JUDGING CRITICAL THEORY, XII

 

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

An advocate of critical theory continues his/her presentation …

Of late this blog has been reviewing the elements of critical theory.  In doing so, the blog has claimed that this leftist view has posed the most prominent challenge to the natural rights construct.  Natural rights view is currently dominant and mostly guides what civics classrooms present students in way of content.[1]  The challenging view, critical theory, has been around for ninety years in various forms, and is finally having some actual influence in the US and is generating reaction from certain conservative parties – e.g., consider Governor Ron DeSantis’ efforts in Florida.

          Even non-advocates of this view might consider a number of their arguments worth their consideration.  For one, many would sign up for instituting interactive instructional strategies as opposed to what one usually finds in classrooms, what critical theorists call a “banking” strategy.  In this, critical educators fall in line with progressive pedagogues who, for example, promote both open ended research and community involvement activities. 

What differentiates critical strategies from more mainstream progressive ones is that critical educators target their efforts almost exclusively to what they consider exploitive conditions.  In terms of clarifying this distinction, consider what critical educators claim their approach strives to accomplish:

         

The students – no longer docile listeners – are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher. The teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration, and re-considers her earlier considerations as the students express their own [a two-way influence]. The role of the problem-posing educator is to create, together with the students, the conditions under which knowledge at the level of the doxa [opinion] is superseded by true knowledge, at the level of the logos [reason].

Whereas banking education[2] anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality. The former attempts to maintain the submersion of consciousness; the latter strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality. [3]

 

To distinguish themselves, as indicated by this quote, critical pedagogues claim they engage in “problem-posing.”

And as indicated earlier in the blog, the problems posed and studied arise from the oppressive realities that confront the students.  Included in this approach is to encourage students to form a solidarity with their classmates – fellow oppressed comrades.  Being action-oriented, this approach has a dual aim:  transforming the oppressive nature of the situation and having students become fully humanized as they interact with each other and deal with their plight.

          And central, according to critical pedagogues, is discourses – the powerful dialogues in which people engage.  Transformation toward liberation relies on words that communicate what the real world is and is to function in people becoming truly human.  It surely does not rest on sentimentality or as a tool to manipulate others.  Instead, it communicates humility, not arrogance.  Among its messaging, it states a faith in humankind, not an unrealistic faith, but one that comprehends and deals with the foibles and short sightedness people tend to employ. 

As part of this mode of communicating, the discourses should promote horizontal arrangements – a real equality – instead of vertical arrangements in social as well as political relationships.  To use common parlance, the process should lead to honest partnerships where true respect for others and their views are held.

          For part of the highlighted reality is an area’s history – its background – which includes how the structural realities of an area were formed and maintained.  In the current frame, what exists is that background’s product and includes the views entertained by the oppressed and the oppressors.  So, a major aspect of the transforming process is for the current generation to decode the situations that people experience.  And the educative effort is geared to see the real nature of how and why they became and are oppressed sans the manipulative language the non-liberated oppressor employs.

Paulo Freire describes the oppressor discourses as language that utilizes oppressive generative themes.  These themes deserve a bit of explanation.  “In the process of decoding, this analysis of meaning corresponds to the stage we call the ‘description of the situation,’ and facilitates the discovery of the interaction among the parts of the disjointed whole.”[4]  The aim is to discover the dialectic forces impinging on people’s well-being – the hows and whys in which they do so.

And even if one is tempted to get boughed down on the particulars – the specific people or things in situations – the focus needs to be on the whole – the abstract composite one confronts.  That is what is known as generative themes, and if oppressive, they are oppressive generative themes.  In that mode, liberating education has students and others inquire into people’s thinking about the realities they face, and their corresponding action – their praxis.  They need to replace the oppressive generative themes with liberating ones.

The oppressed need to leave behind their self-image as objects.  In its stead, they become subjects who are drivers of what becomes real.  That is, these students are to become drivers of what is to be; they, through their study and action, discover (1) their felt needs, (2) the abstractions embedded in the codification of the language that has veiled their reality, and (3) commence to communicate the totality of that reality.

As indicated in previous postings, this process is ongoing.  Its general gist is for those involved – which might include liberated, former oppressors – to introspectively inquire as to the reasons why they have been seeing reality as they have.  If possible, this can be assisted by the services of experts from the disciplines of psychology and sociology.  With this sort of help, an interdisciplinary approach should be maintained.

