I study media and how we create, share, interact with, and are sculpted by stories. I research how media shapes our environments and governs how we interact with them. My primary focus since 2019 has been examining everything through the lens of Critical Theory. Because it’s my work, I get to see firsthand when people incorrectly define theories and terms or extrapolate ideas or dismiss knowledge without understanding. Recently, it seems that Critical Theory, and its subcategory Critical Race Theory (CRT), have gained attention quickly, and become trigger phrases. I’ve seen it inserted in titles for articles and videos as clickbait even when the content has very little to do with it. And it works because people get outraged and click and post and repost. But here’s the meta reality: the fact that Critical Theory is even debated is proof that Critical Theory is a valid explanation of the systems and environments around us. If we’ve created an environment where we debate Critical Theory, it means we’re critical of our environment. 🤯
I’ll start with this: theories are not facts. They’re based on patterns and the convergence of multiple factors. They’re grounded in research and testing and definition. We cultivate theories as ways to explain the world around us. We recognize their limitations. We also see their potential. Critical Theory is just one of those explanations. Because I’m a researcher, I understand that definition is key establishing a foundation everyone can understand. And because I haven’t seen a consistent definition, I’m going to create one. For that, we need to look at some history.
Item 1: the Frankfurt School. I think Critical Theory seems dangerous for people because it’s been quickly labeled as Marxist. It’s become a way of shutting down conversation. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno were prominent thinkers that have helped shape Critical Theory. Both used the theory to explain Marxism failures, so the connection is there, but the Marxist label is unwarranted. Because here’s what the theory does: it forces us to examine our environments and question how we interact with them. It points to the things we’ve taken for granted or the patterns of behavior that we’ve gone along with and make us look at the reasoning behind it. Theories help construct worldviews and cultivate our identities, rather than the other way around. Claiming a theory takes on an independent identity is a bit of a stretch. An explanation is a result rather than a cause.
While more of a technology theorist than a Critical Theorist, Marshall McLuhan adds a little bit more to our understanding of Critical Theory. He presents the observation that “we create tools that control us.” McLuhan’s research was based on how we communicate and the channels we use and how they affect the meaning of messages we create. He was a communication scholar, but the broader implications of his ideas highlight how we interact with the things we create. The initial driving force is our ability to make life better for ourselves: inventing a new tool, developing a new process, or organizing a new system, but the underlying motivation is control. We want to create and be in control. But McLuhan poses the opposite: that the things we create end up controlling us. The shift happens when the things that we create become integrated into our lives. This is not some new revelation. We know that “first we form our habits, then our habits form us” (John Dryden). And control is fickle.
McLuhan had a deeper understanding of this from a communication perspective. If we use tools to help express ideas and those tools change the meaning of our ideas, then we have to reexamine how we present those ideas and with what tools. Even though McLuhan wasn’t around for social media, it makes a good example to illustrate what he meant. We currently exist in an environment where a very large portion of the population can create messages and distribute them ad nauseum with all of the tools available to us in the digital sphere. Because of the sheer amount of content, it’s difficult for individual voices to stand out and be heard. As a result, the voices have adapted. Now, the voices that can make themselves louder and more outrageous are the ones that stand out. We’ve changed the language we use and adopted attention-grabbing tactics. Even still, people whose voices need to be heard may not get the opportunity to do so if they’re not matching the formula needed to stand out. In the end, the tools we create end up controlling us.
This is a very prominent example of how a (digital) environment that we’ve created actually dictates how we interact with that environment, which is a Jürgen Habermas explanation of Critical Theory. At the heart of this explanation is still the concept of control. Just like with the tools that we create, Habermas suggests that we create systems, institutions, organizations, corporations, and other types of large establishments that are initially really good solutions to very real problems, but once we become embedded in them, they control how we interact with them.
Here’s an example: many private universities are funded by endowments, which are large, conditional donations that become invested and generate perpetual interest. The universities then use that interest to fund their programs/research and sustain certain operations. These endowments also impact the ranks that certain universities hold. As a result, “wealthier” institutions attract pupils with wealth advantages, and when those students graduate, they donate right back to the same schools. This is a continuous cycle.
The problem is that endowments are an illusion. Wealthier schools aren’t necessarily better. They might be able to provide more elaborate cafeterias, campuses, and dorms, but those things don’t invest in the students’ educations. Smaller or newer universities that don’t have such large endowments or inflated reputations have been purposely constructed to cater to minority, low-income, or immigrant students. And because they invest in the students directly, they have higher graduation rates and less program transfers. They just don’t get the same kind of recognition. While we’re aware of the flaws in higher education, the system isn’t that easily influenced. Sure, we can choose not to attend certain large universities or donate elsewhere, but that doesn’t dismantle the system or level the playing field. Students will still flock to the universities that have wealthier resources and higher rankings. Malcolm Gladwell has done some incredible research on this and presents it in Revisionist History, which can be found here.
For a completely different example, I’d like to present: deodorant. Though overgeneralizing, let’s examine deodorant as a global product. We’ve created this product that we’ve marketed to everyone, and that has become ingrained in our way of life. Everyone wears it. And it’s obvious when someone doesn’t because we react to those people in a particular way. Maybe we ostracize them or hint at them, but ultimately, we make it clear that they are not behaving according to constructed norms. And yet, this has not always been the case because there was a time before deodorant. We’ve created an environment where everyone wears deodorant and the fact that everyone wears deodorant drives people to purchase more and continue to wear it. From a Critical Theory perspective, this points us back to control. We think that we have control over our bodies and our decisions, but we really don’t. All of that control belongs to the environment that we created. We can choose not to wear this thing (and some do), but the result is being socially punished. The environment sustains itself until changes are made to the environment.
