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Traditional vs. Critical Cultural Theory
Abstract
Cultural Critique 49 (2001) 139-154
In his well-known programmatic article of 1937, Horkheimer established a distinction between two different concepts of "theory." The first refers to a set of propositions whose legitimacy lies in their correspondence to an object already formed prior to the act of its representation. This radical separation between the subject and the object of cognition turns theory into an act of pure thought and the theoretician into an unbiased spectator who limits himself to describing the world "as it is." This notion of theory, which considers the object under examination as a set of facts and the subject as a passive element in the act of cognition, is identified by Horkheimer as "traditional." In contrast to this notion, he distinguishes a second one, which he calls "critical theory." Unlike traditional theory, Critical Theory assumes that both science and the reality it studies are a product of social praxis, which means that the subject and the object of cognition are socially preformed. The object is not just there in front of us, waiting to be apprehended, nor is the subject a simple recorder of reality. Both subject and object are the result of very complex social processes, and therefore the main task of Critical Theory is to reflect upon the structures from which social reality and the theories that seek to explain it, including, of course, Critical Theory itself, are constructed.
Despite having been conceived as a weapon against the positivism of his time, I believe that Horkheimer's initial program could be very useful to draw a map of modern theories about culture. I will propose that such theories may be divided into two main groups: those that regard culture as a natural fact, meaning that they approach their object as if it were anchored in human nature, and, on the contrary, those that consider culture as something structured by praxis, in other words, as a social construct that includes the praxis of theory itself. Following Horkheimer, I will refer to the first group as "traditional theory," and to the second as "Critical Theory." I will identify some characteristic components of "traditional theory" and will attempt to contrast them with the concept of geoculture as developed by postcolonial theory. I thereby intend to present postcolonialism as a Critical Theory of culture in the time of globalization or, rephrasing Jameson's dictum, as a cultural critique of late capitalism.
A study of traditional cultural theory should start with the following epistemological consideration: culture becomes an "object" of cognition only from the point at which "man" has established himself as the "subject" of "history." The meanings of "culture," "history," "subject," and "man" share a common genealogical root that emerges and consolidates itself between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Before that time, culture was not a "thinkable" notion, simply because the episteme that allowed for the emergence of such a concept had not yet been configured. If we limit our inquiry to the theories that arose in the West, we will find that neither in Greece nor in Rome, nor in the Christian Middle Ages, was it possible for a theory of culture to arise in what I call its traditional form, much less in its critical one. This was due to the fact that ethics, politics, and knowledge were seen as simple extensions of the laws of the cosmos, that is, as a set of natural institutions arranged toward the fulfillment of a cosmologically predetermined end.
To Aristotle, truth, goodness, and justice become impossible without considering the "first principles" that govern the cosmos, since science, legislation, and ethics fulfill the purpose of revealing the being as being, i.e., the natural order as it really is and not as it appears. Aristotle did not consider speculative thought as belonging to the theoretical sciences (which deal only with the "first principles" of things) but rather to a lesser category of knowledge called "practical sciences." The primary kind of philosophy, metaphysics, lies at the highest point on the scale of knowledge, since it is in charge of establishing the most universal concepts. The objects of metaphysics are...
... The dominant discourses at work in most Western universities and medical education have positioned knowledge production as based on the perspective of a knowing subject or zero-point epistemology (Castro-Gómez 2001;de Sousa Santos 2008;Naidu 2020). The zero point is a reference to the avowedly objective stance of how white Western science produced knowledge: the 'truth' scientists seek is both nowhere and everywhere; we would claim it just 'is', as a zero point. ...
... Intertwined with the building of post-Enlightenment nation-state economics, politics, and law, science was deployed to separate people through the construction of race. Science, and our ideas of who people are or where they 'come from' form part of a worldsystem (Castro-Gómez 2001). To build an economy and gain access to resources in the world-system, one nation state colonized another. ...
Health professions education (HPE) is built on a structural foundation of modernity based on Eurocentric epistemologies. This foundation privileges certain forms of evidence and ways of knowing and is implicated in how dominant models of HPE curricula and health-care practice position concepts of knowledge, equity, and social justice. This invited perspectives paper frames this contemporary HPE as the "Master's House", utilizing a term referenced from the writings of Audre Lorde. It examines the theoretical underpinnings of the "Master's House" through the frame of Quijano's concept of the Colonial Matrix of Power (employing examples of coloniality, race, and sex/gender). It concludes by exploring possibilities for how these Eurocentric structures may be dismantled, with reflection and discussion on the implications and opportunities of this work in praxis.
... 139). 22 Although critical theory originated in the Frankfurt School with a focus on a criticism of modern social structures, 22 critical theory prevails in other fields such as sociology and education, [23][24][25] pedagogy, 19,[26][27][28][29] and other areas including feminism and social sciences. [30][31][32] Critical theories not only look at the complex social processes, but also explore the circumstances that enslave individuals. ...
... 139). 22 Although critical theory originated in the Frankfurt School with a focus on a criticism of modern social structures, 22 critical theory prevails in other fields such as sociology and education, [23][24][25] pedagogy, 19,[26][27][28][29] and other areas including feminism and social sciences. [30][31][32] Critical theories not only look at the complex social processes, but also explore the circumstances that enslave individuals. ...
