This blog is a slightly updated transcript of a video that I released on September 12th, 2020. At that time, what I still believe to be Marxist revolutionaries were in the process of burning and looting cities in the United States. I think that leftists/Marxists are trying to divide the citizens of the United States by class, race, gender, etc! A divide and conquer strategy that will not have a happy ending. I originally recorded the video a few weeks before President Trump banned critical race theory training for federal employees. (Biden has since reimplemented the training.) Three states have banned critical theory training in 2021 and more states are beginning to realize that Critical Theory may be more divisive than its proponents would like to admit.
If you prefer you can watch the video here:
Today on Dave’s Worldview, I want to talk to you about identity politics, or more precisely, critical theory. What most of us call identity politics, Marxist educators call critical theory.
Critical theory is the vehicle that the Marxist or communist wing of the Democratic Party is using to inspire the Marxist revolutionaries we see burning our cities. Now, suppose you think I am being too harsh using terms like Marxist and communists. In that case, it is essential to remember that one of the definitions for socialism is a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism. Make no mistake, the end goal with Marxism is always communism. Vladimir Lenin, the infamous Russian revolutionary responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of his fellow citizens, also said as much, according to Lenin: “The goal of socialism is communism.”
Critical theory is being sold to our children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews as a good thing. This is what the left says about critical theory: Critical theory is a philosophy that involves being critical of the prevailing view of society. Critical theory in education is about questioning how our educational system can best offer education to all people. It offers opportunities and understanding of the different perspectives of disadvantaged members of society. On the surface, the left makes critical theory sound like something that might be beneficial to our society. But, when you dig a little deeper, the essential truth underlying critical theory does not accomplish anything of value; in fact, it does quite the opposite.
Now, to understand what is going on in our culture right now in the area of critical theory and the potential damage and division that this ideology can inflict on our society, we have to go back to Karl Marx and the theory named after him.
What Is Marxism?
Marxism is a social, political, and economic philosophy named after Karl Marx, which examines the effect of capitalism on labor, productivity, and economic development and argues for a worker revolution to overturn capitalism in favor of communism. Marxism argues that the struggle between social classes, specifically between the bourgeoisie or capitalists, and the proletariat or workers, defines economic relations in a capitalist economy and will inevitably lead to revolutionary communism.
Put simply; Marxism calls for the working class to rise up against those that own businesses that produce goods and services that provide the jobs that help us feed our families. Never mind that Marxism is a theory or that communist-minded Marxists in places of power will go to great lengths to orchestrate the class conflicts that they believe will lead to a communist utopia, a communist utopia that is as elusive as Bigfoot and unicorns.
Marxism always fails because it requires massive government control and taxation that stagnates the economy. It also demonizes high producers, entrepreneurs, and risk-takers. If there is no upside to hard work, delayed gratification, and risk-taking; economic innovation and production always decline.
In addition to the economic fallout from communism, the human tolls are also staggering.
I’m going to read snippets from two different articles, “THE STAGGERING TOLL OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION” from the Foundation for Economic Freedom and “LESSONS FROM A CENTURY OF COMMUNISM” from the Washington Post, both published in November 2017.
♦ Today is the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power, which led to establishing a communist regime in Russia and eventually in many other nations worldwide. It is an appropriate time to remember the vast tide of oppression, tyranny, and mass murder that communist regimes unleashed upon the world. While historians and others have documented numerous communist atrocities, much of the public remains unaware of their enormous scale.
♦ The horrors of twentieth-century socialism—of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, and Pol Pot—were the offspring of the Russian Revolution.
♦ The Marxists’ biggest targets have always been the family, religion, and civil society—institutional obstacles to the imposition of the omnipotent state. Lenin set out to destroy them.
♦ The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological and practical objective the elimination of religion or, in other words, physical extermination of religious people.
♦ Collectively, communist states killed as many as 100 million people, according to one article.
♦ The late Rudolph Rummel, the demographer of government mass murder, estimated closer to 200 million
Military says if you see anything concerning, speak up! He spoke up to say that critical theory training in the military was textbook Marxism. He was fired!
Now you are probably wondering what does all this talk about Marxism, Socialism, and Communism have to do with identity politics and critical theory? Read on!
