Critical Theory and the Science of Complexity

Chris Cuomo

Publilshed in The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on War, Love, & Knowledge. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003

            Theorizing is a form of knowledge-making that creates order, reifies and challenges power, and informs particular practical decisions and interactions. All sorts of thinkers formulate theories, but academics have raised theorizing to a high art. Although all theorizing addresses abstractions, relationships, and generalities, and theory is a primary form of investigation in mathematics, philosophy, physics, literary criticism, music, and nearly every other discipline, theories about theory tend to stay fairly local. For example, when I recently asked a promising young philosopher of science what he thought about the similarities between scientific theories and political theories, he let me know he found the question inane. He assumed that scientific theories have nothing at all to do with theorizing in softer disciplines, especially those concerned with the interested matter of politics. But he was wrong. Reflection on theory is an important meeting point for science and philosophy, and for academic projects and broader politics.

            This essay looks at some connections between different forms of theorizing. Drawing on metaphors developed by theoretical physicists,  I consider the usefulness of understanding critical theories such as fem­inism and postcolonialism as theories of complexity, rather than theories of oppression¹.  

            When we consider critical theories to be primarily about oppres‑sion and its legacies, there is a tendency to downplay or overlook their contributions to fundamental philosophical and political discussions regarding the nature of reality, history, knowledge, and ethics. We also give the impression that the project of critical theory is to unearth sim­ple truths that can be stated succinctly and proven directly, in the form of a universally true theory, even though it is clear that the work of crit­ical theory is to explore multifaceted, shifting, and complicated reali­ties. My hunch is that the tendency toward simplicity is fed by loyalty to the outdated methodologies of Marx and Freud, and to a scientific view that identifies truth and knowledge with simple linear facts. Such science is not comfortable with complexity. It aims to reduce complex realities to simple equations, and declares knowledge or success when simple truths are proven.

            Contemporary scientific studies of complexity provide a different model for theory-making, and a metaphor that may better serve the projects and concerns of critical theory Scientists working in theoretical physics and the interdisciplinary sciences find that simple physical laws produce a world that is infinitely complex, consisting of elaborate components, such as beings, things, systems, and networks, that are deeply relational. This view calls for projects that explore the relation­ships between simple truths and complex realities, and require meth­ods that are multidisciplinary, open-ended, and pluralist.

            Here I will discuss some of the differences between simple and com­plex things and theories, and illustrate the usefulness of the scientific metaphor of complexity for critical social theories. In turn, I show that critical theory offers science a more thorough conception of interdisci­plinarity, and a challenging model of political academic engagement.

The Simple and the Complex

            Something that is "simple" can be fully conveyed with a brief explana­tion, but something that is "complex" calls for much more. In the words of a mathematician, the complexity of an object "is directly propor­tional to the length of the shortest possible description of that object" (Casti, 9). Simple entities, such as crystals, and simple relations, such as ionic exchanges, can be captured in simple equations and definitions. But to adequately describe complex things like ecosystems, economies, and human lives, we need lengthier descriptions. For example, if I open up a 500-page book and find that its text consists of nothing but the sen­tence 'All work and no play make Wendy an unhappy girl," printed over and over again, I can turn around and describe the book to you, quite completely, in one sentence. But if I want to describe a complex work like Toni Morrison's Beloved to you, many more sentences would be required to fully convey the thing. It is even arguable that the "best description" of a work of great literature would be provided by reading to you every word of the book, because the interrelatedness of particu­lar words and groups of words to each other and the whole text are so crucial. Perhaps not even that would be enough.

            In this deceptively simple definition of complexity, we can see that what seems to be simple is likely not so simple. Many issues concerning language, interpretation, context, and purpose determine what qualifies as a "best description" of anything, and so determinations of complexity and simplicity are always somewhat relative to the project or audience at hand. If you are not taken with literature, you might be content with a Cliff Notes description of a Toni Morrison novel. If you are not familiar with a particular symbolic system, or its abstract con­cepts of reference, a simple linear equation such as E=mc2 might not serve as a good description of anything. 

            Claims about simplicity and complexity are not merely about expla­nations of things. They are facts about matter itself. Contemporary sci­entific studies of complexity emerged from quantum mechanics, the theoretical arm of experimental physics. In quantum mechanics, sci­entists find the formulas that predict the probabilities of possible out­comes of experiments, and use their findings to describe the framework into which all physical theory must fit. Known as the dis­course of quarks and superconductors, quantum mechanics pursues bottom-line truths about the world, such as the simple truth that ele­mentary energetic "particles" follow rather predictable, universal, and immutable laws. But physics cannot stop there, with what is explain­able in simple terms, because those simple elements form "complex adaptive systems"—beings and systems that can learn and respond, and that are not predictable.

