Een discussie over cultuurmarxisme op http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=617657 bewerkt door Victor Onrust

Acid Lamp  07-25-2011 08:26 AM

Can someone define “Cultural Marxism” Please?

I’m hearing this term thrown around lately from a few of our posters but I cannot seem to find anything that actually describes what this term actually means at all. The Wiki on it merely alludes to applying Marxist economic principles to culture, which really makes no sense. Help anyone?

GreasyJack  07-25-2011 09:22 AM

The key is how you define “class”. Marx almost exclusively defined class based on what role you had in production. In practice, this meant that certain cultural groups more often ended up as producers and others as capitalists, but this was in no way central to Marx’s ideas. Cultural Marxists took Marxist (or more accurately pseudo-Marxist) ideas, particularly with regard to class struggle, and applied them to different definitions of class like race, gender, cultural groups, etc.

However, this is all pretty obscure mid-last-century stuff. It sounds like the term is being used these days as a code-word by the far right to try to equate multiculturalism and tolerance with scary authoritarian-style communism. I can see why you’d be confused, since I’ll bet most people who throw the term around have no idea what the term actually means (nor any particular handle on what is actually entailed by Marxism of any variety).

Acid Lamp  07-25-2011 09:27 AM

Pretty much all I’ve read agrees with your assessment. It seems to be used as a buzzword for anything that the far right doesn’t like.

Giles  07-25-2011 09:30 AM

I think the only person using the term here is RaleighRally, and as far as I can tell it’s any kind of sentiment falling on the political spectrum to the left of Genghis Khan. It serves him as a term of abuse, overlapping considerably with “political correctness”.

BrainGlutton    07-25-2011 09:34 AM

Cultural Marxism is a school of critical theory — i.e., a thing done by and for academics. It is not a political strategy or movement, which is what some RWs such as RaleighRally seem to believe. Most likely, they believe it because certain dishonest RW commentators have been promoting exactly that message.

Quote :

Post-World War II, conservatives remained opposed to socialism and notions of social engineering. Some[who?] argued that “Cultural Marxists” and the Frankfurt School helped spark the counterculture social movements of the 1960s as part of a continuing plan of transferring Marxist subversion into cultural terms in the form of FreudoMarxism.[citation needed]

Since the early 1990s, paleoconservatives such as Patrick Buchanan and William S. Lind have argued that “Cultural Marxism” is a dominant strain of thought within the American left, and associate it with a philosophy to destroy Western civilization. Buchanan has asserted that the Frankfurt School commandeered the American mass media, and used this cartel to infect the minds of Americans.[9]

Lind argues that,

“Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. It is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I. If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious.”[10]

Lind argues that “Political Correctness” has resulted in American citizens, particularly in academia, being “afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic” and that such changes can be attributed to the influence of cultural Marxists. [11] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Lind’s argument linking political correctness in contemporary public speech to the influence of Marxism is a conspiracy theory.[12][13][14]

IMO and IME, any sensible person will trust the SPLC over its opponents on these kinds of judgments.

Acid Lamp  07-25-2011 09:52 AM

Brainglutton, bear with me here for a moment.

If I understand this correctly, This is a term that started it’s life as an academic intellectual exercise and has been co-opted since into firstly: a sort of nebulous conspiracy theory touted by nationalists, racists, and homophobes and has ended up secondly: as a catch all phrase used by the far right to criticize anyone cynical of said beliefs? If so, then anything left of, or different from, a white, god fearing would be “cultural Marxism?”

Saitou              07-25-2011 10:07 AM

In the 1920’s several Marxist scholars first started forming theories about media. The aim of their studies was to explain the failure of the revolutionary movement and the rise of consumerism/capitalism. Scholars such as Adorno and Horkheimer theorized that media and cultural industry system are enslaved to the capitalist system: the don’t inform, but reshape peoples minds. Media leads people to believe and accept their [difficult] social conditions. (In short: media are supreme and omnipotent, people are passive; meaning media can inject their influence into society and manipulate it directly.)

Since then in the cultural studies has moved on from these theories and Marxist roots (though some concepts still remain). There still is a post-Marxist branch of culture studies that believes research should be carried out into meanings. For them culture is understood as being actively produced through complex processes, the production of meaning that happens at every level of the social and at every moment within cultural processes. They believe that in industrial societies dominant groups try to defend their interests with the aim of preserving the existing social structure (through hegemony) This results in a minor social struggle as every group wants to see its own interests served by society as a whole. The questions that define this particular branch of cultural studies are: what meaning is being construed, why this particular meaning and how does this particular meaning relate to power, knowledge, identity.

