The contemporary Critical Theory approach informs a wide variety of social and political issues, in various guises. The critical problem is a known paradox foundational to this approach, which has increasingly influenced arguments and positions in modern Western society. The paradox can be summarised in two statements:
Statement 1: It is impossible and/or wrong to seek objective truth, or to rely on measures of objective truth
Statement 2: Statement 1 is objectively true
To state it in one line, we could say: “we must take as objectively true, that there is no objective truth which can be located or should be sought”
This is the most direct way to understand the problem, but it is also the most abstracted. It is easy to have trouble seeing the universality of the problem at this level, because this paradox is disguised through many levels before it appears in forms you may be familiar with.
NEXT: the problem in detail