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So is the crux of 'critical theory' to not make generalizations? How does critical theory propose to understand general patterns and trends? Ancient tribal so

So is the crux of 'critical theory' to not make generalizations? How does critical theory propose to understand general patterns and trends? Ancient tribal societies were (almost?) always led by male warrior chiefs. Critical theory apparently says to focus on the rare exceptions, but won't that just give you an unrealistic view of history? Inasmuch as critical theory actually causes us to not "assume 'that particular indoeuropean tomb is probably from a male warrior chief'" doesn't that do us a disservice? The tomb __probably__ did belong to a male warrior chief.

saghm 4y ago
> Ancient tribal societies were (almost?) always led by male warrior chiefs. Critical theory apparently says to focus on the rare exceptions, but won't that just give you an unrealistic view of history? It's sounds like the argument is that this generalization doesn't have lot of basis in evidence, given that it's based on potentially inaccurate identification of remains. If you start with the conclusion that the generalization is correct, then yes, of course it would be silly to ignore it. The question seems to be whether those generalizations are worth assuming at all or not.
orwin 4y ago
Nah, the crux of critical theory is the time, environment and culture of the society that made a discovery influenced said discovery. That's why we have made so much progress in how we view Celts and different Celt cultures. We use to saw them through a Christo-latin prism, ignoring the fact that they had concubinage contract, could divorce at the initiative of the woman, who get her dowry back in that case. That also had an impact on how we saw their weapons and their woodworking/metalworking, and how their education worked. By the way, Celtic education also have implication about where the "Witch" imagery really came from but i don't care that much about the late antiquity/low middle ages, so i can't tell you much about it. I was just giving a low-level example of critical theory, but we improved our understanding a lot now that we don't just copy our understanding to people of the time. I think it helped quite a lot our understanding of Neanderthal.

saghm 4y ago

> Ancient tribal societies were (almost?) always led by male warrior chiefs. Critical theory apparently says to focus on the rare exceptions, but won't that just give you an unrealistic view of history? It's sounds like the argument is that this generalization doesn't have lot of basis in evidence, given that it's based on potentially inaccurate identification of remains. If you start with the conclusion that the generalization is correct, then yes, of course it would be silly to ignore it. The question seems to be whether those generalizations are worth assuming at all or not.

orwin 4y ago

Nah, the crux of critical theory is the time, environment and culture of the society that made a discovery influenced said discovery. That's why we have made so much progress in how we view Celts and different Celt cultures. We use to saw them through a Christo-latin prism, ignoring the fact that they had concubinage contract, could divorce at the initiative of the woman, who get her dowry back in that case. That also had an impact on how we saw their weapons and their woodworking/metalworking, and how their education worked. By the way, Celtic education also have implication about where the "Witch" imagery really came from but i don't care that much about the late antiquity/low middle ages, so i can't tell you much about it. I was just giving a low-level example of critical theory, but we improved our understanding a lot now that we don't just copy our understanding to people of the time. I think it helped quite a lot our understanding of Neanderthal.