From what I can see these right-wing groups often see this branch of post-Marxism (these “cultural Marxist”) as representing the whole of cultural studies and blame them for propagating social constructivism and anti-essentialism (the believe that properties possessed are not universal; by claiming Christians are not by definition superior these cultural Marxist define Islamist are their equals) Furthermore it are the liberals who control the media and through it demand to be served by society as a whole. (In short they embrace the same believes about culture as these so called “cultural Marxist” they hate)

BrainGlutton    07-25-2011 11:48 AM

Now, the parties who use “Cultural Marxism” that way do purport to perceive a connection between that and 1960s New Left — a movement abominable to social conservatives but rather reassuring to economic conservatives (as it shifted the focus of “Left” away from workers’ control of factories and such, and toward racial and gender equality and such). I would be surprised if Cultural Marxism were not one of several influences on the New Left, but, so what? The New Left arguably achieved some of the most reasonable of its goals and then it just . . . went away. What does it matter now?

Der Trihs         07-25-2011 01:43 PM

Quote : Originally Posted by Jas09 (Post 14062410)

I think the Norwegian dude killed “Cultural Marxism” for good – it was all over his manifesto.

That assumes that the people who use the term disapprove of what he did. Killings by the anti-abortionist extremists certainly haven’t led to the movement changing its rhetoric. Much of the Right likes the idea of mass murdering its opponents.

SherwoodAnderson    07-25-2011 01:58 PM

“Cultural Marxism”, as it is used within e.g. the Counter-Jihad movement (Pamella Geller, Robert Spenser, David Horowitz, Fjordman et al) is a rebranding of what is more commonly known as the Frankfurt School (a marxist branch of culture studies). The rebranding as “Cultural Marxism” was as far as I understand it made by american value/christian conservatives in the 1990s. Specifically by the Free Congress Foundation.

Here’s the part from that Wikipedia article that is relevant wrt Cultural Marxism:

[The Free Congress Foundation] has also been willing to spark controversy on other fronts. It rejects what it calls Political Correctness, dubbing it “cultural Marxism” and blaming it on the Frankfurt School of left-wing thinkers. Accordingly, it has been more willing than many other conservative groups to endorse or entertain views that some, especially on the left, would consider offensive and evidence of bigotry. It is arguably hostile to Islam as a whole, rather than confining its criticism to extremist Islam or Islamism. With regard to Judaism, in his column of April 13, 2001 (Good Friday) titled Indeed, He is Risen!, Weyrich argued that “Christ was crucified by the Jews…. He was not what the Jews had expected so they considered Him a threat. Thus He was put to death.”

In that modern sense “Cultural Marxism” is really a conspiracy theory where Cultural Marxists (understood as a secret cabaal) have imposed values like tolerance, equality and multiculturalism on modern society. Those values in the aggregate are called “political correctness”.

This youtube video from the Free Congress Foundation (which RaleighReilly posted in the thread on cultural marxism destroying contemporary sweden) is a good introduction.

That conspiracy theory has then apparently spread from the US to various european xenophobic/racist/conservative organizations and individuals, e.g. Anders Breivik.

SherwoodAnderson    07-25-2011 02:11 PM

I might add that the William S. Lind mentioned by BrainGlutton above is the guy speaking in the Youtube video and is currently serving as director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism, within the larger Free Congress Foundation. Also taking note that Breivik, while describing his own political convictions in his Manifest 2083, defines himself as a “Cultural Conservative” which is probably not by accident.

SherwoodAnderson    07-25-2011 02:39 PM

Quote : Originally Posted by Der Trihs (Post 14062677) How nefarious of them!

Don’t want to blow your mind here buddy but the world is shock-full of people who feel that being expected to say “african-american” rather than “black” in polite company infringes on their most core liberties. Why, I’m sure you could even find some who feel that way on this very message board. And then when they find out it’s all been a big stinking communist plot all along – well should have figured.

BrainGlutton    07-25-2011 04:38 PM

Quote : Originally Posted by SherwoodAnderson (Post 14062728)

Don’t want to blow your mind here buddy but the world is shock-full of people who feel that being expected to say “african-american” rather than “black” in polite company infringes on their most core liberties. Why, I’m sure you could even find some who feel that way on this very message board. And then when they find out it’s all been a big stinking communist plot all along – well should have figured.

Probably the same people — or considerable overlap with those — who imagine a “New World Order” and, moreover, seem to have something against it. :confused:

marshmallow              07-25-2011 05:34 PM

Quote : Originally Posted by SherwoodAnderson (Post 14062534)

In that modern sense “Cultural Marxism” is really a conspiracy theory where Cultural Marxists (understood as a secret cabaal) have imposed values like tolerance, equality and multiculturalism on modern society. Those values in the aggregate are called “political correctness”.

Sounds exactly like the Turner Diaries, just replace Jews with Muslims/communists.

