Critical Theory and the Demoralization of the American Psyche

For the past several years, if not decades, American values, and Americanism itself has been under a vicious assault. Terms like racism, white privilege, sexism, and homophobia have been used to discredit the American ideal of individual liberty. The issue of slavery, for example, has been repeatedly pushed to the forefront of our collective consciousness to try to teach us the founding of our country was not great, and that we have failed to live up to the ideals of liberty and justice for all. Our education system, particularly our institutions of higher learning, if you can call it that, does little more than produce automatons who repeat the narrative that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic and greedy country who has little concern for anything other than money. Today, with the coronavirus propaganda we see the same thing. Words like unessential worker and social distancing are being used as tools to de-moralize and de-humanize us in what can best be described as a conditioning process to break down our values and morality. The result of all of this is a population that is easily controlled and herded into a group think mentality. If men’s values are destroyed, he has little else to fight and live for; therefore, if you can reduce his values, and equate them with negativity, you can control and guide his behavior.

Ayn Rand, in her article entitled “Our Cultural Value-Deprivation” cites an experiment that was conducted at McGill University in the 1950’s. The experiment revolved around determining men’s reaction to isolation and a lack of sensory perception, if you will. The general conclusion was that man needed constant stimulation in the brain in order to feel motivation. Without it, the brain eventually shuts down. Or, his consciousness fails to work to its maximum effect. Rand herself was an atheist. She is looking at this from strictly a scientific viewpoint. The same argument could be made from the spiritual perspective as well. Depriving man of his spiritual needs and breaking down his morality would likely have the same effect. Psychologically speaking, negative thinking tends to lead to more problems like depression and agitates existing medical conditions. In other words, if your values are continually reduced and discredited as something having a negative effect on society, you are likely to eventually have feelings that make you feel less about yourself; thus affecting the attitudes you have about the society that shaped those values.

Rand goes on to argue that society in general can influence the way people think. We see this taking place every day. There is, for example, immense social pressure to conform to certain ways of thinking. Social distancing and self-isolation are terms being used to force you into compliance; failing to do so equates to not caring for humanity. This tactic is used in many other scenarios ̶ if you do not believe in reparations or affirmative action you are a racist. If you do not believe in the feminist definition of equality between the sexes you are sexist. If you do not believe in manmade climate change, you are a climate denier. All these slogan type words are nothing more than propaganda designed to get the individual to question his own beliefs at least and at best, change them to conform to mainstream thinking. Ironically, this same method of changing people’s loyalties, or beliefs based on value deprivation can be found in the book “Brainwashing: A Synthesis on the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics.”

"The first is accomplished by a steady and continuous indoctrination of the individual in the belief that his previous loyalties have been wasted on an unworthy source. One of the primary instances of this is creating circumstances that apparently derive from the target of his loyalties, so as to rebuff the individual. As part of this there is a creation of a state of mind in the individual, by actually placing him under duress, and then furnishing him with false evidence to demonstrate that the target of his previous loyalty was the source of that duress."

Many have argued that this book, which was written by Stalin’s henchman, Laventri Beria, has been discredited as a “conspiracy theory.” It must be pointed out that this is not only the same process that Rand describes but is exactly what is happening in society today. Particularly in our universities. Students are taught that America was founded on racist ideals and has failed to live up to the values which we all hold so dear. This attacks the psyche of the American student and when presented with the leftist view of American history, subdues them into accepting and demanding, change. This is accomplished through the application of something called critical theory.

Critical theory is often mistaken for critical thinking. The two are vastly different. When one believes they are employing critical thinking skills, they are doing so under the belief that it is crucial to come to the best possible conclusion when trying to solve a problem. The precepts of critical thinking revolve around finding truth. Critical theory is something altogether different. Its origins are Marxist in thinking and was founded at the Frankfurt School of Social Research. Critical theory can best be defined as a method of critiquing capitalist culture and emancipating one’s self from the so called “pathologies of modern civilization.” It was originally intended to critique Germany’s national socialism and turn their thinking towards global communism. When this was discovered, the Frankfurt School was forced from Germany and many of their scientists and philosophers settled at Columbia University in the United States. Columbia is known as a university that loathes Americanism and espouses communism.

It is through the lens of critical theory that American’s are being exposed to concepts like white privilege and being beat down with the belief that their country has failed to live up to its values. Students are presented with prevailing American beliefs and then they are smashed by equating them with negative connotations of racism, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and anything else that can be used to demoralize their value system. They are then presented with an alternative view, socialism. They are literally trained through techniques that can best be described as value deprivation to hate their country and once demoralized, they readily accept communism, which is presented as being morally superior to capitalism.

The following is a quote from a college textbook being used to analyze literature through the lens of critical theory. From an academic standpoint, it is believed that a Marxist interpretation is but one small aspect of analyzing a literary work, however critical theory, as demonstrated, is completely Marxist in its origins. All the sub-theories which make up critical theory have elements which seek to subvert our culture.

"Marxist theory points out, however, that our belief in the American Dream blinds us to the reality that a vast number of people have not had and do not have equal opportunity in education, employment, or housing due to such factors as, for example, their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class. And worse, the American Dream leads us to believe that poor people who are unable to significantly improve their financial status must be shiftless and lazy or in some other way undeserving of decent living conditions. After all, the American Dream tells us that all it takes to make it in America is hard work and determination, and that those who do not make it, have only themselves to blame." (Tyson, Using Critical Theory)

Rand also cites an essay entitled The Psychology of Pleasure, by Nathaniel Branden, (which can be found on page 43 of her own book, The Virtue of Selfishness) which states that men’s values can largely be derived from the pleasure they attain from the work they perform or the culture they partake in. A lack of pleasure, according to Branden, or rewarding experiences which offer stimulation or the sense of accomplishment, will result in the eventual erosion of a man’s soul and his drive to achieve anything at all. Rand goes onto argue that the fundamental life force of any society is the philosophy which drives it. In America, rugged individualism, and the idea that we can achieve our dreams based on our own efforts in life is the fundamental value we share. We are free. It is this philosophy that is under attack, and by constantly exposing us to the subversive methods of critical theory, and the lies they use to discredit our culture, they are degrading our souls and killing our love of country that once existed. It is indeed, deliberate.

We are being governed through the application of the social sciences. Critical theory is being used in our schools because through experiments like the one described in Rands article; it has been known for at least seventy years that men’s behavior can be changed once their values are diminished. They can then be easily guided into collective thinking and coerced into collective behavior because they no longer know what is right. Soviet defector, Yuri Bezmenov, describes demoralization as-

An overt slow process to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country.

Over the past several decades Americans have been beat over the head continuously by the media and our academic institutions in a manner that suggests we are not worthy of the values we espouse. The result is a population unwilling or unable to defend those values. There are those, who having been brought up from their earliest days to put their faith in God who have the will to resist. Rand describes these people as “the toughest of intellectual giants, able to preserve the unimpaired efficacy of their minds.” Again, Rand herself was an atheist; however, it stands to reason that a strong faith in God would prevent people from succumbing to this demoralizing process. Public Schools do little to teach the concepts of individual liberty and the constitution and in 1963, a decade after the McGill experiments were conducted, Christian prayer was removed from the education system by order of The Supreme Court. It could be theorized that this was a deliberate move to begin the process of undermining American values and setting the stage for what we see occurring today. A population that for the most part, has little ability to discern the truth for themselves and is willing to sacrifice their own freedom for the illusion of government provided security.