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Because TBH I have NO idea what either entirely means and I'm certain that I don't want shitposting in this topic.

So what is Critical Theory? What is Critical Thinking? what are their benefits? Downfalls? And Why is it important for collages to pick either (I assume this will the one that actually attracts a debate)?

Long story short- they aren't really comparable at all, at least in the way you're framing it. Critical thinking basically just means deliberately using logic and reason to solve problems and make decisions. It's a very neutral concept and relatively simple to conceive. Now critical theory on the other hand, from the admittedly tiny amount I "understand" it, is all about sociopolitical opinions and stances. And considering its roots in modern academia, I don't think I really need to clarify where those usually fall. There seems to be a lot of pretentiousness ingrained within it, but I'll wait until I gain a much better grasp on just what the hell those people are talking about (even the Wikipedia page didn't help much, which is really saying something) before I'll pass serious judgement.

I'm no expert on Critical Theory, but from what I've gleaned, it's basically a school of thought that attempts to integrate sociology, philosophy, and anthropology into one battering ram designed to break down the problems of society.

One distinguishing feature is that it views many of society's problems – racism, for example – as being influenced by a multitude of external factors, many of which may not be immediately obvious. Every problem in society can be traced back to society's "superstructure" as a whole, basically. Everything is connected to and influenced by everything else.

Critical Theory is probably the very definition of the much-dreaded Cultural Marxism, because it stresses social consciousness and identity politics. As you should be able to tell from the above explanation I provided, CT stands in direct contrast with far-right interpretations of social problems, hence its affiliation with the far-left.

To put their beliefs in an exaggerated manner for the sake of comparison: a Nazi looks at the fact that black people tend to be poorer than whites and argues that it's the sole fault of black people. A Critical Theorist/Cultural Marxist looks at that same fact and argues that it's the fault of everyone and everything but black people.

CT proponents often get a lot of flak from their moderate counterparts for being too focused on "us versus them" and team politics when it comes to problem-solving. Such is a common objection to any form of identity politics.

Critical Theory is on a whole different level, as 0.999 and Particle above have explained. Critical Thinking, however, can be explained rather easily (and it is something everybody should know.) 0.999 already described it in one sentence, but I'll try to expand on that based on what I have learned in my class, well, Critical Thinking.

Critical thinking all boils down to being able to think for yourself. It means that you make decisions not because your parents told you so, not because the television told you so, nor is it because your friends told you so, but because you thought about it logically as an individual who is skeptical yet open-minded and emotionally in control regarding the issue.

A Critical thinker can be easily distinguished from two other types of thinkers: the Garden of Eden thinker and the Anything-Goes.

Garden of Eden thinkers:

• Tend to think in Black/White (i.e. no middle ground or grey area; you're either friend or foe depending on how their way of thinking matches up with yours)
• Tend to have an Authoritarian way of thinking (i.e. that means two things: they value the opinions of figures of authority like parents, priests, and idols highly, and if they happen to be in a position of power, they will enforce their belief onto their subjects)
• Are dogmatic (i.e. unhealthy obsession with their opinion; will get angry when you try to tell why they are wrong.)

Garden of Eden thinkers are the type of people who get together and form an "Us vs Them" mentality. Since they get mad at opinions that are different from theirs, the only people they hang out with are those with the same opinions as them, and they feel good about it because whenever they spout something in that group of theirs they're always right. If anybody with a different opinion tries to interact with these people he will be downvoted to oblivion ostracized. Lastly, since Garden of Eden thinkers prefer to think in Black and White, they have a strong urge for Debate -- let's see who's right and who's wrong -- rather than Discussion, which is a sharing of ideas and opinions, and promotes growth.

In Short, Garden of Eden thinkers are close-minded, you have to be open-minded to think critically.

Anything-Goes thinkers are the opposite of GoE; they just don't care at all. They choose their opinions like ice cream. As relativists, they normally think any stance on an issue is fine. They're the type of people who would be anti-abortion because 'killing babies ain't cool man,' and not because they thought about the issue through. Anything-Goes thinkers make decisions without thinking it through. Critical thinkers DO think things through.

tl;dr: Critical Thinking means NOT being close-minded, yet NOT being a person who doesn't care either. When a Critical Thinker makes decisions it's because they have an open mind to listen to every side of the issue, and they have the gall to think things through until they've made a conclusion they can back up with reason and credible sources (that last part is basic logic which I wasn't able to write about.)

