How to Make a Critical Theory Out of Anything

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 45

Critical Theories are almost embarrassingly simple. There's almost nothing to them. A Critical Theory of anything can easily be made by one of two routes. One: Take an existing Critical Theory of something, substitute the domain-specific jargon of some other thing, and then publish. You're a genius revolutionizing (pun intended) your field! Two: Just understand the basic anatomy of a Critical Theory and do the same thing. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, James Lindsay walks you through the idea of a "Critical Car Theory" that challenges "carnormativity" to show you exactly how. It's simple. Choose something imperfect in the world that you'd like to complain about. Identify a politically actionable outcome you hope to achieve, probably a Leftist one. Blame everyone for incidences of the problem by thinking "systemically" and assign them moral complicity and responsibility for the problem you started with. Demand systemic change. Then close off all disagreement or questioning as an attempt to maintain the "status quo" of "the system," which only an evil person who wants those problems to continue would do. That's it. That's the anatomy of a Critical Theory. Join James in this episode to hear how ridiculously simple and absurd it is so you can protect yourself from Critical Theories in other lines of thought.

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