…is clearly rooted in concrete social experience, for it is… explicitly
conceived with the principal intention of overcoming felt
dissatisfaction. Consequently, it names the people for whom it is
directed; it analyzes their suffering; it offers enlightenment to
them about what their real needs and wants are; it demonstrates
to them in what way their ideas about themselves are false and at
the same time extracts from these false ideas implicit truths about
them; it points to those inherently contradictory social conditions
which both engendered specific needs and make it impossible for
them to be satisfied; it reveals the mechanisms in terms of which
this process of repression operates and, in the light of changing
social conditions which it describes, it offers a mode of activity by
which they can intervene in and change the social processes which
are thwarting to them. A critical social theory arises out of the
problems of everyday life and is constructed with an eye towards
solving them