Back in the mid-1980s I encountered the claim that the evil patriarchy had infused our whole culture with the ‘androcentric [man-centred] fallacy’. The bias of male thinking (based on logic, science, objective reality) distorts everything! Subjective (female) experience was claimed to be more authentic.
All previous thinking (including Christian tradition and the Bible) was said to be soaked in sexism. To challenge this was vilified as sexist. In truth, ‘logic is male’ is itself a sexist statement. But Critical Theory represents an all-out assault on truth and reality. In our society today, many don’t even know what a woman is.
But what many are certain of, is that structural oppression is hardwired into Western society. ‘Postcolonial theory’ and ‘decolonisation’ are presented as ways of unmasking and challenging this structural oppression.
These terms suggest a focus on teaching about colonialism and how it was overthrown. That’s one aspect. But something deeper is going on.
New gnosticism
In terms of knowledge, it’s claimed that only those who have experienced oppression can claim true knowledge of that oppression. Their ‘way of knowing’ isn’t available to the privileged. This new form of ‘gnosticism’ is rebranded ‘standpoint theory’. Different people have access to different truths (or ‘knowledge systems’).
