As you can see, the application of common critical theory perspectives has led to deleterious consequences in Western societies. People have been pit against each other based on their membership of culturally defined groups. Cultural conflicts have been ramped up, and resolution via mutual understanding and reconciliation has been discouraged. History has been revisited more and more often, and previously buried conflicts are being reignited without obvious benefit. Disadvantaged and/or minority groups are increasingly being encouraged by activists to uptake a victim mentality and an oppositional posture to mainstream society, often to the detriment of the wellbeing of members of such groups. Traditional cultural institutions like marriage and family are being constantly devalued. Core Enlightenment values like free speech and universal tolerance are being discredited and denounced as tools of the oppressors, and unfair practices like the 'progressive stack', or even essentially barbaric practices like 'noplatforming', are increasingly being justified.
Why We Should Consider Postmodernism Within the whole Critical Theory Tradition Anti-science and truth-denying postmodern philosophy is also sometimes thought of as related to critical theory, and for good reason. Traditional critical theory itself is modernist, rather than postmodernist, in that traditional critical theorists (including members of the Frankfurt School) consider their thinking to be 'rational', even if the rest of us 68
