A critical lens is not an ideology. Any critical lens invites us to interrogate and examine a phenomenon or site using a particular set of assumptions, which arise from an analysis of data. Every critical lens has limitations. That’s ok.

It is when a critical lens morphs into an ideology or a conclusion that we run into issues. More often than not, folks who advance the ideology compel a particular script that arose from an application or reduction of that critical lens. It can become disagentive, like puppetry.

Everyone seeks agency. It’s natural to resent these scripts. It also does little to actually generate an authentic exchange of ideas or to help people understand the world through a different lens. It becomes a club, and you’re either in the club or an enemy of the club.

What I find interesting is that the pushback I often hear to this phenomenon is that these lenses *themselves* obscure “the truth” or are inherently malicious. It tends to spiral down from there.

What I find generative for my own journey in all of this is to examine the assumptions and data beneath the lenses. What helps each of us navigate that is our onto-epistemology (OE). You can think of it as a metaphysical/philosophical foundation.

If someone doesn’t state/know the OE they subscribe to, it is usually the dominant one. This is not determined by the religious demographic pop. of your country but by the geopolitical forces that normed ideas across the planet. The dominant OE on Earth is Abrahamic/secular.

Mine is Sanatana Dharma. I am transparent about that. I am a student of Dharma, first and foremost. Dharma is my because, not just my cause.

I don’t have simple answers to how this all fits together. In fact I have more questions than answers! And that’s ok.

What I do know is this: while I might pick up a lens and use it for some time bc I find it helps surface or interrogate phenomena/sites in ways that align with my commitments and assumptions, I won’t ever identify as that lens. Who I am will not be consumed by that lens or club.