Critical of Critical Theory?

R.R. Reno is.

Many have pointed out the gray ideological homogeneity of what passes for
critical theory. David Horowitz has amply chronicled the rigidity and
intolerance of the contemporary professoriate. Others have noticed that the
preening theoretical vocabularies of contemporary cultural analysts tend toward
rhetoric rather than argument. Back when deconstruction was the rage, John
Searle wrote a devastating analysis of the gimcrack posturing that was being
passed off as profound argument.

Yet endless theoretical elaborations of suspicion remain a growth industry all the same. “Truths are fictions whose fictionality has been forgotten”—it continues to be said in a thousand different ways. The reason, I think, is simple. Critical theory plays a significant and important role in contemporary society: it de-mystifies and de-legitimates inherited beliefs. It is not, as some critics would like to think, simply
Leftist ideology. Nor is it nonsense dressed up in fancy French words. These
days critical theory is an intellectual project, the main goal of which is to
show that conventional ways of thinking are hopelessly naïve, if not malign and
corrupt. It is a deck-clearing operation—not to prepare students for truth, but
to prepare them for life without truths.

Pope Benedict has called this mode of pedagogy a dictatorship of relativism. It is, of course, a soft tyranny. Nobody is imprisoning college students for having convictions. The dominant intellectual regime is satisfied with two basic strategies: continuous assault and a starvation diet. We take apart the belief-systems of adolescents with our multi-faceted and powerful modes of critical analysis—and we give them next to
nothing substantive to believe.

Discuss? I'd love to hear E.Go's thoughts on this.