Marxist educator, Michael Apple, said, “Yet it is crucial to remind ourselves . . . Marx felt that the ultimate task of philosophy and theory was not merely to ‘comprehend reality’ but to change it.”[1] This is the essence of Critical Theory (CT) developed by neo-Marxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, even though Marx was a practitioner of it. It is the idea that while traditional social theory seeks to understand and explain society, CT seeks to change it. The change they seek is to a Marxian-socialist society.
Furthermore, inherent to CT is the idea that in non-Marxian societies, some are oppressors and some are the oppressed; they divide society into one of these two groups. CT seeks to restructure society to deliver the oppressed, which always means destroying capitalism, Christianity, and a republican form of government and replacing it with Marxian socialism. CT is the mechanism, the philosophical approach, for deconstructing a society, radicalizing people so they become revolutionaries against their own country. Deconstruction of society is a process of problematizing everything about the culture. They only focus on the flaws, with the solution always being Marxism. They ignore the good of a society, which leaves people with a negative view of the actual nature of their society and a favorable view of Marxism. The revolution can be bloody, but it can also be accomplished by the systematic degrading of and corrupting our cultural institutions such as family, religion, education, law, media, and arts.
There are many ways to demonstrate that critical race theory (CRT) is Marxist, but this one should suffice for now. Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality and was one of the founders of CRT, and worked with others to name and define the CRT movement. She was one of the three organizers of the founding meeting of CRT (1989) and one of its thirty-five participants. She said, “The organizers coined the term ‘Critical Race Theory’ to make it clear that our work locates itself in the intersection of critical theory [Marxism] and race, racism, and the law.”[2] emphasis added
By their own words, they placed the issue of race in the center of the Marxist concept of critical theory because they wanted to make clear that CRT is Marxism in action. They rely on the Marxist conflict theory (Critical Theory) to divide and conquer the USA. This raises the question yet again, how can the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and other Christians use CRT as an analytical tool when the critical theory on which it is based was developed and systematized by neo -Marxists? This theory now permeates public education and has infiltrated conservative evangelicalism and the SBC.
When you see or hear the word critical in such areas as education, politics, cultural studies, and social theory, its primary application is not to think analytically, although that usage is still around. Most often, it signifies that the area mentioned is viewed and taught with Marxism’s rhetoric and from Marxism’s conflict theory (oppressor vs. oppressed) to deconstruct the present society and radicalize students and citizens in order to bring about the collapse of America’s republic, capitalism and what remains of our Christian-based society. This is true whether the teacher fully realizes this or not. The following examples of the use of critical means that these areas function according to the neo-Marxist critical theory. Note its ubiquitous presence of critical theory in our education system and society.
Critical attitude, critical understanding, critical speaking, critical view, critical approach, critical revolution, critical vs. naive, critical study, critical posture, critical legal theory, critical social justice, critical race theory, critical education, critical work, critical scholars, critical Marxist, critical scholarship, critical conversation, critical studies, critical knowledge, critical approach, critical traditions, critical social citizenship, critical agents, critical comprehension, critical citizens, critical engagement, critical leadership, critical dialogue, critical agency, critical integration, critical awareness, critical pedagogy, critical thinking, critical consciousness, critical spirit, critical powers, critical creativity, critical aim, critical reflection, critical analysis, critical investigation, critical meeting, critical science, critical awareness, critical approach to studying education, critical multi-educational studies, critical reading, critical social education, critical communities, critical scholar/activists, critical sociologist, critical research approaches, critical social education, critical citizens, critical perspective, critical light, critical impulse, critical democratic education, critical history, critical philosopher,[3]and critical social movements.
This reminds us that we have moved through and beyond Christian-based education. Now America is moving beyond progressive-scientistic education, and we are well into Marxist-based critical education, which seeks to radicalize our children to hate America and Christianity and love Marxian socialism. Do not let the ever-so-slight remnants of Christian education and the evanescing of progressive-scientistic education cause you to miss this seismic shift. Doing so facilitates the impending loss of our children, public freedom of faith, and our national demise.
[1] Isaac Gottesman, The Critical Turn in Education: From Marxist Critique to Poststructuralist Feminism to Critical Theories of Race (New York: Routledge, 2016), 56.
[2] Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw, et. al. (New York: New Press, 1995), xxvii.
[3] AfroMarxist, “Herbert Marcuse Interviewed by Helen Hawkins (1979),” YouTube, October 27, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhzKyvLbY8M, accessed 5/18/22.