I'll be less neutral than PM in my assessment of Critical Theory since it affects my chosen profession negatively and my mentors have taught me to think past it.

Critical Theory is, in short, the square hole into which progressive "academics" attempt to shove the many-shaped and many-sized of world cultures and historical peoples. Critical theory goes at the humanities from an ideological perspective; it seeks to find evidence for foregone conclusions and consequently becomes a tool of agenda mongering that distorts the study of the past for personal ideological benefit.

It is not a tool that is restricted to the "left" or the "right." The Straussian Critical Theorists, for example, are a pack of conservatives that look to distort historical texts into critiques of modern political thought. For example, the Straussian critique of the Periclean Funeral Oration in Thucydides argues that Thucydides is putting words in Pericles' mouth to make his praise of Athens ironic; they argue that Thucydides is a "conservative" attempting to demolish the "statist" policies that Pericles enacted. Of course, this notion is undercut by both Thucydides language elsewhere in his Histories as well as the methods for writing speeches that he lays out else where in his work.

On the other end of the spectrum, you get dithering fools identifying themselves as "Marxist feminists" and the like who bring just as many suppositions to the table and then distort the facts in another direction in order to fulfill their agendas. For example, a "Feminist Marxist" will denounce the social structure of the late Roman civilization because women were largely the mistresses of the private sphere whereas men were masters of the public sphere. They will not take into account instances of women business owners, the fact that matriarchs had complete control over a household's finances, the fact that women like the Empress Livia (according to the historian Suetonius) publically organized social services like fire brigades, and so on and so forth.

Critical theory represents the bastardization of the humanities by attempting to jam them into the methodologies of the sciences. In the sciences, as I understand, you have the hypothesis first and then perform tests to refute or support it; if it fails, you review and revise the hypothesis accordingly, then perform more tests. This method does not work for the study of history.

To study historical cultures, you need to go in without suppositions and with as little personal baggage as possible. You need to understand the language of the culture you're studying because language grants insights into a culture's ways of knowing that are totally lost in translation. You need to begin from the ground up as a humble observer, taking trusting your sources but verifying them, and then only crafting a thesis once you've gained enough knowledge to have a proper understanding. The discovery of the sciences is a fundamentally different kind of discovery from what comes from the humanities.

Furthermore, Critical Theory blinds its practitioners with what one of the wisest men I know calls the "Folly of Modernity"-- which is to say applying modern values to historical writers. For example, the Folly of Modernity might cause a historian to say, for example, that Greek and Roman authors didn't believe in their gods because we don't understand the nature of their piety.

In conclusion, the issue with Critical Theory is that it speaks more than it listens. It presupposes universal truths of academia that are in reality artificial constructions. It shouts over the past and tries to force the human experience into rigid paradigms. It harms the collective understanding of what it means to be human and hampers our connection with historical memory.

I see, do do you think there is a connection between Critical Theory and "Everything is Jesus in Purgatory" (seeing symbolism where there is none)?

Nice- my suspicions seem to have been well founded. However, I'd like to make a few corrections, as you did bring up the pure sciences, which is more my area of "expertise" if you will. And after all, this thread is supposed to be half a discussion of critical thinking as well.
In the second paragraph you state that "©ritical theory goes at the humanities from an ideological perspective; it seeks to find evidence for foregone conclusions and consequently becomes a tool of agenda mongering". But then in the fifth, you claim it "represents the bastardization of the humanities by attempting to jam them into the methodologies of the sciences", i.e. the scientific method. But these cannot both be true. Beginning with a "forgone conclusion" represents the ultimate bastardization of the scientific method, as succinctly detailed in this comic:

The same is true to a lesser extent with carrying "suppositions" beyond what is (in context) certain scientific fact, because it damages- often irreparably- the ability to properly analyze findings and apply what is discovered in hypothesis revisions.

When applied correctly, I think it can absolutely be used and be useful in the humanities. The main problem comes from the fact that it is an extremely "unpure" field, and thus general theories rarely, if ever, exist. To try to find them (as critical theorists do, apparently) is an exercise in futility.