          Freire, on this score, writes,

 

Once the thematic demarcation is completed, each specialist presents to the interdisciplinary team a project for the “breakdown” of his theme. In breaking down the theme, the specialist looks for the fundamental nuclei which, comprising learning units and establishing a sequence, give a general view of the theme. As each specific project is discussed, the other specialists make suggestions.[5]

 

And with that Freire discusses another element of critical pedagogy, that being interdisciplinary analysis.  The resulting studies take on a thematic form that originates from the people and are directed at them as challenges they need to resolve.  Again, as earlier in this blog it was stated, what one sees here are processes of study-praxis-study, recurring cycles.  They continue in this mode as people stake out different futures.

          To update this account, let this posting add another quote from the Freire Institute recently retrieved from the internet:

 

People can be passive recipients of knowledge — whatever the content — or they can engage in a ‘problem-posing’ approach in which they become active participants. As part of this approach, it is essential that people link knowledge to action so that they actively work to change their societies at a local level and beyond.[6]

 

And that is why this posting is entitled “Problem-Posting.”

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[1] For this blogger’s more extensive argument concerning this point see Robert Gutierrez, From Immaturity to Polarized Politics:  Obstacles in Achieving a Federated Nation (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas Civics Books, 2022), available through Amazon.

[2] Banking education was explained in the previous posting. It basically refers to didactic teaching.

[3] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, NY: Continuum Publishing Company, 1999), 62, emphasis in the original.

[4] Ibid., 86.

[5] Ibid., 101.  These teams, this blogger assumes, are organized at a national level for the recurring types of problems students identify with their self-analyzing efforts in the classroom.

[6] “Paulo Freire,” Freire Institute (n.d.) accessed March 26, 2023, https://www.freire.org/paulo-freire#:~:text=Freire%20developed%20an%20approach%20to,educational%20process%20is%20never%20neutral.

JUDGING CRITICAL THEORY, XI

 

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

An advocate of critical theory continues his/her presentation …

Finally, with the last posting, this blog introduced readers to the main ideas of the late Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator, and respected spokesperson for the critical pedagogy perspective.  He argued for education to strive for the liberation of disadvantaged students and transform the exploitive system under which they live.  Generally, he perceived that the prevailing system, set up by the elites, exploited the disadvantaged – or oppressed as he would call them.  The “haves” do that by how they arrange the social and economic conditions of the nation.

          The maintenance of such conditions relies heavily on the discourses the elites utilize.  These discourses, through their common use, effectively convince the “have-nots” that what-is is natural and inevitable.  These discourses are so successful, the oppressed not only accept it but strive to become oppressors themselves – of course, while not totally impossible, a highly unlikely occurrence.  The bottom line is that the elites can maintain, through the use of language, this systemic reality at minimal cost.

          Ironically, both the oppressed and the oppressors are dehumanized by this process.  The oppressed due to the disadvantages they experience – in many cases that would be the daunting challenges of poverty which undermines their dignity – but also for the oppressors in that they lose sight of their commonality with many of their fellow human beings.  For the haves, have-nots turn out to be merely commodities to be numbered and exploited.

          Such a national setting needs transformation, that is the common set of values, aims, goals, and beliefs needs to be changed to achieve a just system.  To begin, those who are oppressed must transform themselves and lead the transformation of others.  This is not accomplished by individuals, but through what Freire calls comradeships among the oppressed.  They must see how it is that they are being oppressed and appreciate the need for united efforts that are characterized by close kinship and a thorough understanding of their common plight.

They must shed any wish to accomplish or secure the oppressors’ lifestyles.  This is a complex goal in that their wishes come about through complex networks of mental attractions – those attractions that mirror the lifestyles of the oppressors.  While holding this counterproductive image, the oppressed develop a high and dysfunctional level of self-depreciation – convinced that they are unfit. Within such a mental state, the oppressors are seen as being magically invulnerable.

And what are the consequences of such thinking?  The main result is the debilitating disposition leads to fatalistic thinking.  The oppressed, perhaps after an effort to become successful and with the likely failure that results, accept their status as being inevitable, believed to result from forces of nature, or the like.  The recurring aftermath is one of despair and pathological behavior patterns such as excessive drinking or spousal abuse.[1]

But effective transformative change within these exploited people can bolster a sense of self-worth and the attainment of confidence while instilling a sense of responsibility for what they do.  In short, they attain a consciousness of “intentionality” or an internal sense of efficacy.  And all this can be done or assisted by schools instituting curricular changes aimed at unveiling and deconstructing the knowledge that the oppressors promulgate.  They need to reconstruct their knowledge to one of liberation.  That is, the oppressed need to opt for a liberating construct.

