WHY APPROPRIATE CRITICAL THEORY?
If learning, teaching, and knowledge are culture bound, ever changing, and morally imbued, then we must admit that the critical theory described in this chapter will probably not exist in its present forms for much longer. Life changes. Current contentiousness and discussions about critical theories, learning, teaching, and knowledge indicate this changeability (see Anyon, 1994; Cherryholmes,, 1994). Other theoretical views will eclipse critical theory; perhaps, as Winkler (1993) suggests, we already have entered an era of “post-theory” where “the day of high theory is dead” (p. A9). American critical theorists might be eclipsed by current French thinkers, who represent a pulling back from the excesses of postmodernism” (McMillen, 1994, p. A7), and who are diverse, leftist, and not very interested in politics. For them, democracy is taken for granted and, unlike some American theorists, they have undergone a process of self-criticism (McMillen, 1994, p. A7). But whatever critical theor