            In his book The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex, physicist Murray Gell-Mann provides a representative list of complex adaptive systems:

. . . a human child learning his or her native language, a strain of bacteria becoming resistant to an antibiotic, the scientific community testing out new theories, an artist getting a creative idea, a society developing new cus­toms or adopting a new set of superstitions, a computer programmed to evolve new strategies for winning at chess, and the human race evolving ways of living in greater harmony with itself and with the other organisms that share the planet Earth (9).

A distinguishing feature of complex adaptive systems is their abil­ity to effect change in relation to information about patterns in the world. Here is Gell-Mann's description of what it means for a complex adaptive system to learn:

A complex adaptive system acquires information about its environment and its own interaction with that environment, identifying regularities in that information, condensing those regularities into a kind of "schema" or model, and acting in the real world on the basis of that schema. In each case, there are various competing schemata, and the results of the action in the real world feed back to influence the competition among those schemata (17).

            Theorizing is one way complex human systems (socially-embed­ded individuals and groups) develop and test the schemata through which we know the world. We can accurately describe initiating con­ditions, fundamental elements, and basic systems with simple expla­nations and equations. There are neat physical laws from which everything emerges, and to which all objects are subject. But these laws include the existence of unpredictable behaviors and events, labyrinthine relations of communication and interdependence, accu­mulated and ongoing historical effects, and also chance and chaos. The result is a physical universe of intricate, overlapping worlds—a nexus of complex living and nonliving systems that cannot be described in the simple laws and linear equations that fully capture the initiating conditions. These systems are adaptive and dynamic, and they are transformed in relation with each other. Clearly, such a world is best understood through approaches that are themselves multifaceted, multi-leveled, and multidisciplinary.

            Theories of complexity in the sciences are driven by the recogni­tion that the living world cannot be adequately described through sim­ple equations, because it is a world of complex adaptive systems that are dynamic, because they interact and "learn." Exploring complexity requires abandoning the illusion that all good science is atomizing, breaking things down into simple constituent elements. Elaborate and interwoven systems of persistence, interaction, and response are not simple decipherable objects. Theories of complexity in physics res­onate with work in evolutionary biology and ecological sciences, which are also deeply historical and relationship-sensitive, and which take ontological borders to be interesting precisely because they arc permeable and difficult to decipher.

            Philosopher Mary Midgley describes the investigative methods demanded by complexity through the metaphor of a mountain. To learn about a mountain one cannot rely exclusively on information got­ten from looking through a microscope or telescope, or on what is evi­dent when one observes food chain relationships or seismic shifts. Knowing a mountain requires all of these inquiries and many more, and it requires studying the mountain from many different perspec­tives. Study or theorizing about complex beings and systems—things as "vast, complex, and relatively distant" as mountains—requires information obtained from many different perspectives and different methods, and so also requires methods for evaluating, translating, and conjoining different sorts of information. It also calls for open-end­edness, because complex systems are dynamic. Over time there will always be new things to learn about the mountain, its many con­stituent components, and their complex webs of relation.

Critical Theory

            What might all this have to do with feminism, postcolonial theory, and other critical approaches beyond the sciences? As in the physical sci­ences, part of the work of critical theorists is to analyze how simply­statable truths ("systems of race and gender enable exploitation") play out in complex ways, in complex contexts, and how they are reinforced and resisted through myriad social forms and practices. Critical theo­ries engage social worlds (and sometimes ecosocial worlds) that are infinitely complex. Critical theorists hold that in order to increase understanding and develop effective strategies for positive change, the­orizing ought to address multiple strands of causality and meaning, and the relationships among them. Because its questions cover such a wide range of material, and because it sees most objects of inquiry as rather complex phenomena, critical theory requires multiple discipli­nary and methodological approaches. At least in theory, the logic of critical theory is inherently pluralist and self-reflexive. It is these fea­tures, along with politics, that put the "critical" in critical theory.