But in its stead, current oppressive curricula enable exploitive relationships.  And one chief means by which they accomplish this is the implementation of a “banking” instructional approach.  In this approach, teachers take the role of “depositors” of knowledge and students become “depositories” of that knowledge.  Freire describes this approach:

 

Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are. [2]

 

Missing are any call for students to be creative, much less any element directed at transforming students or liberating them.

          In counter distinction, a liberating instructional approach is for students to be productive in such instructional processes that include inquiry, invention, and reinvention, i.e., liberation is realized by interactive study.  That would be when students study or work on the realities of their subjugation.  In addition, it would not create a distinctive assignation between the teacher and the student.

That is, the roles as they are generally found in the classroom establish opposing functions or assumed character distinctions between teachers and students:  teacher are informed, students are uninformed and ignorant.  In this arrangement the teacher possesses what is of worth, and students have nothing to contribute to the learning enterprise.

          A liberating education approaches the classroom scene with a different set of assumptions.  It believes both the student and teacher have interchangeable roles in the learning exercise.  That is, both function as teachers and students.  And a lesson doesn’t end when the bell rings at the end of the period.  Instead, it continues as students actively investigate their reality with targeted questions to answer – that being questions that inquire into the factors affecting their oppressed standing.  This is an on-going affair.

A revolutionary teacher is one who strikes a partnership with the student and the student is an active agent, with a role where students see themselves as being “with” the world of others, not merely being “in” that world.  This approach counts on teachers and students having active consciousnesses with different goals from those found in an oppressive arrangement:  that would be to communicate, not control, to see the world in an organic way, not in an objectified or mechanical manner.[3]

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[1] On a trip to a Central American nation to visit schools and listen to school students present project reports on civic related conditions in their communities, this blogger was stunned by the recurring reports expressing the problems of alcoholism and spousal abuse.

[2] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, NY: Continuum Publishing Company, 1999), 52-53.

[3] But this is not the organic way David Easton wrote about in describing how the political systems approach changed in the late sixties (the addition of a feedback element to that model), but instead it is a truly humanized view that respects the nature of being human.  Afterall, as this blog has already pointed out, critical theory strives to truly humanize the learning process not only in classrooms, but in how people conduct their lives, whereas the political systems model does not shed its mechanical perspective – it’s still inputs, policy making, outputs, and feedback.

 

JUDGING CRITICAL THEORY, X

 

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

An advocate of critical theory continues his/her presentation … 

Up to now, this blog has been reviewing the elements of critical theory and one fact that comes through is that that theory comes in a variety of flavors.  And as such, it is a challenge to convey to readers a singular version of the view’s positions concerning educational curriculum and instruction.  One way to convey what the view proffers is to zero in on one of its respected theorists and review his contributions.

          This blog looks to the work of the late Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator, who dedicated himself to work toward reforms in that South American nation.  He was a prolific writer, but his most famous work was his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.[1]   This account will rely on this book to report on Freire’s contributions.

          His account relies heavily on the factor many critical writers highlight, that being the discourses people utilize.  He describes how language is politized by oppressors in a society, especially focusing on the work of educational decision makers.  They generally opt for a course of language from an array of political constructs,[2] but for those who think from a natural rights perspective – probably the most liberally minded option available – they speak in terms of how open the economic system is and affords people in general a multitude of opportunities. 

Within that system, natural rights view argues that anyone who works hard can achieve an economically rewarding life.  And if such believers are educational decision makers, they use and promote a language that ignores the systemic factors that keep the oppressed from advancing.  That is the case, in part, when the oppressed internalize that language and instead of directing their efforts to overturn the system, they seek to be that rare case that “proves” the oppressors’ argument to be true. 

In short, Freire claims that the oppressed, due to the ubiquitous presence of such language, internalize this view and believe the rationales that the oppressors advance.  Breaking hold of that language is daunting but not impossible and Freire offers several steps by which the oppressed, after experiencing their own transformation, need to perform in order to lead a general transformation process.

