Modern Western civilization grew out of the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. The ascendancy of reason in human affairs produced the scientific method and later the Industrial Revolution. Add in the rule of law, individual liberty, private property and capitalism, and you have the basic recipe that has raised much of humanity out of poverty and oppression over two centuries.

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Four academic doctrines — critical theory, postmodernism, social justice and critical race theory — are moving the world, or at least the West, from this triumph to decline. These doctrines reject Enlightenment values such as open inquiry, individual autonomy, free speech, scientific skepticism and even reason itself. They claim to champion equality, peace and social cooperation, but instead promote identity politics, elitism and centralized control. They are the four doctrines of the apocalypse.

Unlike traditional academic inquiry, these “neo-Marxist” doctrines are less theories than programs. They are activist and political. “The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways,” Marx famously wrote. “The point, however, is to change it.” Critical theory is not to be confused with critical thinking, for to think critically is to reason, explain, critique and challenge. Instead, the purpose of these doctrines is to condemn. They largely consist of ideological assertions not based on data or deduction. They lead with their conclusions.