It hasn't started permeating academia - the thing
started its life in academia. Most of the newspeak and the mobs' grievances are rather directly born of "critical theory" born at the Frankfurt School. This is a bun that's been in the oven for decades.
The critical theory was originally a tool for a philosopher to use, a lens to view things through or toy for them to play with:
A way to look at things as power dynamics between societal groups, and how things those groups hold as truth are in part determined by how they speak. Language reinforces and spreads a view of the world, and a worldview is a tool for power. The way a group speaks of the world is their "discourse" of it.
The critical theoretical project's aim is to look at the dominant groups' discourses and critique them relentlessly, to deconstruct, devalue and delegitimize them, to rob the words they use of the meaning that they're purported to hold.
This kind of view is useful if it's a lens in a philosopher's toolbox and firmly sealed in a sandbox where it doesn't interfere with other programming, but utterly terrible to let loose on the world. Why?
Because it's the intellectual equivalent of a universal acid. Nothing in that process is constructive, its only purpose is to corrode, erode, destroy established things. The only way the mindset knows how to function is to outline problems in a thing or to torture them out by doing a "close reading" of the material. Suffice to say an enemy can mind-read basically whatever they want to into a body of discourse.
And that's what's going on out in the world: Basically every strand of activism from feminism, BLM, diversity trainings, X studies runs on that critical theoretical acid, and is actively trying to instill a "critical consciousness" (ie. ability and tendency to view things through the lens of critical theory and consequently take action to change the world against dominant discourses) in every corner of life.
This is a problem.
Why? Being more aware of power dynamics doesn't sound half bad in itself, and a more rounded curriculum might legitimately be a good idea. The problem isn't in the substance of what they claim they want to do, but the HOW of it. Critical theory is essentially an intellectual acid that's used to demolish pretty much anything into a feeble, shoddy and illegitimate-feeling house of cards, right?
They're literally trying to construct the societal world on acid and caring more about words used than actual reality.
They're literally trying to use a solvent as the foundation of society, the method that has two tools: Problematicize and delegitimize so as to tear down and destroy. There is no positive value - kindness, humor, gentleness in the program. Basically nothing is valued positively or viewed non-cynically, so next to nothing can be built. As a consequence, it's a destructive or takeover ideology. What it has has been taken from someone or is focused on tearing something down. Remove targets, you'll notice the whole endeavor is empty, because it stands against much, but truly stands for very little, if anything at all.
Ever see mentions that people are being literally killed or somesuch when someone makes a comment an activist deems inappropriate. The focus on words is why. Speaking constructs a hegemonic discourse that will lead to oppression which legitimates some crackpot bigot somewhere to kill a transperson, so it's sane to them to treat any criticism or disagreement as if it was violence.
Another problem is that some dominant discourses are not just social constructs in the sense that they're how the presumed-dominant group has ended up talking about things. Some discourses are dominant/hegemonic because they correspond well with reality and end up staying in a reality-connected memeplex where language is at least in part concerned with describing reality.
This is utterly irrelevant in critical theory land, and so the theory doesn't care, and will try to dismantle them because they are simply tools of power used to oppress oppressed groups whose discourses are unfairly sidelined. Who says things is important, what is said, not so much. Everything is reduced down to group-based power struggles, and conceived as zero-sum games where victory is tearing down the majority enemy.
What if someone isn't on board with the program? No sweat, in line with their Marxist social conflict theory heritage, critical theorists use the device of "false consciousness" or "internalized oppression" to sweep away people from oppressed groups who don't buy into the critical theoretical revolutionary narrative. It's really convenient how disagreement is just evidence of your rightness and proof that the opponents have done bad things. Needless to say, it means they're right in every case and the whole shebang is unfalsifiable because every counterargument is either the hegemonic discourse that is to be deconstructed and torn down or internalized oppression. Lived experience of minorities is only valid if they have woken to critical consciousness, ie. come to the right conclusions.
Now start looking around, and the fingerprint of the critical theoretical worldview is everywhere. Insistence on alternate ways of knowing, framing everything as oppressor-oppressed relationships, redefinitions of words so as to exclude majority groups from fair treatment (See eg. Reddit's hate speech rules. Orwell couldn't have done "some are more equal than others" better: https://www.reddithelp.com/en/categories/rules-reporting/acc... ). Many places where they simply try to force language to be reality rather than trying to find it.
One salient example: Trans-rights activists insisting that lesbians should be attracted to them because what defines a woman is that the person thinks themselves one. It leads to totally inclusive and accepting funtimes like this: https://lesbian-rights-nz.org/shame-receipts/
'Upward-thrusting buildings ejaculating into the sky' – do cities have to be so sexist? https://twitter.com/GuardianAus/status/1280221825973313537
The National Museum of African American Culture posted this: https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/whiten...
Robin DiAngelo whose video is on that page authored a book called White Fragility. According to her, a "positive white identity is not possible". Wonder why? https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/dehumanizi...
Critical grammar at Rutgers: https://www.thecollegefix.com/rutgers-english-department-to-...
Someone makes a joke about a model organism when asked about overrated animals. How to react?
https://twitter.com/glctcsm/status/1285666612255821827
https://twitter.com/glctcsm/status/1285666955945541633