Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Cultural critique is a broad field of study that employs many different theoretical traditions to analyze and critique cultural formations. Because culture is always historically and contextually determined, each era has had to develop its own methods of cultural analysis in order to respond to new technological innovations, new modes of social organization, new economic formations, and novel forms of oppression, exploitation, and subjugation. The modern European tradition of cultural critique can be traced back to Immanuel Kant's (1724–1804) seminal essay entitled “What is Enlightenment?” Here, Kant opposed theocratic and authoritarian forms of culture with a liberal, progressive, and humanist culture of science, reason, and critique. By organizing society under the guiding principles of critical reason, Kant believed that pre-Enlightenment superstition and ignorance would be replaced by both individual liberty and universal peace. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) historicized Kant's version of critique through a technique called genealogy. Nietzsche argued that Kant's universals derived from principles of pure reason are born from historical struggles between competing interests. Nietzsche argued that Christianity, bourgeois morality, and contemporary “cultural philistines” promoted cultural conformity to a massified, standardized, and superficial culture, thus leading to a decline ... log in or subscribe to read full text