BrainGlutton    07-25-2011 06:04 PM

Quote : Originally Posted by marshmallow (Post 14063359)

These guys are crazy, yes. But as a lib the last thing you should want is world government. Because it definitely wouldn’t be social democratic.

Neoliberal, more likely. Like the EU writ large, more or less. But, that would be a step in the right direction and put an end to wars. And it might become something socialdemocratic eventually — or, if not, then at least evolve into a federation of socialdemocratic countries, like the EU writ large.

Qin Shi Huangdi  07-25-2011 08:22 PM

Quote : Originally Posted by Der Trihs (Post 14062465)

That assumes that the people who use the term disapprove of what he did. Killings by the anti-abortionist extremists certainly haven’t led to the movement changing its rhetoric. Much of the Right likes the idea of mass murdering its opponents.

Anybody who uses “Cultural Marxist” rhetoric isn’t comparable to Brevik anymore than all pro-lifers are comparable to abortion clinic bombers or all abolitionists to John Brown.

SherwoodAnderson    07-25-2011 08:48 PM

There used to be a few western intellectuals on the left who supported Stalin or Mao or argued that the revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie allowed for the use of any means necessary. They deserved to be discredited because of the atrocities committed by Mao, Stalin and the RAF. And by analogy I believe that some abortion opponents – those that use particularly inflammatory speech – and people who trade in conspiracy theories like Cultural Marxism, or general Xenophobia and Islamophobia deserve to be discredited by abortion clinic bombings, and Breiviks terrorism respectively… The same goes for the promoters of Takfiri Salafism for that matter. Some ideas and some ways of putting them are simply more prone to result in violence.

Der Trihs         07-25-2011 09:12 PM

I expect that most or all are by now are dead enough that discrediting them doesn’t accomplish much.

tomndebb  07-26-2011 09:08 AM

Quote : Originally Posted by Qin Shi Huangdi (Post 14063960)

Anybody who uses “Cultural Marxist” rhetoric isn’t comparable to Brevik anymore than all pro-lifers are comparable to abortion clinic bombers or all abolitionists to John Brown.

Nevertheless, it is not a common phrase in the U.S. or Britain and the only sources of the phrase on this board have been a couple of xenophobic haters from Scandinavia, (one poster and one terrorist in the news). If you would like to begin using the phrase with any regularity, feel free to do so, but recognize that you are, then, choosing to associate your own identity with that of extremists who have demonstrated no serious grasp of reality. (And using the phrase to indicate that there are shadowy forces imposing “political correctness”–whatever definition you choose to impose on that silly phrase–simply marks one as further unconnected with reality.)

Really Not All That Bright       07-26-2011 11:42 AM

Quote : Originally Posted by Acid Lamp (Post 14065737)

This the bit that makes my head explode. There is some secret, shadowy cabal of people who have plotted and infiltrated the media and government for decades, and their only goal is to make people be nice to one another? Well, it does sound awfully suspicious. 😀 elucidator       07-26-2011 11:52 AM

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011/…-may-be-right/ From the ever reliable Pat Buchanan…..

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE…#ixzz1TDOTaroZ

Quote : He admits to his “atrocious” but “necessary” crimes, done, he says, to bring attention to his ideas and advance his cause: a Crusader’s war between the real Europe and the “cultural Marxists” and Muslims they invited in to alter the ethnic character and swamp the culture of the Old Continent….

BrainGlutton    07-31-2011 12:36 PM

Political correctness (adjectivally, politically correct; both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts, and, as purported by the term, doing so to an excessive extent. and not an antidemocratic repressive totalitarian-style ideology, all wrapped up in deceiving altruism, with an underlying purpose of dismantling European traditions, cultures and identities, through massive immigration.

In fact, apart from avoidance of words like “wetbacks” and “illegals,” it has little to do with immigration at all. Nor has it anything to do with Cultural Marxism, which is: Cultural Marxism is a generic term referring to a loosely associated group of Marxists who have sought to apply critical theory to matters of family composition, gender, race, and cultural identity within Western society.

That is, a school of academic criticism, as opposed to a political movement or strategy.

RaleighRally    08-01-2011 04:51 PM

Quote  Originally Posted by SherwoodAnderson (Post 14085518)

The Frankfurt School -> ? -> The norm of “tolerance” in modern society Fill in the blank, then we’ll take you seriously.

In the 50s, the ideas of the Frankfurt School were repacked in ways college students could read and comprehend. In the 60s, the time was ripe for revolution. Herbert Marcuse became the chief guru of the New Left, and he injected cultural Marxism into the baby boom generation, to the point where it is now USA’s state ideology. The thing I just can’t understand is how those crappy ideas could end up in American college and school books. Same thing with the proven fallacies by Lewontin and Gould that were used to undermine European identities. They must have had pretty good connections of some sort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewontin%27s_Fallacy
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/sc…=2&ref=science

Chen019          08-01-2011 07:24 PM

Quote  Originally Posted by BrainGlutton (Post 14089476)

Actually, the way you’ve defined “cultural Marxism,” any party that rejects it is defined by xenophobia/racism/fascism. You do understand that, don’t you?

