Critical theory

The Jolly Contrarian’s Dictionary The snippy guide to financial services lingo.™ Go Premium Index — Click ᐅ to expand: Dictionary Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Requests? Insults? We’d love to 📧 hear from you. Sign up for our newsletter.

Theory /ˈθɪəri/ (n.)
(Sociology) A Catch-all phrase designed to pin down an intellectual movement which, above all other priorities, as a horror of being pinned down, since what can be pinned down can be analysed and exposed. Theory, in this context, is “third-wave” post modernism: Critical theory (originally race, law and gender but now has forked into whatever happens to be the cause célébre du jour); social justice theory; wokeness; general snowflakery. To be clear: the JC lines up with the libtards here: a pluralistic, tolerant society that is maximally permissive of the non-aggressive interests of marginalised and which, all other things being equal, defends those interests in cases of conflict with a majority is an optimal one. But this isn’t to say there aren’t thoroughly unscrupulous people doing thoroughly unscrupulous things in the name of social justice.

See also

• Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race Gender and Identity
• The Madness of Crowds