The Theory of Everything
Theory has become one of the great growth areas in cultural analysis and academic life over the last few decades. It is now taken for granted that theoretical tools can be applied to the study of, for example, texts, societies, or gender relations.
The Grand Narrative of Marxism
The motivation for this development can be traced back to the rise of Marxism. Karl Marx (1818–83) and his followers bequeathed us an all-embracing theory, or “grand narrative” as it is more commonly referred to nowadays.
Entire cultures can be put under the microscope of Marxist theory. It forms a paradigm of the way in which any critical theory in general works. Cultural artefacts are tested against the given projection of the world as it is, or should be, constructed.
The Politics of Criticism
One criticism levelled against critical theory says that it is an “alternative metaphysics”, promoting a particular world view, and, at least implicitly, a particular politics. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with such a procedure, as long as it is made clear what that metaphysics entails. What is it trying to achieve? One can then accept or reject its programme.
A great deal of its value stems from its ability to remain politically engaged. Being critical is being political: it represents an intervention into a much wider debate than the aesthetic alone, and that is surely something to be encouraged. We live in politically interesting times, after all.
Bringing Theory to the Surface
To be a critic now, especially in academic life, is also to be a theorist – as any student in the humanities and social sciences will be only too painfully aware.
How we arrive at value judgements, and, indeed, whether we can arrive at value judgements, are now at least as important considerations as what the actual value judgements themselves are.
Hidden Agendas and Ideologies
Of course, theories have always operated “under the surface”, prior to the development of the term “critical theory” itself, but they were generally implicit rather than explicit.
Theoretical Reflexivity
Self-consciousness, or “reflexivity” as we now call it, in the application of theory is what defines the current state of play in the various disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. A student preparing a dissertation or thesis will normally be advised to outline the theoretical model being used, first of all, before going on to undertake the actual task of analysis itself.
The last thing one wants to be accused of in such situations is being “undertheorized” – that way, low marks lie. The successful student in higher education reaches theoretically-informed conclusions in essays and exams, and can show precisely how the theory informed those conclusions.
Science Studies: the Paradigm Model
But it is not only in the humanities and social sciences that critical theory is deployed. Even the hard sciences have been infiltrated to some extent. Science as a social phenomenon is most certainly a target for critical theory. One well-known founder of “science studies” is the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn (b. 1...