According to Freire, the central aim of the educational system should be to initially debunk this language.  Their overall effort needs to be directed at achieving authentic humanity.  How?  By assisting the liberation of those who are oppressed and, further, for them to actualize their freedom by leading this transformation through their action.

Naturally, such action begins with recognition of what is taking place.  Specifically, the oppressed need to become cognizant of the dehumanizing messaging, with its images and beliefs, being transmitted by the common language all seem to employ.  Here is what Freire shares:

 

Only as they discover themselves to be ‘hosts’ of the oppressor can they contribute to the midwifery of their liberating pedagogy. As long as they [the oppressed] live in the duality in which to be is to be like, and to be like is to be like the oppressor, this contribution is impossible.[3]

 

An early step, therefore, for the oppressed is to conduct dialectic analysis.  That is, they begin by objectively determining what are the actual conditions that set up and maintain their dependence on the oppressors.  In addition, they conduct effective actions that transform that reality.

          At the same time, they need to challenge or confront those perceptions they harbor that lead to their oppressed status.  These insidious perceptions function to distort their understanding of what prevails in their social spaces and allow for those conditions that cause their suffering.  They must overcome the inability to perceive the objective truth.  They, therefore, need to engage in a dual process:  changing their consciousness and acting toward transforming their beliefs and values and that of society in general.  Summarily, all of this action is called praxis.

          Praxis is fundamental to what Freire calls upon the oppressed to do.  And before one judges these activities as only benefiting the oppressed, Freire argues that it not only seeks to gain the humanity of the oppressed but of that of the oppressor.  They do this by stopping those actions that undermine not only the humanity of the oppressed but also that of the oppressor.

          This aspect of Freire’s approach is quite ironic.  While the oppressors seem to be enjoying their liberty and “advantages,” they lose their humanity by oppressing the disadvantaged.  This state denies these advantaged people to fully see their fellow humans as humans and instead to see them as objectified creatures.  This undermines their human, empathetic nature as they see others as a set of numbers and manipulative assets or liabilities.  In effect, they, the oppressed, take non-human characteristics – i.e., they become dehumanized – in the eyes of the oppressors.

          And then there are the advantaged elites’ efforts to fix this – either of the bleeding-heart variety or of genuine concern.  By instituting either charitable projects or even governmental welfare programs, these attempts by and large are egoistic endeavors sponsored by the oppressors.  They further the dehumanizing process by being cases of false generosity spurred by a sense of paternalism.  This can also include “reform” educational programs and other “progressive” endeavors.

          Praxis not only benefits the oppressed, but all of society as it seeks to attain permanent liberation.  It helps people achieve or arrive at truthfulness by cutting through the veils of deceit.  Freire writes,

 

Any situation in which “A” objectively exploits “B” or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual’s ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human.[4]

 

This definitional statement pertains not only to the oppressed but the oppressors as well and, as such, both are victims of this exploitive arrangement. 

And as one can intuitively guess, changing the held images and beliefs – along with their values – of the oppressors is more difficult to achieve when compared to changing the perception of the oppressed.  That consciousness of the oppressor is noted for a strongly held possessiveness of the world and of the men and women who inhabit that world.  The world, under this view, is the stage upon which people are marketable objects. 

That would be commodities to be bought and sold for profit.  With this sort of image, one can imagine that it is a short step toward sadism.  “…[T]he aim of sadism is to transform a man into a thing, something animate into inanimate…”[5]  Through the history of exploitation, this dehumanizing imagery seems to be continuously observed or noted among those who engage in such injustice.

          And aren’t there any truly concerned and worried members of the elite class that see the injustices before them and strive to reform or transform this unjust system for purely charitable reasons?  Yes, but they unfortunately carry with them the biases of their class.  They might form vanguard groups that will lead the oppressed from their misfortunes, but in truth, because they bring with them the upper-class baggage, they will not fully or, in some cases, partially trust the oppressed.

          Freire warns his readers that to effectively transform existing oppressive systems, trust is essential.  Past efforts, where trust is lacking and the oppressor class has attempted to lead such efforts, the result has not been a transformation but an transferring from one oppressive system to another. 

This is what happened in Russia with its revolution where power transferred from the Czar regime to eventually Stalinism.  Unless a true commitment – a true comradeship – emerges, a genuine transformation cannot take place.  That sort of movement can only be led by a transformed oppressed people with their mutual trust levels and armed with their knowledge derived from their life experiences.

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[1] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, NY: Continuum Publishing Company, 1999).