            Of course, few people would say that complexity is what critical theory brings to the table. Feminism, for example, is described not as a theory of social complexity, but as a set of positions critical of sexism or gender oppression, or celebratory of female perspectives and particu­larities, or skeptical concerning the necessity of sex and gender as orga­nizing concepts in human reality. But a critical focus on gender (or another identity or form of power) naturally opens out into a deeply complex project. Feminism does assert some version of a relatively sim­ple empirical fact, coupled with a fairly simple ethical claim: social worlds tend to present inadequate options to women, categorically, and the conditions that enable and further that oppression ought to be elim­inated or transformed. But what seems to be a simple description of reality is really not so simple. Any respectable feminist theorist knows that considerations of sex and gender must include attention to race, class, sexuality, and more. This is because the meanings and experiences of "woman" are highly contingent, and maintained in complex, dynamic relations with other social and physical forms. No woman is just a woman, no man is just a man, and we all embody gender as a locus of other forms of power. Sex and gender do not exist in pure forms in individual bodies, or in the social systems that organize human bodies, because human lives and social systems inevitably include over­lapping forms of power and identity, including race, religion, nation, and class. No one can slice off the part of itself that is sex or gender, although sex and gender form the texture of nearly every human life. 

            As a critical theory, feminism knows gender to be complex—a pat­terned phenomenon that varies widely over time and space, that exists in as many forms as there are forms of human life, and that is part of complicated and dynamic discursive and physical worlds. The projects of feminist theory are nothing less than describing and probing the cate­gories and practices that maintain forms of identity and forms of human life (including gender, race, clan, and species, economy, nation, and cul­ture), and investigating how these are deeply interwoven with each other and with a complex and endangered physical world.

            It is not difficult to establish the fact that critical theories see truths as complex, at least in a minimal sense, because critical theories hold that a good description of reality is interdisciplinary and multi-layered, or "lengthy" in the term favored by physical scientists. Other potential meeting points between critical theory and theories of complexity include rejections of reductionist approaches to knowledge produc­tion, and overlapping political interests.

Reductions

            Even though simplicity lies in the eyes of the beholder, in factories of knowledge production the appeal of simplicity is fairly universal—it lies in the attractiveness of rock-bottom conclusions that can be pre­sented as linear expressions. Mary Midgely argues that the scientific paradigm that upheld simple empirical truths as the model of true knowledge was historically influential because "it struck people as a more honourable and decent world-view than a grovelling and super­stitious terror of the gods" (30).

            The problem is not that simple descriptions are not true. It is not necessarily a mistake to pursue simple observable truths. The problem is the fact that influential institutions and cultures christen simple truths real knowledge, and vilify less reductive (more complex) methods. A good example of debates between complex and reductionist approaches is found in philosophy, regarding theories of the mind. There is a fairly popular view that sees minds as reducible to chemical processes in the brain, and that considers everything that we know as "consciousness" to be irrelevant in constructing useful and accurate models of the mind.  Such a reductionist project is rejected by theories of human minds that investigate simply-stated truths about brain chemistry in relation to a whole organism, its practices, experiences, and beliefs, and its immer­sion in particular social and ecological environments. Which sort of the­ory would provide more accurate and useful ideas about minds? The answer depends on the inquirer's interests and goals. A pharmaceutical company might need nothing more than a chemical description; a teacher needs a much more complex picture of minds.   

            Discourses of complexity are powerful antidotes to views that reduce incredibly complicated realities to simple truths. Scientific engagements with complexity question methods that aim to reduce all truths to linear equations or rock-bottom simple facts about the world, such as the view that the best science of mind describes chemical processes in the brain. Other reductions, such as the view that to be human is to be rational (only), to live is to be selfish (only), or that organisms and processes are constituted by solid borders and are there­fore completely knowable apart from the systems that support them, cannot survive analyses that take seriously a world of difference, chaos, and vastly complicated interrelatedness.

            Although complexity theorists in the sciences argue against scien­tific approaches that aim to reduce complex truths to simple truths, an emphasis on complexity is not meant to be a rejection of simple truths, or the pattern-seeking investigations through which they are con­structed. Complexity theorists see the discovery of a simple truth as an invitation to investigate new broad questions, because there is always a wider context into which a new, simply-expressible discovery must be incorporated to become useful knowledge. Fruitful paths of inquiry are forged through curiosity about relationships between simple truths and complex realities. Theories that recognize complexity therefore can include the bottom-line theories to which reductionists cling.

