The general outline of this post was adapted from an article by Adam MacLeod in the March issue of Touchstone (subscription required):
All Critical Theory is based on a Marxist analysis of oppressors and oppressed, whether it's Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Theory, Critical Gender Studies, Intersectionality, Queer Theory, whatever. They're all predicated on the assumption that the object of their criticism is an oppressive and unjust system which needs to be torn down.
Critical Theory holds that traditional categories of objective right and wrong are arbitrary "discursive regimes" established by the powerful in order to suppress and oppress the less powerful. Recourse to objective standards by the dominant group is used to justify ignoring the subjective experience of marginalized groups.
These theories, whatever their particular point of emphasis may be, all share a few beliefs in common:
They deny that we can know objective reality. Most people believe that if a proposition corresponds to reality it's therefore true, but since critical theorists insist we can't know reality it follows that we can't know truth.
For the critical theorist reality is simply the way a culture has evolved to think about things. It's constructed by the dominant factions within a culture, the cultural elite, and is used by them to enhance their dominance over other groups.
The concept of the imago Dei, being made in the image of God and deriving our rights from God, is denied by critical theorists who often hold to an atheistic worldview. They deny that there's anything objectively true about human nature or anything especially authoritative about human reason. Having no confidence in reason or truth, everything becomes a matter of subjective preference, and all that's left to adjudicate disputes is power, either political power or physical coercion.
Justice, too, becomes subjectivized. What is justice for me is injustice for others. Oddly, not even critical theorists can really believe this since it entails that my demand that you give me justice is nothing more than a demand that you give me my way. Chants such as "No justice, no peace" are vacuous if there's no objective justice.
All critical theories declare that the foundational ideals, principles and institutions of America are illicit discursive regimes, i.e. arbitrary constructs which employ particular linguistic themes in the service of the acquisition or expression of power. A simple example is the use of male pronouns when the gender of the person being referred to is uncertain. Such usage is a means for consolidating patriarchal supremacy in the culture.
Discursive regimes, critical theorists tell us, are constructed not to describe reality but to exercise control over others. By making maleness the linguistic default, women are being subtly controlled.
For the critical theorist there's no fixed human nature thus gender is fluid. One's gender is whatever the individual decides it will be. To quote the 20th century existentialist Simone De Beauvoir "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" via the decisions she makes in the course of her life.
The critical theorist is not open to persuasion or argument because such efforts depend upon accepting the authority of reason, which the critical theorist refuses to do. Mentioning that critical theory is contradictory or illogical is pointless since logic is an "illegitimate discursive regime" embraced by powerful white men to suppress people of color.
Objecting to critical race theory on the grounds that it promotes racism and injustice gets one nowhere since the objection is interpreted as another power play by the dominant class to keep the marginalized from achieving equity.
Observing that critical theories are themselves illegitimate discursive regimes employed by one group to attain economic, intellectual and/or political hegemony over another, gets one nowhere because such facts are based upon a logical analysis and are irrelevant to the subjective "reality" established by the critical theorist.
For one who still believes that reason and logic are God-given tools to help us in our quest for objective truth, critical theories will be seen as a jumbled collection of incoherent assertions. Only someone who has abandoned reason, abandoned objective truth and objective reality, and who insists upon the notion that their beliefs are subjectively validated - that all that matters are their own personal feelings and experience - can find much merit in critical theory.
