In The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin writes, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”1 In this way, all critical notions of love, including the Critical Theory of Love framework, require us to pull back the curtains and examine what we believe love is and how it operates, then reimagine it to help us grow.

Reimagining and reconceptualizing love must be a top priority if we are to meet the demands of social justice movements in the 21st century. For love to be transformative, it must be understood from the perspective of the most marginalized and the socially oppressed, and must engage directly with our individual and social contexts.

This kind of critical framework for love is devoted to the ways of being and doing that support the mutual co-construction and repair of our full personhood, and materially resource our individual and collective freedom and transformation.

Why the Critical Theory of Love Is Vital to Systems Change

I created the Critical Theory of Love (CToL)2 framework as a tool to help move us toward unapologetic wholeness and completeness, closer to realizing Dr. King’s notion of a “love that does justice.”3 Transformed systems, grounded in this six-part framework, will not only promote the dignity of love but also hold accountable any forces that undermine this pillar of life.

  1. Affirming Social and Cultural Identities and Full Personhood: The first (and most important) competency in the disciplined pursuit of love in our social justice work is affirmation: understanding the truth of our existence from the places of our social and cultural identities.4 Affirmation is also a process and practice. When we understand love as a process and a practice of affirmation, it invites us to consider each individual’s inherent value and dignity. It encourages us to recognize and nurture the power within ourselves and others, acknowledging our experiences as meaningful. Affirmation, in this context, becomes transformative because it seeks to understand our social and cultural context and actively work to heal the wounds to our humanity caused by ongoing oppression and violence.

Read the full article about the Critical Theory of Love by Durryle Brooks at Nonprofit Quarterly.