JUDGING CRITICAL THEORY, V

 

[Note:  This posting is subject to further editing.]

An advocate of critical theory continues his/her presentation[1] …

By way of transition from reporting on how critical theory developed during the latter decades of the twentieth century, this posting addresses some loose issues.  Specifically, this blog described how critical theory drifted toward a more varied set of views among the ranks of its advocates.  That included addressing more directly pedagogic applications.  Here, in this posting, a few further transitional points will be made. 

That time period, the late 1900s, was noted for the variation the theory adopted and of note was the contributions of Jurgen Habermas.  That variation addressed concerns from political advocacy positions by other critical theorists and from a philosophic perspective which happens to have been initiated early on by Max Horkheimer.  These sorts of varied arguments led to developments among academics such as the initiation of the sub-field, political psychology. 

Of note is the work of Erich Fromm (The Authoritarian Personality and The Fear of Freedom) who developed methods that escaped the limitations of empiricism.  Whether emanating from these scholars or elsewhere, these themes took certain degree of popular interest among what became known as the counterculture movement – the “love generation.”

And this counterculture also stressed the themes of personal politics, sexual liberation, and the critique of authoritarian family and educational structures, it was in large part following a direction mapped out by the Institute’s early study written by Horkheimer, “Authority and the Family,” which was published in 1936.[2]

While this last citation identifies some of the earlier thinking that led to what eventually developed within critical thought, these developments basically took place in the post-World War II years, especially in the sixties.  With years to germinate, this sort of argumentation either contributed or even energized newer “liberation” movements, such as the feminist movement.

And with that backdrop, one can venture into how critical theory has affected pedagogic concerns. Recent postings have been reviewing what proved to be the most meaningful challenge to what has been since the late forties the main perspective guiding civics, the natural rights view. The dominant view relies on the philosophic tradition of classical liberalism as espoused by many political thinkers, none more eloquently than John Locke.

It is a tradition bolstering the rights of the individual and can be most succinctly summarized as the belief that people have the right to do what they individually wish to do if by doing so they do not interfere with the rights of others to do likewise.  While stating that this dominant view is strongly held by the American populace, it is as any given view of governance and politics – dominant or not – subject to challenging views. 

In the case of natural rights, that would be, more than any other view, critical theory.  It, critical theory, holds to various beliefs and values that counter the prevailing view.  For example, while it might favor a level of individual rights, critical theory does not rely on liberty as its trump value, it instead relies on equality. Some might consider its view of equality as radical in that, in its purest form, champions equality of results – or that all are equally able to experience individually their humanity.

That is, this view promotes equality in which all in society, to a meaningful degree, share equally in societal benefits. As Marx put it, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”  With just that distinction one can anticipate that critical theory, if it were to hold a dominant position in a nation’s collective view of governance and politics, would promote a drastically different civics educational curriculum than what now is in effect. 

But does all of critical theory relate to civics education?  From what this blog has reported of late, one can readily argue that all the concerns encompassed by critical theory literature deal with questions appropriate to civics.

The point of briefly reviewing above the last notions of critical development in the post World War II years is to draw readers’ attention to the more recent developments associated with critical thought.  Currently, critical literature directly addresses such issues as multiculturalism, sexism, classism, or teacher training. But the following quote indicates how civic issues underlie typical reported critical research and advocacy:

 

What remains unclear in the debate within critical pedagogy is the relationship (or tension) between utopian thought, values, and pragmatic theory. In other words, while the postmodern and poststructuralist critiques have led many radical educators to accept the problematic and contingent nature of values – including those of radical democracy – there remains an inclination on the part of critical educators to employ such contingent values (e.g., emancipation, freedom, empowerment, democracy, justice, solidarity, etc.) as the basis of a utopian view to orient sociocultural formation.[3]

 

Fancy language to say that critical educators are concerned with the meat and potatoes of what makes up civics education.

But how can critical educators view the natural rights perspective as being a threat to equality or any other political value? The notion that the dominant view of allowing everyone to go about their lives as they wish as long as each of them avoids hurting others seems fairly noncommittal or neutral.  If so, “what’s the beef?”

Critical literature discards the claim that the dominant, liberal approach is a neutral one. Basically, critical pedagogy holds that the natural rights view is one that supports the current distribution of power and wealth. It argues that that view’s advocates' most influential strategy in gaining support consists in espousing discourses that bolster the advantages of pure capitalism and the almost total reliance on science as a source of legitimate and useful knowledge (a position that can be called scientism).

The critical approach would have students engage in a series of inquiries in which they would delve into the oppressive character of the dominant system and learn how that system accomplishes the following: deprivation of equality of condition, socialization of not only the upper segments of society but also the oppressed segments, maintenance of the legitimacy of the system, and the processes of value formulation on an individual basis with little or no concern for the consequences such formulations have on the interests of the common good.[4]

That formulation instead advances the interests of the upper classes or other advantaged groups to the detriment of those not so advantaged.  And therefore, a good deal of inquiry that students would take on in a critical curriculum would be centered on analysis of the dominant language as expressed in common discourses, which sets up the context and parameters of people’s thinking and actions.

And with that, this transitionary posting will come to an end.  Again, the goal is to impart sufficient information to consider the work of the Brazilian educator, the late Paulo Freire.  For those who might want to look ahead, the key work Freire contributed to critical pedagogy literature, is Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  There is also an institute, the Freire Institute, where one can look up related information online.

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[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] 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, 108.

[3]Lisa. J. Cary, “The Refusals of Citizenship: Normalizing Practices in Social Education Discourses, Theory and Research in Social Education, 29, 3 (Summer 2001), 405-430, 417.  Postmodern is defined by Collins Dictionary as “a late twentieth century approach to art, architecture, and literature that typically mixes styles, ideas, and references to modern society, often in an ironic way.”  Science Direct defines poststructuralism as “an intellectual movement that emerged in philosophy and humanities in the 1960s and 1970s.  It challenged the tenets of structuralism, which had previously held sway over the interpretation of language and texts in the humanities and the study of economics and cultures in the social sciences.”  Both encourage heightened interest and focus on cultural factors in how language and reality is interpreted.

[4] Neil O. Houser and Jeff J. Kuzmic, Ethical Citizenship in a Postmodern World: Toward a More Connected Approach to Social Education for the Twenty-First Century, Theory and Research in Social Education 29, 3 (Summer 2001), 431-461.