Ultimately, I think it’s hard to reconcile how Critical Theory tries to explain our quest (and failure) to hold control. It seems control has a negative connotation that people would rather avoid. In Christian communities, striving for control has deeper faith implications, and it’s possible that people don’t want Critical Theory to point out these power struggles. After all, the church perspective is that God is ultimately in control and suggesting that we try to fight for even a sliver of control can be objectionable. (For thoughts on control, I invite you to read Tim Gombis’ work here.) Even outside of religious circles control has a negative connotation because control is often equated with power. That’s a whole other essay, but I think the distinction is important.
And now we’ve come to Critical Race Theory (CRT). Though a branch of Critical Theory, it still focuses on this paradox of control. I’ve heard people attempt to define it as a legal framework and as a cultural theory that focuses on oppression and while those are correct, they are incomplete. CRT merely takes Critical Theory and presents race as additional criterion to analyze some of the environments we find ourselves in. It inspects how the environments we create affect how different race groups interact with those environments.
Here’s an example: many companies require people to apply for jobs through internal portals online by filling in résumé information and a common question that’s included asks applicants for salary history. Many make it a requirement to list amounts in specific fields in order to proceed with the application. The problem is that if you disclose that amount to a prospective employer, then the employer can cite your salary history when presenting a job offer even if the predecessor in that company was making more. This means that people in particular racial (or age or gender) demographics, who are earning less, have to answer this question in order to apply for new positions, but are ultimately stuck in the same pattern because they are offered consistently lower wages. While they can ask for raises or negotiate, the foundation is already there for their disadvantage. The obstacle is inherent to the system and it’s irrelevant to present a work ethic/motivation/education argument because it doesn’t address the existing obstacle.
If we reflect on the history of this practice, it’s understandable how recording salary history may have once been a way for companies and organizations to compare salaries in the past, but presently, we have more resources now and this system creates more harm than good. There. We’ve just engaged in a CRT analysis. We’ve taken a historic pattern of behavior, dissected the reasoning for its establishment, identified how certain racial groups could be harmed by it, and formulated a conclusion as to why this practice is no longer necessary. This is a pretty mild example where there is very little at risk and no harm to any other groups, but that’s not always the case. It’s understandable that people bristle around the mention of CRT because they feel like it would be detrimental to them or disrupt their way of life or veer the conversation into reparations territory (and it might), but all of those things are subsequent. Any analysis is going to present pros and cons, but dismissing an entire way of thinking isn’t helpful to anyone.
There’s one more side we need to examine: it’s jarring for people stuck in cyclical patterns to think about how stuck they are, and it might explain why people perpetuate the rhetoric that if you just work hard enough, you can restructure your life. Again, this brings up the struggle for control. We like to believe that we are in control over our lives and not dwell too much on the external forces that either work for or against us. While motivation is vital to bettering life, ignoring the role of environment and man-made systems doesn’t paint a complete picture. We often assume that environment is about immediate family, neighborhood, and support systems (like schools and churches), but it’s often much larger and isn’t unique to individuals. This means that it’s bigger than a particular person or family or community that are outliers in the general pattern to prove a point.
CRT specifically seems to be getting a lot of backlash from all sides because it creates a spotlight people aren’t comfortable with. And I think that’s valid. People who are just trying to live their lives maybe don’t want to feel like study subjects and that’s exactly how we’re making them seem. That’s why it’s important to recognize how CRT stems from Critical Theory, which doesn’t isolate groups. It is used to explain a wide range of behaviors in a wide range of environments. It becomes a lot harder to dismiss if it focuses on patterns of behavior. We all exist in environments that dictate how we interact with those environments. And we all need Critical Theory to question why we do what we do.
Here’s what I think is most important to remember: everything is much more complicated than it seems. Us attempting to simplify issues and generalize solutions literally plays into the definition of Critical Theory, because it means we are continuing to grasp for control over systems, and explanations of those systems. It doesn’t matter that those systems may have been constructed before we were born. We can combat this by listening to people whose opinions are different from ours (and sometimes that’s hard to do because our environments don’t let outside voices in). We can stop individualizing experiences (our experiences are not the same as others’). We can watch for trends over time (and see how our environments are changing). We can stop creating and refuting strawman arguments for people and listen to the actual arguments. We can think about possible outcomes in the future.
I want bring the end back to where we started. Critical Theory is just one possible explanation of the bigger picture. People who argue that it is dangerous can literally make that argument for every other way of thinking. People who want to bar it from being taught in schools because they view it as indoctrination are missing the clues that are in the name. It seems that everyone is pro critical thinking, but not Critical Theory. The biggest threat, however, is either mocking or fearing that which we don’t understand. The internet is flooded with people who are oversimplifying the theory, making erroneous analogies, or simply refuse to address the theory for various reasons. The result is awareness, but no unified understanding. (For more about how we muddle meaning in our methods of communication, feel free to read Glitches in Communication here).
We know that we live in a broken world and no system that we can create will be perfect. Don’t we care if someone is struggling? Particularly if the struggle is caused by a system that we created? Why are we so quick to become defensive? I can see why it feels scary. It’s new. It forces attention. It initiates change. It makes us uncomfortable. Defensiveness seems like a natural reaction, and even that can be analyzed with Critical Theory…