A CRITICAL MORAL STAND

This blog is in the midst of reviewing the moral stand that critical theory espouses.  The reason is to convey the elements of that mental construct that stand in opposition to the natural rights position, the position that is dominant in American thinking about government and politics.  It is felt that comprehending this opposition completes an understanding of what is prevalent today.

With the natural rights position, the trump value of liberty precludes that construct from espousing any substantive stand over most moral questions.  That is the case because that position holds the singular value that individuals have the right to determine which values they adopt.  Therefore, most moral questions go wanting when it comes to counting on this construct to provide guidance; it is up to the individual to decide what is good and evil.

While this moral thinking prevails among natural rights advocates, there is no singular moral view among critical theorists and critical pedagogues.  What most critical pedagogues do share is some allegiance to Marxian ideals.  As such, to a large extent, this common core tends to influence the way adherents see the various moral questions facing societal conditions. 

To remind the reader, Marx’s focus was on the conflict of interests between the business owning class and the laboring class.  To some, the social forces dictating the conflict between entrepreneurs and laborers reflect historical forces and are mostly amoral.  That is, there is limited moral consideration when people are simply following their natures and promoting their personal interests that are defined by the position they happen to inhabit.  

These are purely historical factors.  History has placed people in such positions and they, along with all of nature, will simply develop according to deterministic laws.  But to most critical pedagogues, what is at stake are moral considerations.  Their commitment to the critical construct is based on more of a moral outlook. 

For example, those who follow liberation theology equate the inequality existing in developing countries to reflecting sinful behavior.[1]  But as a way of demonstrating what can be a critical theory argument, what follows is but one view or argument supporting a moral position to which critical pedagogues might ascribe – there are other arguments.

In a previous posting, there is a listing of mental orientations regarding equality.  One of them is equal condition.  If one is an adherent of critical theory, one would be significantly concerned with the observation that since the 1980s, within the US, there has been a definite shift in public sentiment toward that orientation.  That is an orientation that is associated with the natural rights construct and champions market determinations for economic policy. 

It states that all citizens are equal before the law; no one person should be advantaged by public action over another, and compensation for labor and property should be derived from competitive processes.  Therefore, public actions that are set up to provide public assistance under this orientation in its purest forms are judged to be immoral in that they take from some to give to others. 

This, according to critical theory advocates, defies equal condition or equal treatment in any meaningful way because it leads to such inequality in terms of material wellbeing.  This is borne out by an array of statistics.  For example, since 1980, there has been an overall increase in our national domestic product (GDP) of just under 200%[2] while the population grew by 42%.[3]  But when one considers how this increase has been distributed, one is confronted with disconcerting numbers. 

At this time, when there has been a largess, there has been a greater concentration of wealth, with most of the gains going to the upper income groups, especially the top 1 percent.  To add further injury, one should not forget the catastrophic effects of the Great Recession.  In other words, not all families are enjoying the new-found riches equitably, at least to any meaningful degree.

According to G. William Domhoff, in 2007, the top 1% of the US population owned 34.6% of the net worth and financial wealth of the nation. The next 19% owned 50.5%. That adds up to 85.1 % for the top 20% of the population, leaving 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80%.[4]  David Cay Johnston notes: 

The median income taxpayer – half made more, half less – made slightly less than $33,000 [in 2009] (and their average adjusted gross income was under $15,300, or less than $300 per week). The median income taxpayer would need 10.6 years to earn as much as someone at the low end of the top 1 percent.[5]

Yet Congress, from time to time, considers lowering the tax burden even further for the very rich.  President Trump’s latest proposal – as skimpy as it is – follows suit.

The “tide has risen, but not all boats have been elevated with that tide,” which leads one to the question of whether this disparity or inequality constitutes exploitation.  The term exploitation denotes an act that treats someone unfairly or unjustly.  But such a definition is subject to interpretation and is vague without some standard.  Many such standards have been offered in the literature concerning exploitation. 

A definition of exploitation that would garner the approval of many critical pedagogues is one offered by Johan Galtung.[6]  He sees exploitation as a relative concept.  That is, in any given society, he identifies exploitation happening when one group, usually an economic class of people, becomes wealthier at a faster rate than other groups. 

This allows for certain possibilities.  For example, you might see all groups becoming richer, but one group is getting richer at a faster rate or, in a more visible form of exploitation, one group is getting richer, but other groups are getting poorer. 

Applying this definition to the US, we can safely judge that exploitation is currently occurring.  But, of course, there are those who will seek to justify these conditions.  For example, one might believe that those groups that are getting richer faster are doing so because they are entrepreneurs and, due to their hard work, they deserve to become richer. 

