The title phrase Cultural Marxism is... controversial to say the least and what one thinks of it may be simply a mirror of ones ideology. It can be rather en vogue among areas of the right and sometimes libertarian persuasion, becoming something of a catch-all term, similarly with the left’s use of Nazi or fascist for everything they dislike. Now, in my humble opinion, there is a bit more truth to the Cultural Marxist accusation than the Nazi one. Left type scream Nazi for no particular reason. But the postmodern left can, with a bit of a stretch, be called Cultural Marxist. Or better neo-Marxist. Depending on definitions, but lately it seems to me that everyone defines things as they please and words no longer have a meaning.
Cultural Marxism is often used together with references to Frankfurt School, Critical theory and postmodern philosophy – you know, Foucault, Derrida and the gang. Oh face it, you don’t know, it is abstruse obscurantist nonsense, no one really knows what those people meant to say. Not even other post-modern philosophers. Getting back, these are all different concepts and you have to be careful about mixing them up, though elements of each are to be found in the post-modern intersectional left.
This does not refer to the entire left, but much of the academic left which were, indeed, educated in an atmosphere dominated by neo-Marxism and postmodernism, and the various excretions of the academic left which manifest as activism or “research”. Not fully about critical theory or postmodern philosophy, but taking some of the worst elements of both.
If you have never taken a look, scrolled through, the twitter account:
https://twitter.com/RealPeerReview
I highly recommend you do so. It is amusing and worrying at the same time. A snapshot of the very worst (and funniest) of what I mean by “intersectional left”
So getting back to the point – if there ever is any real point to these diatribes of mine - what is Cultural Marxism? Should the term be abandoned or does it have its uses? Well if one is engaged in serious debate, it is probably best to be avoided, just not to give ammo to the opposition. But, overall, it does get the point across.
To cover definitions, there is not a clear, rigorous one. I will, out of laziness, go to Wikipedia, although it has, in my view, a massive left wing bias when it comes to anything politically charged.
“‘Cultural Marxism” in modern political parlance refers to a conspiracy theory which sees the Frankfurt School as part of an ongoing movement to take over and destroy Western society.”
I have issues from the start. Conspiracy theory? Really? This is left rhetoric 101, calling something a conspiracy theory. It is exaggerated in this case and of little use.
“The term ‘cultural Marxism’ has an academic usage within cultural studies, where it refers to a form of anti-capitalist cultural critique which specifically targets those aspects of culture that are seen as profit driven and mass-produced under capitalism”
So the term has a more official usage. This is good. We have a starting point.
“it was misappropriated by paleoconservatives as part of an ongoing culture war in which it is argued that the very same theorists who were analyzing and objecting to the “massification” and mass control via commercialization of culture were in fact working in a conspiracy to control and stage their own attack on Western society,”
While there is a case to be made for misappropriation, many words suffered this through time. Liberal meant something very different 100 years ago. In Europe it still has more of an original meaning the in, for example, the US, but still it started staring even here.
“working in a conspiracy”
There is that word again, conspiracy. This is, again, a misuse. Left wing activists want social change; otherwise they would not be activists. It is, I think, rather a fact that the left focused in the last 50 odd years on increasing influence in education, news, culture, and mass media. And it is, to me at least, very clear that they are very aggressively pushing their agenda through these cultural institutions. One need only look at movies, TV shows, comics, books. They either push left wing views or are massively attacked and criticized. It is no secret that Hollywood for example is rather left wing and people who do not toe the line can be ostracized. So there is no conspiracy as much as reality. In certain areas of education – like gender studies, and many other so called studies, you will have many more Marxist professors than centrists, let alone right wing.
The Warriors of the Culture War.
There is a sort of culture war - although even this phrase can be iffy – and all sides want to change things, and all sides want to use education and culture to do so. Social conservatives want creationism in schools; intersectional lefties want social constructivism in school. These conspiracy theories are rather in the open. And when you look at it, even classical Marxist use Cultural Marxist in a derogatory fashion, because they believe it draws attention from economic class to other more meaningless classes – gender sexual orientation.
attack on Western society and destroy Western society
These are from the wiki definition. From a conservative perspective, intersectional left does want to destroy western society, to rebuild in the way they want it, in way to make it almost unrecognizable. And they constantly criticize it as a white cishet patriarchal construct. I myself happen to believe socialism destroys society and that would result in belief that socialists aim to destroy society.
So to conclude, sum up, Cultural Marxism just means the far left side of the culture war and the techniques they employ to push their agenda, attacking elements of culture that do not conform, pushing collectivism, intersectionality and the oppression Olympics; Criticizing or right down attacking reason and reality, calling mathematics racist or sexist. The essence of the Universe is white patriarchy. And never forget folks, many of them support actual Marxism.
And this rant is mostly done on my side. Feel free to comment and let me have it, good bad or whatever. Do you like a bit of the old Marxism mixed din with your culture? Can your theory be described as rather critical? Did you leave modernism behind? Thoughts below.
Note images were just googled.