... The UN's use of the terms 'risk,' 'disaster,' and 'culture of prevention' invite critical scrutiny from the perspective of the Frankfurt School, which would argue that such terms are neither neutral nor objective but socially constructed discourses about reality imbedded within unequal relations of power and knowledge production (Horkheimer 2002(Horkheimer [1937; Castro-Gómez et al., 2001;Jay 1996Jay [1973). Adorno andHorkheimer (2002 [1945]) provide a conceptual frame applicable to the DRR discourse as a particular form of Enlightenment knowledge: the subordination of nature to instrumentalist constructions of subject-observer relationships. ...
... BoP 4.0: enabling fortune with BoP As noted in "Introduction," CST provides a useful framework for recognizing invisible power differentials and underlines the existence as well as value of traditional indigenous knowledge systems of globally disconnected communities (González et al., 2001). We use TK of BoP communities as the basis for developing a BoP 4.0 perspective. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to broaden the conception of the base of the pyramid (BoP) from that of a low purchasing power community, to a globally disconnected community.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper identifies two views related to fortune at the BoP using the conventional purchasing power approach: finding fortune at the BoP; and creating fortune at the BoP. As a next step, the paper offers a theoretical basis for two additional views using the broader conception: sharing fortune with the BoP using social responsibility theory; and enabling fortune at the BoP using critical social theory. The authors construct an integrated framework to aid practitioners in responding to a variety of context‐specific issues in BoP strategy.
Findings
The conventional approach might result in undermining the dignity of BoP communities, and discrediting their unique knowledge systems and potential contributions. It is argued that a context‐sensitive approach can help address these issues to a great extent. In discussing context specific approaches, the paper also introduces the exchange value view that facilitates the need to evolve an open level playing field of value exchange between MNCs (and its partners) and BoP communities.
Research limitations/implications
There is a need for comparative empirical studies examining benefits and costs associated with (and the sustainability of) the three views proposed.
Originality/value
The paper offers a broader definition of the BoP, and provides alternative views going beyond the conventional strategy approach to BoP.
The concept of race is central to the history of ideas in postcolonial Ibero‐America for two main reasons: one, the fact that the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas generated the first global appearance of race; two, the fact that race plays a pivotal role in the shaping of citizenship in the region to this day. From the postcolonial perspective, race is a central mechanism through which power is exercised upon subaltern groups.
Discusión crítica sobre los conceptos teóricos, las metodologías y la investigación de procesos concretos en el análisis de la producción y circulación de saberes, y de las transferencias culturales en América Latina, tanto desde un punto de vista intrarregional como en relación con otras regiones del mundo.
Culture is a way of life. It is anything that identifies a group of people; it makes them unique or different from others. The most striking symbol of culture is an outfit or attire. What people wear or how they dress (their outfit) projects their cultural identity. The Akan of Ghana and Basotho of Lesotho are typical examples of ethnic groups in Africa whose cultural heritage and identities are epitomised in their outfits. These ethnic groups are proud of their culture and unapologetic in putting on traditional attire or dresses that culturally identify them wherever they may be found. Akan women wear kaba (a top dress) with a slit that is stylishly designed by professional dressmakers using colourful kente (gorgeous) or other textiles and fabrics with matching duku (headgear) and bead ornaments around the neck and the wrist. The men wear colourful kente and joromi (tie-dye) shirts, smocks (fugu), or dashiki made from embroidered natural cotton materials. The Basotho are known for wearing expensive and beautiful Seshoeshoe (named after King Moshoeshoe, the founder of the Basotho nation) and likobo (a blanket made from animal fur) outfits with matching hats (molia-nyeoe). This ethnographic study investigates the raison d’etre for the unapologetic display of cultural outfits among the two African ethnic groups. The study, which employed the qualitative research methods of interviews and observation for data collection, found that the two groups are fond of their uniqueness because of their belief that without culture one is lost. The study concludes that Africa’s rebirth is an encouragement for Africans to project and preserve their heritage and identities.
I conduct a critical evaluation of Amy Allen’s book, The End of Progress: Decolonising the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (2016), and I use this as a starting point for a series of reflections concerning Frankfurt School critical theory’s links to Eurocentric and colonial attitudes. I argue that Allen’s response to Frankfurt School critical theory's silence on colonialism is insufficient, and in doing so, I foreground issues and problems that Adorno, Allen, and indeed many other writers simply pass over.
To recognize and respond to the social injustice of climate change impacts, children require curriculum/pedagogies that render settler colonialism visible while dialoguing across pluri-versal perspectives. We present a case study of a school in Northeastern United States that taught the Abenaki language and knowledge on traditional Abenaki Land to non-indigenous students in a 4–5th-grade classroom. Utilizing Mignolo's [2011. Geopolitics of sensing and knowing: On (de)coloniality, border thinking and epistemic disobedience. Postcolonial Studies, 14(3), 273–as283] concepts of ‘epistemic disobedience’ through ‘de-linking’ and ‘de-centering’ to challenge structural/curricular settler colonialism, we found that the school must first be open to, and appreciative of, non-dominant epistemologies to set the stage for epistemic disobedience. We identified teaching the language of the Land, on the Land as de-coloniality as praxis. However, we also identified curricular epistemic frictions with the Science teacher and their pedagogies which attempted to epistemically recentre students' thinking around the Standardized Account of science.