Accepting that version, one’s inquiry should consider the assumptions of such a conclusion.  For instance, can one see common patterns among those who are and those who are not so advantaged?  Are there certain races, nationalities, religious affiliations, ethnicities, gender, or age groups that are more likely to be advantaged or disadvantaged? 

If this is the case, a student of these matters needs to ask certain questions unless he or she ascribes to the more genetic explanations for success (such as the racist beliefs of the KKK). 

If hard work is the key factor to the almost exclusion of all other factors, then success should be randomly distributed among all other classifications.  In addition, such practices as particular strategies in childrearing would be irrelevant in explaining the likelihood of success among those who are able to grasp the golden ring. 

What neighborhoods, schools, and other social platforms or milieus an individual is exposed to are equally irrelevant.  After all, the determining factor is hard work; that’s all that counts.  Yet one knows this is not true.  One need only look at the pains the rich take to control these other factors when it comes to rearing their own children. 

And once one accepts such factors in determining who is successful and who is not, one brings into play the formative forces pointed out by such writers as John Rawls.  That is, each person individually is, at best, minimally responsible for his/her individual success.[7]  One is fortunate if he/she has been born into or currently resides under the circumstances that lead to success.

So, a moral stand for critical pedagogues can be one based on fairness in which equality should be truly extended to all.  That is, to some meaningful minimum degree, there should be truly equal results, legal, social, and economic for all.  As such, critical theory advocates adopt the equal results orientation of equality.

This leads one to first recognize the existence of exploitation (the lack of equality), understand the basis for its existence, recognize the processes by which it is maintained and defended, and finally and probably most important, act to rectify the entailed injustices.

To give the reader a sense of what such thinkers promote, the following quote is offered: it is the first paragraph of an article that appears in an issue of the professional journal, Educational Researcher, a publication of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the largest professional organization of academic educators:

The United States is one of the most affluent countries in the world, yet U. S. students' average achievement tends to lag behind that of students in many other affluent countries.  How can this be? …  [T]he United States differs from other affluent countries in a crucial way that has received less attention:  It is the most economically unequal.  That is, income and wealth are more unevenly distributed in the United States than in any other society.[8]

Such concerns are common fare for professional educational journals. 

This reflects the popularity of critical arguments among this professional population in the academic ranks.  The above, in effect, offers a moral position for critical educators. 

Before leaving this description of critical theory’s moral beliefs, one can, in summary, say this review is anchored in a commitment to the value of equality as a trump value.  What does equality, according to critical theory, look like?

Equality, within this moral stand, is defined as a social and economic reality.  It is a societal arrangement characterized either by a population in which the people are basically equal in the ownership or access to material resources or they are closing the gap among the rates of advancement that the separate economic groupings of people within a society are experiencing.  This latter characteristic would address Galtung’s concern outlined above. 

To the extent a society approaches one or another of these conditions, it is moral; to the extent it falls short of these conditions, it is immoral.  This, if accepted, would be for critical pedagogues their moral belief and, as such, motivates what they strive to promote or enable in their political and educational goals.

The phrase, “if accepted,” is used because some critical pedagogues view these concerns from a deterministic perspective, rendering the whole concern amoral.  But for critical pedagogues who are not deterministic – and from this writer’s observation most critical educators in the US are not – in their orientation, this concern for equality, as just defined, constitutes their moral stand.

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[1] Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation:  History, Politics, and Salvation (Maryknoll, NY:  Orbis Books, 1988).

[2] “US GDP Growth Rate by Year,” accessed September 7, 2016, http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-growth-rate/table/by-year .

[3] “US Population by Year,” accessed September 7, 2016, http://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table .

[4] G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America? Sixth edition,   (New York, NY:  McGraw-Hill, 2009).

[5] David Cay Johnston, “Beyong the 1 Percent,” Reuters, accessed September 7, 2016, http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2011/10/25/beyond-the-1-percent/ .

[6] Johan Galtung, “A Structural Theory of Imperialism,” Journal of Peace Research 8, (1971):  81-117.

[7] Chandran Kukathas and Philip Pettit, Rawls:  A Theory of Justice and Its Critics, (Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press, 1990).

[8] Denis J. Condron, Egalitarianism and Educational Excellence:  Compatible Goals for Affluent Societies?, Educational Researcher 40 (2) (2011):  47-55, 47.  To provide background for this cited quote, at the time this writer came upon it, he was doing research.  He wanted to find an example of critical pedagogues' work.  He looked up the AERA's website and readily found this article.  He didn't need to look far.