When Critical Theory Was in Vogue at Oberlin

The Critical Theory Mood at Oberlin College

In the month of November of 2016, a student at Oberlin College in Ohio tried to steal two bottles of wine from Gibson Bakery. The shopkeeper accosted the student and pursued him or her down the road. He was caught stealing, and he eventually confessed. An order for Oberlin College to pay the bakery almost $35 million in damages was just issued, nearly six years after the event.

How come the price of just two bottles of wine has skyrocketed?

Black is the pupil who stole from a store. The stores’ proprietors are all Caucasian. That caused an outcry on the campus of Oberlin University. The narrative exemplifies a cultural climate conducive to critical thinking.

Students at Oberlin University began demonstrating the day following the incident in front of Gibson’s Bakery in response to the unfair treatment of those who stood accused. Not long after, the Oberlin student senate voted to “formally denounce Gibson’s Bakery” as a racist establishment. The lecturers participated by handing out flyers and rallying the students to take part in the demonstration. The university eventually ended its long-standing catering contracts with the bakery.

Neither protesters nor school officials ever denied that the kid had stolen from stores, but they deliberately left out that detail from their public pronouncements. In doing so, they were able to use the shoplifter, the store owner, and even the bakery as symbols in a larger story. At one point during the recorded demonstration, a student can be heard shouting, “Shoplifting, the things on the surface does not matter. There’s a lot more to this.

All too often, people just brush off criticism of critical theory as irrelevant. It is sometimes said that critical theory is an obscure academic field with few practitioners. I mean, it makes perfect sense. However, few have really read the primary sources upon which this codified theory is based.

This denial not only fails to take into account the complex nature of ideas within a society, but it also misses the fact that many of those who dismiss concerns about critical theory are ones most actively championing its main concepts.

There are two individuals to thank if you heard this radio commentary:

The German scientist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, who made the discovery of radio waves in the 1880s, and the Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi, who developed wireless radio communication in the 1890s, are both credited with the development of this technology. You can still imagine radio and pick up my voice even if you aren’t familiar with these terms or the physics of radio waves.

This is how many worldviews operate. A person may be influenced by a concept even if they don’t grasp it intellectually. The administration and professors at Oberlin College used a critical theory lens to assess the facts and come to the conclusion that the white bakery owners were culpable and the student was not. The student at Oberlin College who said that stealing didn’t matter because of “deeper concerns at play” was only repeating the critical theory view of the world, which holds that all human interactions can be reduced to and explained by their participants’ demographic profiles. These categorizations, rather than deeds, determine one’s moral standing. Both oppressed and oppressor groups exist throughout society. So ends this tale.

To the contrary, critical theory provides a simplified alternative to the real intricacies of life and people, making it far from “too intricate” of a theory to infect society. The totality of a person’s demographic traits or the assumptions of their privilege cannot reveal their true character. Unfortunately, critical thinking tends to reduce people to mere stereotypes. One need not be fluent in the critical theorists’ multisyllabic vocabulary to catch their fever. It has infected us, that’s all.

A buddy told me a story a few months back that sheds light on how pervasive a certain culture really is. The number of LGBTQ+ pupils in her friend’s junior high class was something she was curious about. The quick reply, delivered in a “don’t you know this” tone, was “Oh, all of them do.”

All of them? It was a reply from my pal. “Do they engage in sexual activity?”

The instructor said, “Not at all.” No one is interested in identifying as straight or cis.

It would be a mistake to simply ignore the ideas that have infected today’s college students, scholars, and high schoolers. It’s important to avoid catching a cultural mood if you want to avoid spreading it.

Every person is created in God’s image and is thus fundamentally important, and we should speak about and respect them as such, particularly with our own children. These are fundamental realities regarding life and humanity, and they are far more promising concepts than those claimed by the critical theory mood.

C.S. Lewis famously said, “Ideas are extremely deadly when assumed,” therefore we shouldn’t let the bad ones go unquestioned, either.

Finally, there is no room for forgiveness or atonement within the framework of critical theory, either as an academic theory or a cultural attitude. Christian theology includes this possibility. There is hope for restoration and forgiveness in Christ because He first forgave us (He has taken the punishment for our guilt). To put it another way, we Christians don’t only refute harmful beliefs; we also provide an alternative.