Origins and Work of Critical Theory

The origin of critical theory,

In 1843, some five years before the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote to a friend:

“Here is what we have to accomplish: ruthless criticism of all that exists. Ruthless in two ways: the criticism should neither be afraid of its own conclusions nor of the conflicts with the powers that be.”


In our current climate all this “Transvaluation of all Values” that began with Marx’s ruthless criticism began to accelerate with the work of the Frankfurt School. In 1950 one of their devotees, “Theodore Adorno” wrote the book “The Authoritarian Personality,” which became the book that pushed the Transvaluation of all Values into Western Christian Family life and so deconstructed the idea of the Christian family.

Consistent with Franz Boas anti-Christ anthropology and anti-Christ Freudian psychoanaltical psychology Adorno’s “Authoritarian Personality,” was a tome which under the pretense of social science and research offered “proof” that heretofore normative cultural behavior and attitudes centered on patriarchy were indeed guilty of being abnormal and fascistic in terms of where authority was located in Western civilization. Adorno, as a leading member of the Frankfurt school was in his book practicing what came to be known as “critical theory.” Critical theory was simply destructive criticism of the bulwarks of Western civilization – Christianity, Biblical Capitalism, patriarchal authority, monogamous family structures, hierarchy, Christian morality based on a Transcendent law, tradition, sexual boundaries and restraints, loyalty, love of country, heredity and love of homogeneous social orders.

Adorno’s book painted a picture of the West and Middle America as being inherently Fascistic according to his “F-scale” as well as being given to antisemitism. Adorno’s book was a large piece in the march through Western Christian institutions and it had as its goal the Talmudification of America, with its setting on its head and inverting all that was good so it was considered evil and all that was evil so it was considered good.

One of the major social factors under relentless assault by these destroyers, the critical theory practitioners and the Cultural Marxists is the whole concept of consensus or social norms. Social norms can be best described as the consensus arrived at by the majority of a contained population as those norms and that consensus which reflects Biblical social order. The destroyers intend to abolish all ideas of consensus and all standards of social norms in their effort to bring down Western Civilization.

As it stands now, because of the success of Adorno and the Cultural Marxists anything that people once described as “abnormal” is now celebrated in order to take away attention from its abnormality (perversity) and anything that was once “normal” is viciously attacked as racist or homophobic or out of date. By this tactic, the destroyers have wiped out any idea of consensus or social norms.

The only consensus left is the war of all against all and the only social norm left is that no norm will be allowed to be the norm that norms all norms.


Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

One thought on “Origins and Work of Critical Theory”

  1. I greatly appreciate your heart felt, well composed tribute to Dr. Glenn Martin. It is because of his teaching that I possess the confidence I have in God in Christ – even after a very dark time of questioning my faith. God is always faithful, always.

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