[Note: This posting is subject to further editing.]
An advocate of critical
theory continues his/her presentation[1] …
After reviewing this
blog’s postings of late, this blogger has decided to insert a short posting
that might clarify previously shared information. In an attempt to further shed light on what
critical theory considers discourses the following is offered. To help in this effort, this posting looks
back to the time frame previous postings have cited and utilizes an article
from 1995 which was published in Theory and Research in Social Education.[2]
Its authors, Valerie Pang, Geneva Gay, and William B. Stanley,
share with their readers examples of language usage that actually affect
non-advantaged people. They describe and
explain how this takes place as unjust policies are developed and implemented
with the aim of maintaining subjugating relationships with those who are
disadvantaged or oppressed.
Specifically, they offer
a list of ways critical theorists have identified in how these subjugating uses
of language oppress the disadvantaged:
1.
The discourses provide
the reasoning and rationale for restrictive community formation. Here the advantaged groups implement exclusionary
policies so as to insure “those people” don’t live nearby. Grounds for such exclusion have been based on
ethnic, racial, social, and/or cultural grounds. One need only observe the ever-increasing
number of gated communities to illustrate how prevalent this strategy is.
2.
Lack of any motivation
– mostly from unawareness – by the privileged groups in understanding or even
knowing how relatively better off they, the dominant group, lives. That group is mostly populated by Anglo men,
and, to a lesser degree, Anglo women who are cognitively or emotionally blind
to the systematic disadvantages that the oppressed are forced to sustain.
3.
The advantaged groups
– what some in the critical theory camp call the oppressors – opt to speak in
terms of myths. One such myth is the “bootstrap”
myth which maintains that anyone can secure suitable income levels if that
person puts in the sufficient amount of effort and hard work. In turn, such views count on significant
levels of individualism. It ignores how
important community supports function in bolstering any chances of success one
might have. This includes appropriate
encouragement, assets, exemplary cases of success to emulate, etc.
This
sort of targeted perception gives rise to views of reality that are skewed
toward messaging of these myths. And
this whole biased view is further enhanced with oversimplified beliefs one
attains from reductionist studies of reality.
For example, what meaning does the term “American Dream” suggest?
Does
that meaning even touch the complex world one encounters – often fights – in attempting
to advance one’s interests or in lodging demands when one either has or does
not have the necessary resources for success.
Are success stories more a product of good fortune than planned out
strategies? Detailed accounts of success
stories, to this blogger, seem to be riddled with lucky turns.
4.
It is often the case
with these rationalizations, i.e., those found in the discourses of the
advantaged, that psychologically predisposes members of that group to be unable
to acknowledge their own levels of prejudicial thinking and acting. That is, they are disposed to see any economic
misfortunes befalling the oppressed as being due to non-factors such as the
prevalence of a culture of poverty.
A
prime strategy that such thinking employs to justify resultant policies is to
destroy the cultures of the oppressed people and encourage other policies aimed
to assimilate them to mainstream norms and ethos. These sought after social states
are further glorified with mythological language.
5.
Further use of language
by the advantaged is noted for supporting such practices as segregating the
disadvantaged from liberating opportunities.
For example, one sees encouraging minority students, in ordinate
numbers, to take up vocational courses or programs even when individual
students demonstrate talent and intelligence in their academic efforts.
In
addition, with reductionist thinking, advantaged policy makers are continuously
seeking “magic bullet” solutions to educational challenges – e.g., whole
language vs. the phoenix explosion – which experience has shown to accrue little
in the way of payoffs. The problems of
public schools are complex and demand nuanced study and policies. Instead, the dominant language based on
reductionist, positivist studies do little to improve their efforts at addressing
the challenges posed by the conditions of the disadvantaged.
And finally, let this
posting add one more word on what the term, discourse, means. It is language used by the advantaged which
has become politized. That is, as the privileged
not only strive to maintain their relative advantages, they also have to be
cognizant of what arrangements, social, political, economic, allow for these
advantages to remain secure. In such
efforts, they need to devise and implement strategies that in effect rationalize
their valued positions as being rational and natural.
The tools for such
strategies are myths that describe not only what it claims reality to be, but
what it should be. And central to
critical theory is for its advocates to stridently point out and attack
oppressive language. That is to challenge
the extended or evolving language of the oppressor – which seeks to maintain
the status quo.
That language often demeans
the efforts of critical theorists by using such phrases as “political
correctness” in a way that seeks to delegitimize critical critiques of the
dominant groups. One can view such dismissal
language as discourses of the privileged.
Yet, to the extent that critical theorists have advanced their messaging,
one can consider those cases as genuine successes in their discourse efforts.
As such, these verbal
attacks and responses can be considered a meaningful front in striving to
establish a liberated reality among those currently oppressed. The more critical efforts find further platforms
to communicate and distribute their messages, the more they can challenge the
prevailing misinformed mental representations of the advantaged groups – that
being the messages of “the haves.”
[1] These postings that convey the basic information regarding
critical theory heavily depends on the overview provided by William Outhwaite. See William Outhwaite, “Critical Theory,” in The
Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought, edited by David Miller, Janet
Coleman, William Connolly, and Alan Ryan (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd), 106-109.
[2] Valerie Pang, Geneva Gay,
& William B. Stanley, “Expanding Conceptions of Community and Civic Competence
for a Multicultural Society, Theory and
Research in Social Education, 23, 4 (Fall 1995), 302-331.
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