            Simplicity should not be the only goal of knowledge, but simplicity is a powerful tool of knowing. We could not notice or understand com­plex systems if we could not identify and interpret patterns, and descrip­tions of patterns are simplifications, expressible in simple equations.  When they describe reality well, simple equations capture something that is unifyingly true about the world, like 2+2=4, "Organic beings have basic chemical requirements for health," "Where race or gender are present, oppression is often found," or 'A rose is a rose is a rose." Simple equations can capture facts that are as universally true as it is possible to be.

            But a simple equation never captures a truth that is the only thing we need to know about what it describes. Simple truths always leave remain­ders, and so knowing a simple truth about something—even a profound simple truth—always leaves us with only part of the story. Statements about the beauty of roses tell us nothing about pollination. Unless you know the mass of the planet you're on, you won't be able to calculate its gravitational force, even if you understand Einstein's theory of general rel­ativity. If you know the chemical composition of a thing, but don't know how it tastes, you cannot make a good judgement about whether it is good food. Knowing one powerful truth about human behavior is most useful when it is considered in relation to many other things. Without such integration, simple truths are blinding rather than illuminating. 

            Perhaps the strongest argument against reductionist approaches is the incredible complexity of the physical world, and its nexus with human life. Appreciating complexity includes not only stressing the extent to which the world is complicated, but also that the subjects and objects of observance, experience, and study are many-layered, chang­ing, and rather unpredictable. Complexity theories more accurately reflect experience, because they describe reality as more like a Navajo rug, and less like a linear equation. Thinking about complexity is pow­erful, because it is so deeply resonant, despite the scholastic difficulties of adequately capturing such analyses in equations or words.

Critical Reductions

            The theoretical projects of critical social theories are exceedingly com­plicated. Many of us have become accustomed to hearing phrases refer­ring to "the intersections of race, class, and gender," and we forget just how complex and multidimensional such rational ontologies actually are. Critical theories take the subjects and objects of knowledge to be constituted and transformed through relationships, and they emphasize how physical and social interdependencies affect existence on all layers, from the physical and chemical to the epistemic, to the global eco­nomic. Critical theory sees reality as historical, ever-unfolding, and affected by chance and unknowns.  

            Yet critical theories are often described as theories of oppression, or analyses of how oppression functions. It is true that critical theories trace the relationships among harmful social forms, such as racism, capitalism, and colonialism. Many critical theories assume or assert that there some­thing like a 'logic of domination" that informs most human social order, creating and maintaining systems and practices of violence and exploita­tion on both micro and macro levels. Approaches that are explicitly tied to identity, such as critical race theory and queer theory, often focus on spe­cific histories of oppression and resistance in hostile contexts. Perhaps this is why it is thought that the "critical" in critical theory says it all, and that political critique or identity politics is all that lies at the heart of the project. 

            Knowledge that the world is complex does not eliminate the ten­dency to emphasize simple truths, or to gravitate toward reductive expla­nations. Marx and Freud are omnipresent ghosts inspiring critical attempts to find fundamental, simple truths that will cause the scales to fall from our eyes. Simple truths (capitalism is exploitation; the uncon­scious is a gateway to knowing the self) are powerful because they cap­ture and unify reality. Theories of oppression attempt to identify hidden lines of power and "root causes" that shape patterns of injustice and harm. Isolating and analyzing particular features or systems of oppression is as crucial to understanding the social world as E=mc2 is to understand­ing matter. Simple truths can also be politically powerful, when they state truths that are not widely acknowledged. As obvious as it may be to some people that racism and sexism exist, naming the simple truth of the fact of oppression can still be illuminating or disarming in some contexts.

            At the same time, like all theories, theories of oppression are par­tial. What is most interesting to theories of oppression are the particu­lars of oppression. Theories of oppression that overemphasize simple conclusions, such as the ubiquitous nature of domination, risk reducing complex issues to simple equations. Simplification makes it less likely that we will pay attention to phenomena that don't fit the pattern, such as contexts where domination is absent or effectively mitigated, or con­tradictions, such as the fact that being dominated can feel exactly like being free. Recall how Marx and Freud's own commitments to simple and one-dimensional explanations prevented them from appreciating the complicating data that stood right before their eyes (such as race for Marx, and sexual violence for Freud). It is not just the thread of conti­nuity and resemblance that make phenomena interesting and relevant to theorizing. Counterevidence is key to the growth of any discourse.

