Well, another problem is that you declare what is going on in my head without even asking me. Without you supplying even a single piece of evidence to support your contention, how am I, or any reader, to tell whether your criticisms are valid, or, for instance, whether you just don't like my message and think this sounds good?

I would not claim that any evidence you might try to provide would be extremely easy to provide--though maybe there's some book like "empirical confirmation of the main tenets of critical theory" that I don't know about. So it's somewhat understandable that you wouldn't want to try even if the evidence is very clear, because it's not the kind of thing where one can produce a smoking gun and say, "See! You're wrong!"

So, anyway, your objection is noted.

You're wrong on almost every count of anything solid you said (though you're vague enough so I can't be sure).

* I'm not sure what counts as "limited reading", but it's multiple books by key figures, so...?

* I went in without significant preconceptions except that I found CT authors hard to read when picking them at random with no background, and that it seemed like something fishy (specifically, knowledge-denying) was going on somewhere. However, when I first started reading Horkheimer, who is quite accessible, I was thinking that this was good stuff--astute observations about the scientific method and human nature. It was Horkheimer's proposals themselves, after him having successfully given me a positive impression of the work, that first alarmed me.

* I do understand, to an extent, the broader history and the context, but that is not particularly relevant to the ongoing impact of the work or the nature of the flaws in its pragmatic epistemology, and the article was already too long, so I left out basically everything I do know about that (and obviously, in matters of historical context there is usually more to learn).

* I'm not sure why you characterize the appeals to "the Enlightenment" as emotional--it's a phrase that compactly describes a certain set of attitudes (admittedly envisioned somewhat differently now than originally), and which is used with that meaning as a target of attack by CRT authors.

* The oppressors vs. oppressed dichotomy is straight out of Horkheimer: I not only quoted a relevant passage, I provided a link to the source material.

* I don't fetishize thought experiments?! Where does that claim come from?

* The promotion to a grand metaphysical good vs. evil battle is your doing here, not mine. My point is different. Can you restate it? You seem not to have absorbed it at all. (It's a long essay. You might want to review starting at "What chance, then".)

* I wasn't personally reading Jordan Peterson, and all the sources I read from which the bulk of my perspective is formed are from before he was remotely prominent, so I'm not sure who is his like, but it wasn't him.

So as a rebuttal, this is extremely unimpressive. You implicitly claim to understand the material, but do not demonstrate that understanding in any way--rather, you make the kind of generic criticisms that anyone can make of anything (c.f. "no recognition of the broader history at play"). And you make multiple wrong assumptions, which is unsurprising given that in many cases you're guessing at things that you have little way to know.

I could still be wrong! But one wouldn't have any better idea of whether I was after reading what you wrote than they did beforehand.

If you want to plant a flag in the sand: there you go. Congrats! Now you have a flag, and it's in sand.

If you want to convince me, or anyone else who doesn't already completely agree with you (and isn't swayed by cheap rhetorical tricks of the type you've employed), how about you try again, but with some substance this time?