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist philosopher and communist politician showed up. Gramsci said: Karl Marx predicted a working-class revolution. It hasn’t happened yet. Why not? His conclusion was what he called hegemony, which means the leadership or dominance of one group over another. In essence, Gramsci theorized that the dominant group’s social, cultural, and economic influence was prohibiting a Marxist revolution from taking place. (Our leftists or Marxists today would call that dominant group the “white male patriarchy.”)
In Gramsci’s view, the reason the lower class hadn’t risen up was that they had bought into the worldview of the middle class. As a result, they didn’t even recognize their oppression, which means that they bought into the idea that if you worked hard, saved your money, and made good decisions, you could improve your own life. An idea that many of us have proven and still believe to be true.
But Gramsci called this a false consciousness – in his view, these people didn’t even realize how miserable they should be, and in his opinion, what needed to be done is to raise consciousness, what leftists today call being “woke.” And in his opinion, the way to do that is a union of the oppressed with the intellectuals. Basically, in his view, the intellectuals needed to educate the working class to come to grips with their oppression. By this education of the working class by the intellectuals, we can create an alternative worldview that will allow the revolution to take place.
(College professors are overwhelmingly liberal, with some polls suggesting that 40% are Marxists.)
Here we are almost one hundred years later, and Gramsci’s theory has percolated through various leftist ideologies that have given us critical theory, a form of cultural Marxism. A theory that breaks down all of society into two groups, the oppressors and the oppressed. And now, instead of just creating divisions by class, our modern Marxists have expanded the oppressed groups to maximize the potential for revolutionary change.
To the left, everything is oppressors and oppressed. The oppressed have more moral authority than their oppressors. And what was once a theory is now their worldview.
I got this chart from an article in the California Globe titled “California Parents Lawsuit to Block Racist, ‘Social Justice’ Indoctrination Agenda on Children in Santa Barbara Schools Moves Forward.” Three hundred parents and teachers are suing the Santa Barbara School District to stop critical theory indoctrination in their schools. This chart is part of the curriculum that they use to teach critical theory.
If you have time, check out the article in the California Globe. The Globe reports that many parents see a myriad of problems associated with critical theory indoctrination in their school district, including more racial division. One mother even reported that her frustrated son told her that he hated being white.
Besides the oppressors and the oppressed, we also have the idea of intersectionality. Intersectionality, among other things, means that the more categories of oppression you can put yourself in, the more moral authority you have. So, in this view, moral authority is not based on anyone’s moral character but only on the number of oppressed groups that you can claim to be in.
So, critical theory explains why, when white male President Trump disagrees with a minority female on a policy issue, the Marxists in the press have no problem lying to twist the encounter to be misogynistic and racist. Because in critical theory, he has no moral authority to question someone that belongs to an oppressed group, let alone someone who belongs to two oppressed groups.
Critical theory also blames outcomes squarely on the oppressors and not the individual choices of the oppressed. A recent Breakpoint article, What Do We Do With Critical Theory?, had this to say about the shortcomings of critical theory when it comes to outcomes: “Overlooked in this analysis are individual choices and life situations, which often have a far greater impact on a person’s life. For example, whether or not a child grows up with a father is statistically more important than their ethnic identity. Other factors, such as religious commitment, education, sexual decisions, and family stability, have profound power to shape the lives and futures of individuals, families, and whole communities. Critical theory, however, ignores every other factor or squashes it into the oppressor-oppressed dynamic. This view distorts reality and often turns on itself.
A recent article at Quillette described a Danish professor and critical theorist attacked by fellow critical theorists. They claimed his branch of Critical Theory was racist; this is no isolated case. Critical theorists have produced scholarly articles and whole books claiming everything from logic to math as tools of white, heteronormative oppression.”
In some cases, critical theory identifies real problems in the areas of social justice. But real solutions are not usually found in villainizing other people or avoiding personal responsibility.
There are many more facets and nuances like “white privilege” that come into play with critical theory and intersectionality, including divisions into race critical theory, gender-critical theory, etc. I will recommend additional resources at the end of the video.
My conclusion: Critical theory creates an ethical system in which those it defines as oppressors are evil, and those that it defines as oppressed are good.
