant's and Blanchard's relationship was not one given formal recognition by the law, the court held that appellant could not seek the protection of the noneviction ordinance. After denying the motion for preliminary injunctive relief, the Appellate Division granted leave to appeal to this court, certifying the following question of law: "Was the order of this Court, which reversed the order of the Supreme Court, properly made?" We now reverse.
Braschi v. Stahl Associates Company, 74 N.Y.2d 201, 544 N.Y.S.2d 784, 543 N.E.2d 49 (New York Court of Appeals, 1989)
In Cannick's reductionist discourse, Braschi, an Italian American gay man who lived with his partner for ten years, was simply excerising his white privilege. Similarly, even though the benefits to children of same-sex couples brought about by marriage are theorized to be considerable, and even though Hispanic and black same-sex couples are more likely to have children than their white counterparts, and same-sex couples are more likely to be nonwhite than their married counterparts, according to data compiled by the Williams Institute at UCLA, the marriage movement is rooted in "white privilege" because, one assumes, its proponents include white gay males, conservative, liberal and moderate. This is the level of analysis to which one must become accustomed to fully appreciate what critical theorists hope to accomplish when they "subvert" the rights based "paradigm" of the mainstream Left.
Similarly, Cannick and other "critical race theory" opponents of the mainstream LGBT movement ignore recent research that shows anti-gay campaigns have a devestating impact on the gay male community, regardless of race. Although they claim to be concerned about the AIDS crisis, they show very little regard for how these campaigns have impacted the gay male community:
A rise in the rate of HIV infection can be linked to a ban on same-sex marriage, a new study by two Emory University economists finds.
In the first study of the impact of social tolerance levels toward gays in the United States on the HIV transmission rate, the researchers estimate that a constitutional ban on gay marriage raises the rate by four cases per 100,000 people.
Of course, even critical theory proponents have their limits on intersectionality. Revealing how shallow their commitment to broad-based social movements truly is, they often advocate racial, sexual and religious hierarchies reminiscent of Maslow. Cannick, for example, purporting to speak for all gay men, lesbians and transpeople, called for "illegal immigrants" to get to the back of the line:
Immigration reform needs to get in line behind the gay civil rights movement, which has not yet been resolved.
Which is not to say that I don’t recognize the plight of illegal immigrants because I do.
However, I didn’t break the law to come into this country. The country broke the law by not recognizing and bestowing upon me my full rights as a citizen and I find it hard as a Black lesbian to jump on the immigration reform bandwagon when my own bandwagon hasn’t even left the barn.
Before we extend the rights of illegals...
This problem is not limited to homophobia. It reflects a general unwillingness to tackle data that does not comport with their ideology, or to impose a metanarrative that does in spite of that data. This is in the interest of human liberation or, more to the point, what the critical theorists deem the interests of the objects of their study and activism. Like the Marxists before them, critical theorists are not necessarily concerned with the voices they purport to represent, unless it fits within their new, "subversive" paradigm.
Apart from making homophobia (at least against males) vogue, critical theory proponents are busy attempting to reignite the identity politics and campus speech debates that helped propel people like David Brock (who has since reformed) and David Horowitz (who has not) into the national spotlight. As documented in the August/September issue of Free Inquiry, campus censorship remains a problem for the Left and, to a lesser degree, the Right, in public and private institutions of higher learning. Students are subjected to censorship for purportedly noble reasons: racial, gender, religious and sexual orientation sensitivity, for example. Nevertheless, many of the speech codes, developed by critical theory proponents and eerily reminiscent of earlier speech codes developed by illiberal feminists to combat pornography and misogyny, run afoul of the First Amendment and do far more than protect groups of students from incitement. The codes are designed to protect ethnic, religious and sexual minorities from feeling "unsafe."
Which brings us to the cultural text of Daily Kos and blogs in general. In an effort to create "safe spaces" for minorities and special interest communities, the site accepts and even promotes community diaries where political dissent is deemed intolerable, even where positions relatively common to the community are viciously attacked as representative of privilege or reactionary politics. Curiously, much of this "reasoning," to the extent that it can be deemed such, is used in defense of the Obama administration against left wing criticism. It strongly resembles false accusations of antisemitism that have proliferated in debates over Israeli policy. But as Rabbi Michael Lerner warned in the most recent issue of Tikkun, there are terrible consequences that attach to false accusations of bigotry in an attempt to censor legitimate criticism of policies. What he says is not limited to false accusations of anti-Semitism, although that is his example here:
First, by labeling these critics as "anti-Semitic," the Jewish world actually empties the charge of anti-Semitism of its sting. Increasing numbers of people are beginning to say, "OK, if 'anti-Semitic' means 'being critical of the policies of the state of Israel,' then I guess I support anti-Semitism because I know I dislike Israel's policies." That, in turn, weakens the Jewish people and makes it easier for the real haters of Jews to mix with the mass of critics of Israeli policy who aren't anti-Semitic at all, and thereby get their own voices taken seriously. This is a terrible outcome.
Second, to the extent that labeling of critics works in the short run, it produces a deep resentment against Jews that will eventually explode into real anti-Semitism, which can then be manipulated in destructive ways, both against Israel and against the Jewish people worldwide. People hate "political correctness" imposed upon them by the powerful. Jewish political correctness-to the extent that it effectively imposes a silence on honest debate about Israeli policy as it largely has in the United States-may eventually explode in our faces in unpredictable ways, or even in a resurgence of fascistic forces and wide-spread anti-Semitism.
The same is true of the attempts by critical theorists to shut down left wing criticism of the US government's policies, or to devalue moderate and liberal rights-based movements in the name of domestic "liberation" movements that do not capture anywhere close to majority support. Indeed, these two contradictory goals of the critical theory set on this site and in the Left generally is a major cause for alarm not because of the threat they represent on their own, but because from a purely pragmatic perspective, they will inevitably provoke reaction from people who cannot stand "political correctness" being shoved down their throats, and attempts to mute legitimate dissent. Whatever value the critical studies set offers to policy analysis will quickly be offset by the costs their shallow ideology imposes on the liberal base that is not committed to their analytical approach. In the face of this bizarre confluence, liberals must assert their own values and their commitment to human rights, free speech and free inquiry.