Should We Be Critical of Critical Theory?

Joel Mohrmann presents a critique of critical theory and examines its effects on our culture. Critical theory, Critical Race Theory (CRT), and other associated ideas have become much more mainstream in our world today. From pop culture to politics, ideas that grew out of various critical theories are being discussed, debated, and implemented. But what is critical theory? Where did it come from? Why do people believe it? And how should Christians respond to all of these ideas taking root in our culture?

Many aspects of this talk came from or were influenced by Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer's excellent and insightful booklet "Engaging Critical Theory & The Social Justice Movement," which is made available for download by Ratio Christi here: https://ratiochristi.org/engaging-critical-theory-and-the-social-justice-movement/. The graphs from LexisNexis came from here: https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1133440945201061888/.

More of Neil Shenvi's excellent content analyzing and critiquing critical theory can be found on his website here: https://shenviapologetics.com/critical-theory-all-content/. Shenvi and Sawyer's article entitled "Do Whites Need Corporate Repentance for Historical Racial Sins?" can be found here: https://shenviapologetics.com/do-whites-need-corporate-repentance-for-historical-sins/.

Carl Trueman's excellent book about the nature of identity in our postmodern world, "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self," which is a helpful explainer for why our culture is the way it is, can be found here, where you can read the whole introduction and first chapter: https://www.crossway.org/books/the-rise-and-triumph-of-the-modern-self-hcj/. A condensed and simplified edition of this book called "Strange New World" was also released and can be found here: https://www.crossway.org/books/strange-new-world-tpb/.

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Contents:
0:00 Introduction by Adam
3:25 Preliminaries
4:23 Critical Theory's Increase in Popularity
6:34 Where Did Critical Theory Come From?
15:54 What is Critical Theory?
34:45 Critical Theory's Insights
38:08 Critiquing Critical Theory
44:20 Taken Too Far
56:09 How to Respond
1:00:23 Resources
1:02:33 Questions