I look forward to reading it. But, I wish Carl would do the book on Phillip Rieff that he started that developed into "Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self".
Discussion about the topic does not start until 13:33. Critical Theory is a thing, a well-developed total system that determines beforehand moral absolutes for everyone. Carl Trueman explains this well, but then he goes on to use the words-critical and theory, theorists etc.-with the highly respected and assumed dictionary meaning to talk about them. This is exactly why they have been able to colonize so successfully: with double meanings, assumed meanings, mott and bailey, trojan horse... All this is well known on social media, so we need to speak more consciously from the beginning. Not go along to be nice, or to be accepted or to affirm their sophistry & PhDs, or because everyone is assuming these things so we feel forced to oblige them with a song&dance back & forth. The ground is theirs if we do this. I do want to buy Professor Truman's book for sure, and do want to read some of the top line philosophical theorists now but but but...let's not assume the battle does not change in the various spheres people engage. Both of you gave excellent suggestions for avoiding the undertow into becoming ourselves just like the CT (Woke) IF we value power & winning above all things. Thank you both for this discussion. Very good. PS: I don't agree with Carl about embracing stories as an answer or approach in the present age, unless carefully parsed. Not because I don't see the problem of the Right becoming too too rigid in approach to life & politics, but because it contradicts your warnings about becoming like the Woke. This method is already massively practiced in culture and a temptation to all of us all the time. Such a "correction" (or lesson from your enemies) fails to deal with the underlying problem of POMO which is central to the question of Human Nature: lying, how much more sinfully that works than we imagined in the last era, how we must respond to it's devilish blinding layer upon layer. To simply go with it can't be the answer. That Makes Christians Nice Again, but it is not a better choice.
I'm all for thinkers processing their ideas publicly, however I think because of the political implications and consequences of critical theory, it would be better off elsewhere. That's my opinion. Many of the critical theorists themselves only passive adopters of the agenda that they would have been better to admit was woefully inconsistent. Why leading theologians would feel they should do the same for any benefit to the church I have no idea. Consider JI Packer as an example, had a degree in philosophy from the best school in the world, was a part of a tradition Presbyterians would differ with about church/state relations, yet never wrote about philosophy directly for a popular audience, why? The answer to that rhetorical question goes far beyond any of the thinkers mentioned in this video obviously or anything else I am going to say in this comment including Marx. That said, I'm concerned by the boogeyman effect around Marx as Dr. Trueman mentioned yet in addressing that I think C.S. Lewis in the Abolition of Man still does the best job in confronting it. Church leaders should obviously feel free to address the implications of ideology in their specific contexts also, I think we've been reminded what is popular and what is true can often be very different things in this world. I just don't think we should overrate him as a thinker just based the influence he had, part of what this book is trying for I would think. I'm not sure anything that was said that takes the fact his influence starts with intellectuals seriously enough. Seeking and desiring knowledge unwisely and therefore expecting of non-intellectuals a completely unworkable rationalism, what many are talking about as the fault of "elitism" is in the 2024 American public square more a result of this hyper-critical, neo-puritanical snobbery. I think these guys are giving Marx too much credit by talking about him as so important. I do believe there is a ministry in pulling down ideological strongholds and am thankful for the work being done in this area around that. But also, important theologians should acknowledge why we don't need such a depth of exploration for confronting critical theory as is required by academics such as Dr. Trueman who thankfully do that job for the church. Marx mischaracterized history on exactly the point of expecting the utopian fancy, then blamed the church/religion while attempting to leverage what it inspired of real virtue in our shared past as a function of the future ideologically. Marx then required of others (not himself) the other extreme, the view of history that the church/religion was never involved enough in the affairs of the state. This is a purposeful misreading of medieval history and in its influence has led to a mischaracterization of American history. Europe during his lifetime was attempting to process exactly the opposite more than anyone especially modern philosophers wanted to admit. This begs the question who has been mooching off of who? Almost no one thought there was anything so normal as for religion and the state to be of the function of a city state as the medieval world did. So much that the state afterward continued to dabble in the affairs of religion and too often used modernity as an excuse to take this license as normative, desperately abusing philosophy to prove some congruence in such a practice. Even sometimes as defining to reason, but in Marx's case certainly of history, and then to define the state so purely by economic concern. That allowed the revolutionary abuses Marx/others required to retain any plausibility whatsoever, but was all built upon the lie God was silent and that in the bible God did not speak of the differences of interests between the two. And the lie that Christians have never taken the state serious enough, when that is simply not true of church history. And the opposite of abuse of a union between the two is what the Protestant Reformation has had to attempt to teach the world to avoid (which I think these guys were attempting to touch on). Though modernity has in many places used philosophy to pretend it had outpaced that concern and post-modernity can only prove far worse in the end. Where are we looking to for answers to these questions? That question becomes very important very quickly. It's more important than ever that we are sure it is not only ourselves with secularism and secular philosophies. There is nothing easier than claiming to be experts just because we're cynics, I want to pray for Carl about that as I have needed prayers for that now more than ever. As he said, pessimism is too easy and betray us even as we speak of Christian virtue and charity.