The field of engineering education has adapted different theoretical frameworks from a wide range of disciplines to explore issues of education, diversity, and inclusion among others. The number of theoretical frameworks that explore these issues using a critical perspective has been increasing in the past few years. In this review of the literature, we present an analysis that draws from Freire’s principles of critical andragogy and pedagogy. Using a set of inclusion criteria, we selected 33 research articles that used critical theoretical frameworks as part of our systematic review of the literature. We argue that critical theoretical frameworks are necessary to develop anti-deficit approaches to engineering education research. We show how engineering education research could frame questions and guide research designs using critical theoretical frameworks for the purpose of liberation.
To be most useful, the study of globalization must be placed in a temporal context. Even a casual examination of the past reveals significant interconnections between societies. These exchanges took the form of trade, migration, conquest, intermarriage, and other activities. Careful analysis reveals patterns in such interaction that can help us more clearly define globalization as a long-term process with a cyclical nature. Archaeology is critical for extending the study of globalization in this manner in both historic and prehistoric periods; it provides data on places and people not included in historical documents, and permits examination of periods prior to the emergence of writing.
This chapter proposes that humanity has entered a new historical epoch in the evolution of the world-system, one defined by the collapse of the modern world-system. It conceptualizes neoliberal globalization as the final historical phase of the modern world-system. In extreme overshoot and oscillation, the modern world-system’s rule set has become unstable, making for an epistemological ‘Time of the Posts.’ The instability raises questions about how the deep structural changes of the modern world-system’s collapse will affect the meaning of human experience. The essay considers the experience of alienation, one of modernity’s defining features, and its relationship to the forms of knowledge and experience held by those consigned to the periphery of the modern world-system. Building from a post-colonial perspective, this chapter advances the idea of ‘transmodernity’ as the condition and ‘other knowledge’ of the peripherals that emerges from modernity’s alienation. It concludes with consideration of how the collapse of the modern world-system will liberate peripherals from alienation and allow transmodernity to flourish.
This study describes how firm level decisions and capabilities correspond to policy conditions in a host country where local market access is constrained and success is contingent on compliance with cultural hegemony. Using data from surveys gathered from multinational enterprise (MNE) subsidiaries operating in China, we describe the mode of entry the firms have used to penetrate and exploit markets in light of the constrained strategic choices open to their subsidiaries. We also expose the patterns of growth accomplished by the MNE and their underlying bases of competitive advantage. Finally, we relate the degree of centralization we observe among the respondents' strategies.
European heritage, and traditional institutions and festivities constitute the bricks and mortar of Ghana's tourism industry. Diaspora-related events such as the biennial Panafest (Pan African arts festival), Emancipation Day and the Joseph Project, and the 50th Independence Anniversary in 2007 have underscored the importance and indispensability of European heritage and cultural diversity in Ghana's tourism industry. European heritage, and traditional institutions and festivities also constitute cultural capital attracting domestic and international tourists. Interestingly, justifiably and timely, Ghana was the host country of the international World Tourism Day event in 2009, the first country to do so in sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Tourism, Celebrating Diversity’ was the theme for the event which was jointly organised by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, Ghana Tourist Board, and the Ministry of Tourism. The event also underscored European heritage and cultural diversity in the country's tourism industry. Irrefutably, there is a need for more diversification of tourist facilities and products, and increase in domestic tourism.
Habitats (where we live), habits (how we live), and inhabitants (who we are) constitute an ecosystem unit. The biosphere is composed of a reticulate mosaic of these habitat-habit-inhabitant units, where humans (with their indigenous languages, ecological knowledge, and practices) have coevolved. Today, these diverse ecosystem units are being violently destroyed by the imposition of a single global colonial cultural model. In Cape Horn at the southern end of the Americas, educators, authorities, and decision makers do not know about the native habitats, language, and flora, and do not distinguish between Cape Horn's flora and the flora that grows in other parts of the country or the world. In contrast, indig-enous people and old residents have a detailed knowledge, but they do not participate in education, and decision making. It is not Homo sapiens in general, but bioculturally biased educators, authorities, and decision makers who need to be transformed into (educated and responsible) members and citizen of biocultural communities. The Omora Ethnobotanical Park educational program was launched to contribute to a biocultural citizenship involving three critical steps: (1) the disclosing of biocultural diversity with a "fine filter" approach that permits understanding of the cultural and ecological diversity hidden by general universal labels; (2) direct "face-to-face" encounters with human and nonhuman co-inhabitants; and (3) actions for protection of habitats and implementation of interpretative spaces that facilitate direct encounters and conservation of biocultural diversity. These steps have been implemented at local and regional scales through the creation of the Omora Ethnobotanical Park and the UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve.
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