Social criticism and their types

Robert Blanchard^*
*Correspondence: Robert Blanchard, Department of Sociology, Delta University, Kano, Nigeria, Email:

Received: 01-Mar-2022, Manuscript No. GJSA-22-56195; Editor assigned: 03-Mar-2022, Pre QC No. GJSA-22-56195 (PQ); Reviewed: 17-Mar-2022, QC No. GJSA-22-56195; Revised: 22-Mar-2022, Manuscript No. GJSA-22-56195 (R); Published: 29-Mar-2022

Description

Social criticism is a form of academic or journalistic criticism that focuses on the social issues of modern society, especially with regard to perceived injustices and power relations in general. Social criticism analyses community structures that are perceived as flawed and focuses on practical solutions through specific steps, radical change or even revolutionary change.

This type of literary criticism was introduced by Kenneth Burke, a 20th century literary critic and critical theorist, whose title “Literature as Equipment for Living” highlights the clarity and significance of this analysis.

The initial points of public criticism may be quite different and some political theories have never been independent of it. The starting point can be the knowledge of a minority in general society (e.g., homosexuality) or even the knowledge of a group of people within a progressive social organization that does not live up to its on-going agenda in all aspects.

Women in the New Left were often dissatisfied with the sexual attitudes of their male counterparts and many of them became involved in second wave feminism, while the women of the Chicano movement were outraged by similar attitudes and created Chicana femininity. Within postmodernism the great theory of integration is no longer possible. This does not exclude the opportunity or the need for dialogue. Yet many social critics still consider capitalist criticism a priority.

Types

• Archetypal criticism

• Biographical criticism

• Chicago school

• Cultural materialism

• Darwinian criticism

• Deconstruction

• Descriptive poetics

• Eco criticism

Archetypal criticism: Archetypal Criticism argues that archetypes determine the type and function of literary texts that the meaning of the text is derived from cultural and psychological myths. Archetypes are anonymous basic forms embodied in or embedded in repetitive images, symbols, or patterns that may include symbols such as the quest for ascension, celestial characters such as a trickster or a hero, symbols such as an apple or a snake, or images such as crucifixion. Archetypal critics find New Criticism an atomic exaggeration in the light of inter text features and in the proximity of the text as if it were in an empty space.

Biographical criticism: Since the premise of biographical criticism maintains that the author and his work of writing cannot be separated, critics look at the captions of the author’s knowledge or life in the author’s work.

Cultural materialism: Cultural material is a framework for theory and research methodology to explore the relationship between material and economic productivity. It also examines the values, beliefs, and attitudes of the world around us.

Social Darwinism: The theory that groups of people and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin observed in plants and animals in nature. According to the theory, which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the weak were diminished and their cultures were divided as the strong grew in power and the cultural influence over the weaker ones.

Deconstruction: Deconstruction is an important practice presented by the French philosopher and critic Jacques Derrida; apparently working to investigate Western thought by reversing or replacing the “binary opposition” of the upper class that provides your foundation.

Eco criticism: Eco Criticism is the study of literature and the environment with a view to the various frameworks in which all sciences come together to analyse the environment and think of possible solutions to the current ecological crisis.