An interview with Carl R. Trueman by Carl E. Olson; from: What We Need Now.
In Carl R. Trueman’s most recent book, titled To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory From Marx to Marcuse (B&H Academic, 2024), he hones in on the much-discussed but not always well-understood history, foundations, and goals of critical theory. In doing so, Trueman avoids polemics and hyperbole; rather than looking to argue, he seeks to understand. Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap., in endorsing the book as “an essential read,” likens Trueman’s work to that of C.S. Lewis and says this book “is a brilliant exploration of critical theory and its impact on the central question we now face as a society: Who and what is a human being?”
I recently corresponded with Dr. Trueman about the book.
WWNN: What is critical theory, in a nutshell?
Carl R. Trueman: It is hard to give a concise answer because the term “critical theory” embraces a variety of approaches to the analysis of culture. Some of these are Marxist in origin, such as those associated with the Frankfurt School, whilst others owe more to post-structuralism of a figure such as Michel Foucault.
What all share in common is the intention of destabilizing the status quo, of unmasking the power games and manipulations that lie behind the kind of morality, social practices, and sociological and political categories upon which it depends.
WWNN: You assert at the start of this new book that the importance of critical theory is that it is “wrestling with the question of what, if anything, it means to be human…” How does it address basic anthropological questions? And what is lacking in that engagement?
Trueman: One important insight of critical theorists in general is that what it has meant to be human has changed over time and between cultures.
This impulse comes initially from the appropriation of Hegel, and the earlier Hegelian writings of Marx. With critical theorists, this then alters the question from “What is man?” to “Who benefits from defining ‘man’ in this way?” That is a legitimate question, as we know that, for example, a normative understanding of human nature as white was used in the past to justify race-based slavery.