            Fortunately, the combination of pluralist methodologies and polit­ical commitments is useful for keeping reductive tendencies in check. The primary impetus for feminist theorizing of "intersections" came from political demands for feminism that was appropriately attentive to a far wider range of lives and experiences, and especially to race, sex­uality; disability, and class. The challenge put forth in real political con­texts was met in works such as Gloria Anzaldiaa's Borderlands/La Frontera, which articulated feminism that was fundamentally commit­ted to addressing multiple complex realties—both the facts of oppres­sion, and the complicating contradictions that render any simple description or explanation inadequate. Anzaldiaa's work is an excellent example of theory that offers a range of constructive insights regarding identity, culture, and their enmeshments with /in language. Focusing only on Anzaldaa's criticism of sexism, colonialism, and homophobia neglects the substantial positive contributions of her work, such as her theory of intuitive knowledge, or la facultad:

La facultad is the capacity to see in surface phenomena the meaning of deeper realities, to see the deep structure below the surface. It is an instant "sensing," a quick perception arrived at without conscious reasoning. It is an instant "sensing," a quick perception arrived at without conscious reasoning. It is an acute awareness mediated by the part of the psyche that does not speak, that communicates in images and symbols. . . . The one possessing this sen­sitivity is excruciatingly alive to the world (38).

            Critical theory aims not only to understand oppressive social sys­tems and patterns, but also to change them, and to encourage alterna­tives. Behind any evaluative critique lies some positive vision, and methods for locating and developing alternative paradigms and possibil­ities. For example, critical race theorists show how the deep social signif­icance of racial difference and injustice cannot be adequately addressed by existing civil rights legislation. In criticizing influential legal trends, they offer analyses of how oppression is fueled even by laws that aim to eradicate injustice. This analysis could not be offered without underlying conceptions of what a more just system requires, and how different ways of understanding and interacting with racial realities could produce bet­ter results. Critical race theories include or assume views about history, the significance of law, effective political strategies, and the relationships among various spheres of meaning. It is not inaccurate to characterize this work as theorizing about oppression or racism (proving a root truth such as "civil rights law tends to support, rather than subvert, existing race relations"), but it is important to also draw attention to the deeper implications of the work, and to question the view that its relevance is limited to concerns about oppression or even race.

Politics

            I have been discussing theorizing as though it is a distinct practice and an isolated category of knowledge production. That image is a fiction, of course. Theory is practice, and it informs and is shaped by myriad other practices, material conditions, and political realities. I've characterized theory as the effort to understand and describe "reality," but theory is no distanced knower, gazing upon reality from above and attempting a perfect sketch. As a form of interactive reflection, theory does aim to capture and convey, but those aims are never pure, disinterested, or only intellectual.

            It is perhaps easy to appreciate complexity in abstraction, and even to see it all around us. But how do complex theories move in the world? Like any science, the science of complexity aims to predict outcomes.  In the laboratory, complexity theorists develop computer simulators that incorporate complex arrays of factors. Scientists interested in com­plexity have developed a computer model that simulates the conditions in Earth's primordial soup, so as to figure out how matter originally self-organized into living cells, and software programs that simulate the dynamics of the stock market, so as to detect hidden and emergent pat­terns in the "econosphere." In science, the successes of complexity the­ory are measured in the predictive power of such models.

            The successes of critical theory are measured differently. Its conclu­sions are considered useful insofar as they predict in a much looser sense. They may provide general rubrics of understanding that are most directly useful because they explain or help us negotiate reality. More importantly, critical theory aims to direct through its predictions, and it does so with­out apology or denial. Anzalchaa's agenda is to validate and encourage la facultad as legitimate knowledge. Informed by the experience of those who have been marginalized by existing legal systems, critical race theo­rists recommend specific alternative approaches. Critical theory does not pretend its political agendas can be extracted from epistemic goals.

