Beginning at the beginning
Why I find value in exploring critical and cultural theory
What follows is a half-edited, incomplete draft of an essay I'm writing on the subject of critical theory. I like sharing raw in-progress works sometimes because it really just demonstrates the way generating an idea works, and evolves over time. For the purposes of our Beyond the Altar seminar series discussions around theory, it will show you how I'm synthesizing and processing ideas to formulate my own, around them. Also, eventually I would really like to find a way to pair images with text like this to make it less "dry" but bear with me, that one will take a little time but for now, it's just the text. Enjoy!
WIP on critical theory:
What is “critical theory”? Critical theory—and in fact, any and all theory—is a way of examining, thinking about or analyzing, and looking at the world. It incorporates ways of asking questions to identify and interpret things; usually social, cultural, and political issues, circumstances, patterns, and behaviors. Theory is a way of making connections between the impacts of ideas and circumstances across time, culture, identity, and politics. Theory is also helpful in thinking about how to take action by examining multiple components of our structured reality together, and determine concrete steps or actions to effect change.
Why should we look at theory? What is its function, what do we do with it, how do we use it? Theory is helpful in looking deeply, and examining ideas. It teaches criticality and critical thinking which aids us in a multitude of other real-life or day-to-day applications such as the news or things we read on social media. Theory is a way of learning how to identify that which is coded, prescribed, preconceived, assumed, taken for granted, included, omitted, not looked at, not examined, not considered, erased, rewritten, whitewashed, colonized, or overridden. When we engage theory in our daily lives, we’re asking questions about what it is we’re examining rather than making assumptions or jumping to conclusions, or taking what we see for granted. We’re stopping to consider if there are more, better, and deeper questions to be asking about what we’re looking at; and more concrete actions we can take to find resolution.
What we make, and what we do, is a reflection of the way we perceive the world and its various structures; how we confront, and are confronted by, our perceptions and challenges. Critical theory and philosophy help us contextualize our work and our place in the world through interrogating the “what”, “why”, and “how” we do what we do in it. The point is not to muse, ponder, and intellectually exercise our minds in the safety of our homes. The point is to take the wisdom of people who have brought these ideas to light and apply them out in the world, in everyday life, to put what we learn into practice; to be embedded materially towards the action that is grounded in and illuminated by what we learn. Many of the authors at the forefront of theory—especially those from marginalized communities emerging in the 20th century—would have never identified themselves as “theorists” nor would they have had the luxury, as they were deeply immersed in the material conditions that drove them towards their revolutionary positions, declarations, and writings. They knew the power of ideas as applied to reality, and how to employ them towards change.
If you can see the constructs that build the system, you then know what you have to dismantle in order to take it down. We’re taking what it is we’re looking at and taking it apart, dissecting it to see what are all the underlying parts that make up the whole—in taking apart a thing, what do we find is missing? This is how we get to things such as critical race theory. Kimberle Crenshaw dissected both race theory, and feminist theory, to better identify a new, more specific, comprehensive, and therefore inclusive intersectional theory she was building to effect material change in the way law was enacted towards greater equity and protections for Black women.
How do we build upon what came before? Often we must dismantle and rebuild something new or heavily revised. Sometimes things fracture to become hyper specific and hyper specialized. This isn’t necessarily a good thing as hyperspecialization further isolates a category, topic, subject, further and further away from its multiple contexts in culture, time, region, etc. So sometimes things become combined. Is it possible to return to a practice of theory that is more holistic, that takes into consideration many more influential pieces of the whole?1 How can it be applied? Perhaps a hybridized cross-disciplinary approach better assists us to gain a broader understanding of the underlying causes, conditions, influences, environments, and forces of any given construct, structure, oppression, subject, topic, situation, event, and other circumstances. Blurring the boundaries helps us see and understand overall patterns in culture and society, and identify them in our lives and our surroundings. Synthesizing gives us an opportunity to reimagine and reconceptualize new ways of thinking and acting going forward.
Further reading for those interested, some texts which provide the undercurrents to this essay:
Anne D'Alleva, Thinking about theory; from Methods & Theories of Art History, Laurence King Publishing Ltd, London, 2005
bell hooks, Theory As Liberatory Practice, Yale Journal of Law & Feminism: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 2 1991
Boris Groys, Under the Gaze of Theory, Eflux: Journal #35, May 2012 (online)
Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, Metamodernism: The Future of Theory, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2021 (excerpts from final chapter)
Intro to Franz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks, Grove Press, New York, 1967 (English translation)
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation, 1964; from her book Against Interpretation and Other Essays, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1966
Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, Metamodernism: The Future of Theory, paragraph 4 page 9