[2] This includes political constructs that justify traditional, highly parochial views.  Often these reflect ideals and values that are somewhat feudalistic and rationalize social/economic arrangements where one’s birth conditions are seen as being the will of God.  This is an opinionated claim by this blogger and derived from various conversations with people from developing countries.  It turns out that the data to determine how much a given underdeveloped country lacks social mobility is lacking.  But that a concern over this deficiency exists can be noted by the various professional journal articles.  They call for more attention to this issue.  See, for example, Linden Kemkaran and Vegard Iversen, “Social Mobility in Developing Countries:  Broken Ladders,” University of Greenwich/Natural Resources Institute, accessed April 17, 2023, https://www.nri.org/latest/news/2020/social-mobility-in-developing-countries#:~:text=Social%20mobility%20refers%20to%20the,educational%20attainment%2C%20occupation%20or%20health.

[3] Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30, emphasis in the original.

[4] Ibid., 37.

[5] Ibid. 41.  This quote attributed to Eric Fromm.

JUDGING CRITICAL THEORY, IX

 

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

 

An advocate of critical theory continues his/her presentation …

To remind readers, this blog, in reviewing the claims of natural rights construct, described how its advocates demonstrate a bias for science – both natural and behavioral.  In terms of human behavior, they rely almost exclusively on scientific protocols, or a bias that one could call scientism.  This exclusivity was critiqued as going overboard and disregarding other modes of research – cohort studies, case studies, surveys, phenomenological studies, etc. 

Basically, the point was that such loyalty invites an array of critiques and critical theorists are not shy in expressing them.  For instance, they or anyone who might question this centrality of science, might question how the scientific approach might address the question:  what is the correct balance between security and liberty?  Surely, scientific studies can offer one an array of insights that could be helpful with answering this question, but it cannot directly answer it.

David Hume, the philosopher of the 1700s, warned people that it is hazardous to jump from empirical or factual claims – upon which science relies – to determine value-based opinions or conclusions.  When it comes to considering goodness, one ultimately must base one’s beliefs on sentiments or emotions.  Of more recent time, David Brooks writes:

 

One could go on: We've tried feebly to reduce widening inequality. We've tried to boost economic mobility. We've tried to stem the tide of children raised in single-parent homes. We've tried to reduce the polarization that marks our politics. We've tried to ameliorate the boom-and-bust cycle of our economies. In recent decades, the world has tried to export capitalism to Russia, plant democracy in the Middle East, and boost development in Africa. And the results of these efforts are mostly disappointing. … [These efforts rely] on an overly simplistic view of human nature. Many of these policies were based on the shallow social-science model of human nature.[1]

 

This blogger agrees with this concern – that the powers to be, the elites do over rely on science in such settings as one finds in corporate boardrooms. 

He has attempted to inform readers of this blog as to certain shortcomings derived from such reliance, but critical theorists go further.  But before getting into that directly, certain contextual factors need to be reviewed.  For example, this negativity toward science needs to be understood as an extension of critical theorists’ aversion to the natural rights view’s augmentation of the individual. 

That focus flowed naturally from developments of scientific and technological advancements during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  To just highlight the most prominent examples, there were Newtonian mechanics, industrial developments such as Ford’s assembly line, and the resulting bureaucracies which isolate individuals within well-defined roles.

          Along this line, Neil O. Houser and Jeffrey J. Kuzmic write:

 

 

One problem with such a worldview is that it promotes and perpetuates separation and isolation rather than community and connectedness. Some scholars have argued that the prevailing modernist [natural rights] paradigm is responsible – either directly or indirectly, in part or in whole – for the finds of reductionistic thinking underlying dualistic conceptions of self and society, disconnection between humans, non-human life, and the physical environment, and the almost inexorable quest to acquire, control, dominate, and consume ...[2]

 

Summarily, this concern, according to many of its critics, is that an over reliance on science has encouraged a good deal of dehumanizing practices both in relation to social and physical conditions. 

And one can add that this view has left the individual not only isolated but objectified.  How?  By significantly assisting in the issuance of policies – by private entities and government – and of social protocols at places of work, businesses, schools, and other social environments that in many cases relegates the individual to an identification number.

The bulk of instruction, according to critical pedagogues, should be aimed at pointing out how dehumanizing this type of individualized attention actually is.  Instead, not only, in terms of education (especially in civics education), should instruction strive to address the true interests of students – individually and collectively – but use those interests and related realities as springboards. 