♦ Critical theory is an expansion of Marxist doctrine. It is a neo-Marxist cancer that divides society into victims and their victimizers with no path for healing or forgiveness. Modern Marxists are now trying to divide us not only by class but also by gender, race, level of disability, and religious affiliation. Far from being the solution to social justice, critical theory will only cause more racism, bigotry, misogyny, and despair for all of us.
♦ Critical theory creates self-hatred by assigning guilt and shaming perceived oppressors and encourages hatred for these oppressors from those in the so-called oppressed groups. It is the perfect vehicle for producing the hatred that energizes anarchists to take advantage of peaceful protests to burn our cities and attack and kill innocent civilians. If this ideology is not eradicated, we will see the rise of more hate and affiliated groups of haters.
Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Critical theory and identity politics fail in that it judges by the color of someone’s skin and sex, gender, religion, and myriads of other distinctions that have nothing to do with the content of one’s character.
Quoting from the same Breakpoint article that zeros in on Race Critical Theory: “I believe racism still plagues our country and is embedded in the hearts of individuals, institutions, and systems. We can reach this conclusion by care, by listening, and by statistical data,
Too often, any attempt to listen and to engage the race issue is dismissed as critical theory. It’s not. At the same time, Critical Theory’s analysis and answers to the problem of racism violate what we know to be true about the human condition. Only the Biblical story frames for us human value, human sin, and human hope, which both allows us and calls us to confront racism wherever it rears its ugly head, without embracing a theory that sees people as nothing but their race.”
♦ What should we do to combat critical theory?
1st: Do your due diligence and vote for candidates for the school board that recognize the threat critical theory and Marxist ideology is to our communities and to our country.
2nd: It is time for citizens to demand school vouchers so we can choose the schools that our children attend. This indoctrination starts in middle schools in many liberal cities. No one should have to send their children to schools that teach the social poison that critical theory represents.
3rd: The third thing we can do is to say enough! We will not be labeled, and we will not let you divide us into hate groups.
Critical theory claims our identity as humans is rooted in things like race and gender, but the Bible grounds our identity in being created in the image of God. Critical theory provides no path for forgiveness or healing, but the Bible tells us that the way to healing for past injustices is to forgive as God forgives us when we put our faith and trust in Jesus. And then we love our neighbor as we do ourselves.
We can work together to stop Marxists from using critical theory to divide and conquer us, but it will take courage to stand up to the mob. Where do we find that courage? I would suggest going to the Bible, which I believe is the word of God! The Bible often speaks about taking courage and being courageous.
In Joshua chapter one, God gives Joshua the task of leading the Israelites into the promised land. Many battles lie ahead for Joshua, and God encouraged him with these words:
8 “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
If you need the necessary courage to find your voice in these days of cancel culture and leftist bullying, the Bible lays out where to find that courage.
First, find some Bible verses on courage and meditate on them day and night.
Second, observe to do all that God has revealed in his word.
Third, remember that the Lord your God is with you wherever you go!
And then speak up and pray! Many decent people with good intentions are deceived by this doctrine and have become radicalized – they are in desperate need of prayer. Pray that their spiritual ears and eyes would be open to see and hear identity politics and critical theory for the divisive idea that it is.
I ended my video by saying: I recorded this video a couple of weeks ago, so there is a quick update that I wanted to include. Friday, September 4, President Trump ordered that critical theory training for federal employees be discontinued. The radical left is trying to frame his directive as the President stopping anti-racism training. Still, it is my opinion that critical theory is the wrong ideology for healing and reconciliation for all the reasons mentioned earlier in this video. (Joe Biden has since reimplemented critical theory training.)
If you want more information about critical theory, I would recommend:
- Article: “What Is Cultural Marxism?” from the Mises Institute
- Article/audio: “What Do We Do With Critical Theory? Racism, White Privilege, and Christianity” from Breakpoint.
- If you prefer a video, you can go to “whatwouldyousay.org” or “prageru.com” and search through their videos. Both sites have videos on a variety of subjects. Prageru, short for Prager University, has hundreds of videos that use facts and logic to argue for conservative and libertarian viewpoints. Prager has had over 3.5 Billion views, and I highly recommend watching them; I would also recommend them for your children and grandchildren.
- Deconstructing Critical Theory from a podcast called Theology Pugcast – November 4, 2019
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