A truth about Critical Theory. Critical theory is described by its creators, like Max Horkheimer, and most prominent exponents, like Herbert Marcuse, as being a kind of "second dimension" of theoretical thought. Here's the secret: it's UTOPIAN IDEALISM. The game in critical theory is to hold out belief in an ideal circumstance and to criticize the real, existing thing against the idea of that ideal. That's what a critical theory is and does. It doesn't describe a better circumstance; it criticizes the current circumstance for not being some kind of ideal thing someone might be able to imagine or, in fact, almost imagine. If someone is holding a real thing to an ideal standard, even if that thing does not or cannot exist, and criticizing the real thing according to that standard, they're doing a critical theory. That's what it is. The "second dimension of thought" represented by Critical Theory is idealism. Technically speaking, a full critical theory a la Horkheimer, Marcuse, the Frankfurt School, and the Woke Left (along with all Marxists) is a kind of negative idealism. It doesn't hold out an ideal. It merely claims that the idea of an ideal is across the horizon of imagination (read their literature and see how often they talk like this!). What it does is maintains that the existing world isn't actually ideal, so it must be wrong. This relieves them of even having to articulate what the ideal would look like. They don't have to know what it would look like at all. They don't even have to be able to imagine it. They just have to know it wouldn't be like this, and the this becomes the target of the critique at the heart of their critical theory. Critical Race Theory doesn't know what an ideal world would look like, but it wouldn't have any racially disparate outcomes or racism at all. It has no idea what the ideal is, just what it is not. That's negative idealism. Communists never had a clear description of what the ideal "stateless, classless society" would actually look like, despite floating some ideas. They had no idea what that ideal would look like, just what it is not (based on private property and exchange). That's negative idealism. Anytime you see someone criticizing a real thing against the mere idea of an ideal that isn't like this, you're dealing with a critical theory. That is, you're dealing with Woke thinking. Thank you for your attention to this matter!