            One of the recent great successes of critical theory has been the emergence of a complex and multifaceted movement for global justice, often characterized as the "anti-globalization" movement. The hallmark of this movement is its multiplicity—it attempts to incorporate a range of concerns, from environmental issues to international human rights, from social justice (race, sex, sexuality) to the workings of global capital, from indigenous land rights to the demands of local workers. Incorporating a key critical theory insight about the connectedness of various systems and realities, the movement for global justice asserts complex analyses of oppression, and complex understandings of what is necessary for plane­tary flourishing. Ecofeminism, a significant thread in the movement for global justice, is an example of a perspective that begins with attention to the relationships between exploitative social relations and human disre­gard for the natural world. Such politics can confound, because they can­not be captured in a sound byte or identified with a singular figure or agenda, and the difficulty of representing and building upon a coalition-based movement can make the counterproductivity of chaos painfully evident. There is no denying that complexity demands careful commu­nication across disparate discourses. But even when activists disagree about particular issues, or when they believe that there is some "root cause" (such as "greed" or "capitalism") driving the various systems they protest, they are committed to a political approach that incorpo­rates attention to a range of overlapping and interwoven agendas. They are committed, one might say, to politics of complexity.

            Critical theory did not create the movement for global justice. Rather, critical theories generated inside and outside of the academy have articulated the need for multifaceted political approaches, and they continue to provide and inspire activist analyses of the character of the connections among seemingly disparate systems. Regardless of partic­ular outcomes, or the destiny of particular movements (which them­selves are never simple things, but clusters of related events, exchanges, and positions), critical theoretical approaches have informed a new form of global political movement. 

            The primary difference between critical theory and scientific studies of complexity is political. Critical theorists in the humanities, arts, and law are explicitly driven by ethical commitments. The work presents itself as will­ing to question the political and institutional status quo in the service of knowledge and justice. Critical theory stresses that the world's complexity indudes abuses of power that can only be understood through multiple and varying perspectives and approaches. In the academy, interdisciplinarity was at first a political project, meant to further knowledge by including formerly excluded voices and perspectives, but also to transform epistemic and pedagogical endeavors, and to create more democratic institutions.

            Not much in the work on complexity in the physical sciences indi­cates serious interest in engaging complex forms of embodied social power such as race, gender, or capital. Theorizing about complexity in the sciences is critical of disciplinary orthodoxies in the sciences, but it does not address or account for the forms of social power that interest critical theorists. When scientific theories of complexity look at social and political issues, their questions concern statistical outcomes and likelihoods, not deep causes and influences. Most scientific work on complexity is exceedingly well funded by government agencies, cor­porations, and the military, because of its relevance to business, medi­cine, and weapons development (representative work on complexity in the sciences can be accessed at the website of the Santa Fe Institute, www.santafe.edu).

            Although complexity theorists in the sciences are not identified with the political left, they often describe themselves as motivated by fascination with the amazing physical world, and as dedicated to preserving natural and cultural diversity. But their projects are not aimed at reducing the disparities created by ecological or cultural imperialism. And their interdisciplinary collaborations do not extend very far—while their projects sometimes include economists and quantitative political scientists, complexity theorists in the sci­ences generally do not tend to seek out collaborations with social theorists, or theorists whose work questions the wisdom of mili­tarism or capitalism.

            Nonetheless, there is no epistemic obstacle to projects that incor­porate complex understanding of physical reality, social systems, and power. Critical theory and complexity theory both encourage carefully wrought ontologies and excellent communication across disciplines and practices. Politically, critical theorists and complexity theorists share fascination with and regard for the material world, and an inter­est in promoting planetary flourishing. Perhaps acknowledging the depth of our connection to the fragile world is the first place for inno­vators who see complexity to engage across differences. 

            Of course, critical theorists and complexity theorists could also share collaborative projects. Complexity theorists in the sciences like to make models out of data, to test their predictive skills and to help con­ceptualize possible futures. Working together, critical theorists and complexity theorists could address some interesting questions, like: What kinds of institutions are most likely to effectively promote ethics of caring, rather than greed? What form of economy would allow us to extract the pursuit of knowledge, and even art, from the pursuit of oppressive power?

1.    I do not take critical theory to refer exclusively to projects related to Frankfurt School thought. Rather, I use the term to refer to social theories con­cerned with multiple systems of social power. In addition to versions of feminism concerned with the intersections of sex, race, and class, other examples of critical theory include critical race theories, which engage questions about race and racism in relation to complex historical analyses of law, economy, and sexual dif­ference, and postcolonial perspectives, which take theory to require explorations of the complex interweavings of state power, culture, race, gender, and land. Critical theory also includes social ecologies that focus on the ways harm to the natural world is felt most directly by those who lack economic power, and those who are symbolically linked to nature in demeaning ways. Critical theorists agree that forms of life and systems of exploitation are webs of connections, and that any adequate critical or liberatory discourse must know and respond to these con­nections. Of course, that leaves open many potential areas of disagreement.