# Critical Theory — Tradition Critical Theory is the tradition of the **Frankfurt School** — the Institute for Social Research founded in 1923 — whose leading figures were [[Max Horkheimer]] (who coined the term), [[Theodor Adorno]], and [[Herbert Marcuse]]. Drawing on Marx and Freud, it aimed not just to interpret society but to expose and overturn the forms of domination embedded in capitalist culture: the "culture industry" (*[[Dialectic of Enlightenment]]*), "one-dimensional" thought, and "repressive tolerance." [[Antonio Gramsci]]'s concept of **cultural hegemony** is its close cousin. ## Why it matters on the right No school is more central to the right's self-understanding *as an enemy*. The Frankfurt School is the literal referent of the [[Cultural Marxism]] conspiracy theory, which recasts [[Herbert Marcuse]], [[Theodor Adorno]] and colleagues as the deliberate architects of a plot to demoralize and subvert Western civilization through feminism, multiculturalism, and "political correctness." [[Postmodernism]] is frequently (if inaccurately) folded into the same indictment. ## Distinct from Critical Race Theory Despite the shared word "critical," [[Critical Race Theory]] is a **separate tradition**: a late-20th-century American legal-academic school ([[Derrick Bell]], [[Kimberlé Crenshaw]], Richard Delgado) analyzing how racism is embedded in legal structures. It overlaps with Critical Theory in critical spirit but has distinct origins, methods, and literatures. The right-wing usage collapses the two (plus [[Postmodernism]]) into a single enemy — a collapse worth flagging every time it appears. ## The irony While denouncing it, the right has thoroughly **adopted** the tradition's strategic insight: [[Antonio Gramsci]]'s "cultural hegemony" and "long march through the institutions" are now openly invoked on the right as a counter-strategy ("politics is downstream from culture"). Critical Theory is thus simultaneously the right's chief villain and an unacknowledged tactical model. See the [[Political Philosophy]] branch and the [[Philosophy in Right-Wing Thought Hub]] MOC.