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Tommaso di Maria's avatar

Public defenders of DEI elide the difference between teaching what the tenets of critical studies are and promoting "Critical" viewpoints as true or by-default "normal" (the more common approach - attempting to "normalize" without debate or definition).

There is no legitimate reason to emphasize or include Critical approaches above or more comprehensively than, say, surveying Marxist views (whether orthodox (Lenin, etc.) or "heretical" (Mussolini, Gramsci, etc.). Even this approach applies to a very few disciplines - including it in, say, nursing pedagogy is propagandistic because the subject matter itself does not include the dissection and examination of such ideas.

Basically, outside of philosophy discussions per-se, there is very little reason for such theories to appear. As a confirmation of my statement: who talks about the the rival interpretations of Marxism proposed by Lenin and Mussolini these days? Only philosophy students - because neither version of Marxism is ascendant at this time. It is political ascendancy only which takes Critical Theory out of the Philosophy Department (and very adjacent areas such as history which refer-back to philosophy).

It is precisely the activist push for present and immediate cultural/political ascendancy which accounts for any appearance of Critical Theory outside of a philosophical examination of it, per-se. All else is advocacy - propagation (propaganda).

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elchonan's avatar

There is also the systemic risk of DEI compliance officers at all major universities, which permeate the university as a whole. Without aggressive protest and action, the indoctrination of our children which begins in K-12, will be the final blow to whatever remains of America’s shared identity and values based on individual freedom.

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