That is, teachers should use problematic situations and/or conditions that students actually experience to initiate lessons or units of instruction and follow that with content that relates to the springboards so that students can be knowledgeable of the facts regarding those conditions. 

The belief is that such content will be found to be relevant to students’ interests and, therefore, they will be more likely to be motivated to engage in the lessons such an approach entails.  In addition, the content points out how students and their parents are subjected to institutional oppression which might include income factors or factors relating to the availability of public services.

In civics or government classes, students can inquire into relevantly civic laden material and question the underlying oppressive practices and discourses of the dominant society. Armed with that knowledge, students can engage in action, praxis, that attempts to right those wrongs.  Such actions, once performed and evaluated, provide additional useful insights as to the make-up of their social realities.

Through such instruction, the aim is to transform students.  The hope is that they progress through the courses and become reform-minded people who are knowledgeable of how society, as it is, practices or allows oppressive conditions.  Once they are sufficiently transformed, they are to work toward achieving or helping to achieve socially just resolutions to those oppressive challenges.

But not only are they to be cognitively able and emotionally disposed to do such work, but they are also motivated to work in collective arrangements with fellow citizens, often in communal, collaborative, and cooperative arrangements.  And with that notion, this blog is getting closer to reviewing the work of Paulo Freire. 

Not in the next posting, but the one that follows it, the work of Senhor Freire will begin to be described and explained.  The goal of this and the last few postings has been to set readers’ minds to think sufficiently congruent with what Freire offers – please don’t think of it as being manipulative.  The concern of this blogger is that these words are written in a highly individualistic environment, and to give Freire his due, a bit of transforming or contextualizing is perhaps necessary.

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[1] David Brooks, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (New York, NY:  Random House, 2011), xiv-xv, emphasis added.

[2] Neil O. Houser and Jeffrey 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, 439.

JUDGING CRITICAL THEORY, VIII

 

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

 

An advocate of critical theory continues his/her presentation …

This blog has been reviewing how the nation’s prominent view of governance and politics has been challenged by a leftist perspective.  The prominent view is the natural rights view, and the challenging view is critical theory.  The dominant view bolsters the rights of the individual and can be most succinctly summarized as the belief in the right of the individual to do what that person wishes as long as by doing so the person does not interfere with others having the same right.[1] 

The challenging construct, critical theory, in counter distinction, does not centrally rely on individual liberty, but on equality as its ultimate or trump value.  As a concept, it serves to organize what this left of center theory espouses. It has been considered as radical equality in that, in its uncompromising form, it strives to establish equality of results.  Succinctly, that is, the theory advocates for all people, to a meaningful degree, be able to enjoy equally what a society offers, its benefits. As Marx stated it:  “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

While mainline critical literature does not address education extensively, there is an educational branch to it, that being critical pedagogy.  And to further this tie between theory and educational practice, the concerns of critical theory overlap or can be considered related to civics’ topics. If one merely considers the above description, one can see the connection.  Overlapping topics include multiculturalism, sexism, classism, and even teacher training among other concerns.

In the following quote, the following point is made: civic issues underlie what is typically reported in 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. [2]

 

This is a fancy way to say critical educators are immersed with the nuts and bolts of what constitutes civics education.

But a question remains:  in what way does critical theory challenge directly the claimed threat that natural rights view poses on equality?  The basic position of the dominant view sanctions that people go about their business as they think best if they allow others the same leeway.  This seems fairly neutral or not offensive.  Critical theory does not agree. 

Its advocates claim that natural rights view encourages and upholds the prevailing distribution of power, dominance, and wealth which is highly and unjustly concentrated in the upper classes and among the dominant racial/ethnic group.  That group would be Anglo white men and to a lesser degree, Anglo white women.  In that mode of argument, natural rights proponents further support pure capitalism and an almost total reliance on positivist studies – science – as the source of what one needs to know or how one should go about securing such knowledge (a claim also known as scientism).

In critical pedagogy – as a central attribute – insists that students engage in targeted inquiries in which they question, research, analyze (in holistic ways), and form workable conclusions as to the degree the dominant group is oppressive.  Of central importance would be the following: 

 

·       the ongoing deprivation of equality as is evident in the resulting societal conditions one can readily observe,

·       the ongoing socialization of oppressive values among not only the upper segments of society but also the oppressed segments,

·       the maintenance of legitimacy of the system among all segments of the population through the use of language, and

·       securing the processes of value formulation on an individual basis with little or no concern for the consequences such socialization (instruction) has had on the interests of the total populous.[3]

 

Summarily, schools and their instruction, under the dominant view, are to advance the interests of the upper classes or other advantaged groups to the detriment of those not so advantaged.

