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The Limits of Critical Theory
Peter McLaren writes:
"Why shouldn't all aspects of culture be problematized? To problematize culture does not guarantee that everything 'traditional' will be condemned or rejected... what it does mean is that we can recover from such traditional cultural texts and practices those aspects which empower and discard or transform those which don't." (McLaren, 1991)
Is everything within the bounds of critical inquiry? Is the application of instrumental reasoning to all realms of human production acceptable? That is, can we accept McLaren's proposition that the entire scope of human culture is open to the sort of rigorous deconstruction that critical theory employs in its observation, or do we maintain that certain sites of human production (religion, love, sexuality) are some how outside of the scope of critical theory both because of their primarily affective (sacred) nature and because deconstruction often distances the subject from the object of inquiry
To quote Sandy Grande, "the process of interrogation itself may encode the same sociotemporal markers of colonialist consciousness that incites movement away from 'sacred' ways of knowing toward increased secularization" (2009, p. 87) Here, she posits that critical theory maintains within its ethos the individuality, secularization and mind-body duality that mark all Western philosophies. Thus, to critically inquire into areas of the affective or sacred is to perform a colonial act.
So the question comes round again: is there anything outside the bounds of critical theory?
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? critical inquiry ?
I am struggling with Sandy Grande's quote: "the process of interrogation itself may encode the same sociotemporal markers of colonialist consciousness that incites movement away from 'sacred' ways of knowing toward increased secularization" (2009, p. 87) Here, she posits that critical theory maintains within its ethos the individuality, secularization and mind-body duality that mark all Western philosophies. Thus, to critically inquire into areas of the affective or sacred is to perform a colonial act.
I do not know her work beyond your comments here but believe she is mischaracterizing how we should think of critical inquiry. I believe critical inquiry should reflect a bricolage of methodology that does not restrict itself to analytical deconstruction but embraces postformalsim and its appreciation for the multitude of ways people see and know the world.
Colonial Critical Theory
Grande (2009) is echoing Bowers (2003) in her argument that "critical pedagogy is born of a Western tradition has many components in conflict with indigenous cosmology and epistemology, including a view of time and progress that is linear and an anthropocentrism that puts human at the centre of the universe. Moreover, one of its primary informants, marxism, is prone to promulgating its own oppressive grand narratives by dismissing indigenous cultures as "primitive" or precapitalist" (p. 88).
Thus, she claims there are fundamental ontological differences between critical theory and the ethos of indigenous peoples (she's speaking in very broad terms here, so it's hard to pin down which indigenous peoples she's referring to or if they're all painted with the same philosophical brush). Notably, her critique of critical theory centers on its conception of progress and the positing of humans as arbiters of the universe in terms of meaning-making (which is wholly Freirian), claiming such a stance is in conflict with an aboriginal ontology, which, in turn, has ramifications for environmental (in)action. She quotes Bowers (2003) when she claims this anthrocentrism "contributes to the widely held view that humans can impose their will on the environment and that when the environment breaks down experts using an instrumentally based critical reflection will engineer a synthetic replacement" (Grande, 2009, p.81).
Evolving critical pedagagy
Thank you for further explaining Grande's postion.
I think this is an outdated critique of critical pedagogy. The Postformal Reader(1999), Rethinking Intelligence (1999), and Multiple Intelligences Reconsidered (2004) are all edited books that include numerous critical scholars seeking to transcend the kind of knowledge construction and ontology Grande describes. Ironically enough, many of the scholars champion understanding indigenous knowledges and ontology as a way to accomplish this task.
I wonder how she would repond to this work?
Is nothing sacred anymore?
The answer, I believe, is no... but that's besides the point.
WIth regards to the boundaries of critical theory, I think the issue is not what topics or areas we're engaged with as much as how we engage them. Whom amongst us has not, at least internally, debated the existence of God, the meaning of love, the moral underpinnings of our leaders' decisions?
In fact, limiting the scope of criticality is more of a colonial endeavor than breaking down the boundaries that ultimately restrict its scope. The latter implies that we are to constantly assess and reassess that which we are told, taught or take for granted. The former engenders an adherence to the status quo and refutes the notion that, as individuals, we capable of affecting change.
As old as it is, the adage still stands: "the unexamined life is not worth living"... then again, one can build a case, with relative ease I might add, that we roam a world of the living dead.
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