I look forward to reading it. But, I wish Carl would do the book on Phillip Rieff that he started that developed into "Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self".
Discussion about the topic does not start until 13:33.
Critical Theory is a thing, a well-developed total system that determines beforehand moral absolutes for everyone. Carl Trueman explains this well, but then he goes on to use the words-critical and theory, theorists etc.-with the highly respected and assumed dictionary meaning to talk about them.
This is exactly why they have been able to colonize so successfully: with double meanings, assumed meanings, mott and bailey, trojan horse... All this is well known on social media, so we need to speak more consciously from the beginning. Not go along to be nice, or to be accepted or to affirm their sophistry & PhDs, or because everyone is assuming these things so we feel forced to oblige them with a song&dance back & forth. The ground is theirs if we do this.
I do want to buy Professor Truman's book for sure, and do want to read some of the top line philosophical theorists now but but but...let's not assume the battle does not change in the various spheres people engage. Both of you gave excellent suggestions for avoiding the undertow into becoming ourselves just like the CT (Woke) IF we value power & winning above all things. Thank you both for this discussion. Very good.
PS: I don't agree with Carl about embracing stories as an answer or approach in the present age, unless carefully parsed. Not because I don't see the problem of the Right becoming too too rigid in approach to life & politics, but because it contradicts your warnings about becoming like the Woke. This method is already massively practiced in culture and a temptation to all of us all the time. Such a "correction" (or lesson from your enemies) fails to deal with the underlying problem of POMO which is central to the question of Human Nature: lying, how much more sinfully that works than we imagined in the last era, how we must respond to it's devilish blinding layer upon layer. To simply go with it can't be the answer. That Makes Christians Nice Again, but it is not a better choice.
Critical theory, like other attacks on our culture and history, succeeds until confronted with 'compared to what'?
I'm all for thinkers processing their ideas publicly, however I think because of the political implications and consequences of critical theory, it would be better off elsewhere. That's my opinion. Many of the critical theorists themselves only passive adopters of the agenda that they would have been better to admit was woefully inconsistent. Why leading theologians would feel they should do the same for any benefit to the church I have no idea. Consider JI Packer as an example, had a degree in philosophy from the best school in the world, was a part of a tradition Presbyterians would differ with about church/state relations, yet never wrote about philosophy directly for a popular audience, why? The answer to that rhetorical question goes far beyond any of the thinkers mentioned in this video obviously or anything else I am going to say in this comment including Marx. That said, I'm concerned by the boogeyman effect around Marx as Dr. Trueman mentioned yet in addressing that I think C.S. Lewis in the Abolition of Man still does the best job in confronting it. Church leaders should obviously feel free to address the implications of ideology in their specific contexts also, I think we've been reminded what is popular and what is true can often be very different things in this world. I just don't think we should overrate him as a thinker just based the influence he had, part of what this book is trying for I would think.
I'm not sure anything that was said that takes the fact his influence starts with intellectuals seriously enough. Seeking and desiring knowledge unwisely and therefore expecting of non-intellectuals a completely unworkable rationalism, what many are talking about as the fault of "elitism" is in the 2024 American public square more a result of this hyper-critical, neo-puritanical snobbery. I think these guys are giving Marx too much credit by talking about him as so important. I do believe there is a ministry in pulling down ideological strongholds and am thankful for the work being done in this area around that. But also, important theologians should acknowledge why we don't need such a depth of exploration for confronting critical theory as is required by academics such as Dr. Trueman who thankfully do that job for the church. Marx mischaracterized history on exactly the point of expecting the utopian fancy, then blamed the church/religion while attempting to leverage what it inspired of real virtue in our shared past as a function of the future ideologically. Marx then required of others (not himself) the other extreme, the view of history that the church/religion was never involved enough in the affairs of the state. This is a purposeful misreading of medieval history and in its influence has led to a mischaracterization of American history. Europe during his lifetime was attempting to process exactly the opposite more than anyone especially modern philosophers wanted to admit. This begs the question who has been mooching off of who?
Almost no one thought there was anything so normal as for religion and the state to be of the function of a city state as the medieval world did. So much that the state afterward continued to dabble in the affairs of religion and too often used modernity as an excuse to take this license as normative, desperately abusing philosophy to prove some congruence in such a practice. Even sometimes as defining to reason, but in Marx's case certainly of history, and then to define the state so purely by economic concern. That allowed the revolutionary abuses Marx/others required to retain any plausibility whatsoever, but was all built upon the lie God was silent and that in the bible God did not speak of the differences of interests between the two. And the lie that Christians have never taken the state serious enough, when that is simply not true of church history. And the opposite of abuse of a union between the two is what the Protestant Reformation has had to attempt to teach the world to avoid (which I think these guys were attempting to touch on). Though modernity has in many places used philosophy to pretend it had outpaced that concern and post-modernity can only prove far worse in the end. Where are we looking to for answers to these questions? That question becomes very important very quickly. It's more important than ever that we are sure it is not only ourselves with secularism and secular philosophies. There is nothing easier than claiming to be experts just because we're cynics, I want to pray for Carl about that as I have needed prayers for that now more than ever. As he said, pessimism is too easy and betray us even as we speak of Christian virtue and charity.