Under this challenging view, critical theory, on what should students concentrate their attention?  Critical theorists would have people’s attention, including students, on language through the discourses one encounters among the populace.  Prevailing uses of language, they feel, set up the context elements in which people’s thoughts develop and actions occur.  How people talk about things goes a long way in setting the parameters of what is acceptable and expected among them.  In addition, such effects, to a great extent, happen on subconscious levels.

Valerie Pang, Geneva Gay, and William Stanley[4] share examples of how ongoing living occurrences affect the common ways people judge prevalent oppressive conditions. They report that in their reflecting or acting, in relation to minorities or other non-advantaged populations, the dominant society participates in a range of unjust practices and policies that maintain the conditions that sustain these unjust relationships.  Often this happens quite subconsciously. These writers identify several ways this happens.

Here is a partial listing of those ways:

 

·       One, they include community formation where exclusion of unwanted members is accomplished. That exclusion can be on ethnic, racial, social, and cultural grounds. The plethora of gated communities can be seen in this light.

 

·       Two, the dominant group in America, Anglo men and women, are usually unaware of the advantages they enjoy in society. As such, they are not cognitively or emotionally aware of the systematic disadvantages under which oppressed groups suffer.

 

·       Three, the “bootstrap” myth (ability to gain suitable income levels through effort and hard work), which is dependent on a significant level of individualism, ignores the essential role community support plays in assisting the advantaged members of the society. The dominant natural rights discourse utilizes language replete with reductionist, oversimplified beliefs. As for the “American Dream,” what meaning does that image have in the complex world of inner cities and their realities?

 

·       Four, too often the accepted rationalizations embedded in the dominant discourses make it psychologically impossible for prejudicial members of the dominant group (a significant subgroup) to see themselves as prejudicial. Instead, they can convince themselves that the blame for the economic misfortune of others is due, in their version of the truth, to non-factors such as the culture of poverty. The standard policy has been to destroy the culture of oppressed people and assimilate them to mainstream norms and ethos which can be described as replete with mythological language.

 

·       And five, ample, subtle incidences of segregation still plague the nation as when, for example, minority students are inordinately encouraged to choose vocational courses and programs in schools. Constantly seeking “magic bullet” solutions which do little to solve the complex public-school woes can be seen as part of this deceiving language.[5] Critical pedagogy claims that the dominant discourse supports all of these oppressive realities.

 

As for the meaning of the term, discourses, first one needs to consider the context in which the term is used.  That is, critical theorists are referring to privileged members using language, in its various forms, to maintain not only their privileged positions in society, but also the continuance of the system that allows for their positions to exist.  In that they sponsor verbal strategies aimed at presenting their preferred states of affairs to seem rational and natural. The language used portrays myths as obvious facts in describing not only a view of what is, but also of what should be.  Their language reflects how they wish society will continue to function.

Critical theory and, in schools, critical pedagogy has been at the forefront of identifying and attacking oppressive language. Defenders of the dominant language and of the social conditions that language protects have attempted to delegitimize those who critique them.  These attacks, in turn, use different linguistic strategies that include the claim that many of these attacks are examples of “political correctness.”

Of late an array of new terms seem to be expressing opposing claims where one side might use the term “woke,” the other might blurt out “gas-lighting.”  The discourse battles continue quite aggressively and this blogger, for one, finds trying to keep up with the terminology a challenge in and of itself.  Possibly continuing these blog efforts will insist he stay abreast of these linguistic turns.

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[1] While Locke is the often-cited source for this view, actually a distinction between Locke’s contribution and that of Thomas Hobbes can be made.  The first is more respective of duties associated with those rights (and of natural law), while Hobbes is not.  Unfortunately, according to this blogger, too many Americans in their beliefs side with Hobbes.

[2] 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.

[3] Neil O. Houser and Jeffrey 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.

[4] Valerie O. Pang, Geneva Gay, and 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.

[5] See Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2010).  Ravitch is not a critical educator, but her study of the failure of current efforts to solve public-school problems, through market solutions, convincingly supports the claim being made.