Critical theory and its misunderstanding

“On the Barricades” s05e12

In this second episode of this week’s release of “On the Barricades,” hosts Boyan Stanislavski and Maria Cernat discuss the much-debated critical theory. Critical theory was, in its classical form, meant to be an intellectual tool in the hands of the oppressed for fighting systemic oppression; however it became both caricatured by the right and co-opted by liberals, finally devolved into a “lucrative word salad”. What were the originally progressive tenets and aims of critical theory, really? How and why has it become so misunderstood?

And how has this intellectual and ideological trend, which now dominates in the West, been received differently in Eastern Europe, wherein the academic institutions have not been subject of the same wild adventure through postmodernism and deconstruction? The conversation begins as commentary on the book, “Cynical Theories”, by Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay.