Quite the opposite, I've read academic papers on critical theory and related subjects. I have an advanced training in a STEM discipline but as an undergrad I to

Quite the opposite, I've read academic papers on critical theory and related subjects. I have an advanced training in a STEM discipline but as an undergrad I took electives at UC Berkeley, a highly regarded place for studying critical theory. Those humanities courses set the stage for my own philosophical/political inclinations as a graduate student, as well as later on in my life. So it is with those readings and my own academic background that it is worth pointing out that critical theory itself criticizes the social role of these college classes and the way they are taught. I'm not the first pro critical theorist reader to do so--these issues are raised and debated within these fields by professors / within the scholarship itself. A mainstream example is Slavoj Zizek, but he is by no means the only one. It is the fact that you've either taken or taught these courses that I find your subtly uncritical "assurance" to be superficial and lack a deeper awareness of the positionalities of cultural studies in general. If you have done a substantial amount of reading, then you'd at least know exactly what I mean by the above and would not have written the your reply that way.