Yeah, but in your Internationalist Utopia you seem to think the Dalai Lama, and Israeli’s are just a bunch of xenophobes for wanting to preserve their culture. There is a reasonable document outlining cultural marxism here by Douglas Kellner. http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/culturalmarxism.pdf

SherwoodAnderson    08-01-2011 08:29 PM

Quote  Originally Posted by RaleighRally

Herbert Marcuse became the chief guru of the New Left, and he injected cultural Marxism into the baby boom generation, to the point where it is now USA’s state ideology. So the rightwing conception of Cultural Marxism is that some dude named Herbert Marcuse “injected” Marxism into the baby boom generation, and therefore Marxism is now US state ideology? Then I offer that as proof that Cultural Marxism is a conspiracy theory. Pretty much cased closed?

SherwoodAnderson    08-01-2011 08:39 PM

Quote  Originally Posted by Chen019 (Post 14089589)

Yeah, but in your Internationalist Utopia you seem to think the Dalai Lama, and Israeli’s are just a bunch of xenophobes for wanting to preserve their culture. There is a reasonable document outlining cultural marxism here by Douglas Kellner. http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/ke…ralmarxism.pdf

As you can easily see for yourself by reading the essay, it uses Cultural Marxism to refer to about what you’d expect – different conceptions of how Marxism could be and have been applied to “culture”. By various people, through history, belonging to different schools of Marxism, living in different countries with different modes of government. But the conception of Cultural Marxism that RaleighRally, Breivik and Tino Sanandaji all subscribe to specifically denotes the Frankfurt School and only them (check the Free Congress Foundation vid that RR posted). But they are in reality only one of many manifestations of Marxism as applied to the area of culture – and here they are rebranded and made part of a confused conspiracy theory that has something to do with muslim immigration to western countries.

All clear now?

BrainGlutton    08-02-2011 06:04 PM

Quote  Originally Posted by RaleighRally (Post 14089061)

In the 50s, the ideas of the Frankfurt School were repacked in ways college students could read and comprehend. In the 60s, the time was ripe for revolution. Herbert Marcuse became the chief guru of the New Left, and he injected cultural Marxism into the baby boom generation, to the point where it is now USA’s state ideology.

You keep repeating this bullshit, but you have yet to provide any proof.

tomndebb  08-02-2011 06:16 PM

Quote  Originally Posted by RaleighRally (Post 14089061)

In the 60s, the time was ripe for revolution. Herbert Marcuse became the chief guru of the New Left, and he injected cultural Marxism into the baby boom generation, to the point where it is now USA’s state ideology.

Which, of course, is why the U.S. has elected four Republican presidents (for a total of 28 years) in that same period, supporting such “New Left” activities as the invasion of Iraq, repeated laws and judicial rulings to push back affirmative action, and repeated actions to limit immigration or impede support for immigrants. You are so far out of touch with reality that your claims are not just unsupportable, but ludicrous.

BrainGlutton    08-02-2011 06:32 PM

Quote  Originally Posted by tomndebb (Post 14093628)

Which, of course, is why the U.S. has elected four Republican presidents (for a total of 28 years) in that same period, supporting such “New Left” activities as the invasion of Iraq, repeated laws and judicial rulings to push back affirmative action, and repeated actions to limit immigration or impede support for immigrants. You are so far out of touch with reality that your claims are not just unsupportable, but ludicrous.

He is correct only to the extent that “racism” is now a dirty word in America, which is all RR is really complaining about when he says “Cultural Marxism”; and that is a change of which Marcuse indeed would have approved, and of which any decent person would approve, but I don’t see how Marcuse can claim much credit. The cultural revolution against American racism happened at a grassroots level and involved millions of people black and white with little acquaintance with Marxist theory.

Slumberjack    04-20-2012 06:08 PM

Cultural Marxism (redneck jargon) = cultural relativism

I have been wondering the same thing for a long time now, and the answer is that i dunno, because “Cultural Marxism” according to the Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia cites Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Horkheimer, Gramsci, etc. However none of these authors ever postulated cultural relativism, which seems to be the underlying meaning. This is typical of right-wing political terminology, in that they simply don’t fit the facts. No prominent cultural Marxist ever stressed cultural relativism to my knowledge. So the right wingers have a point when they combat radical cultural relativism, but by giving it a name, i.e. “cultural Marxism”, that is a complete misnomer, the rightists deliberately confuse the issue.  Suppose when they say “Marxist” they mean it as an insult, like “bastard”, and it has little to do with Karl Marx’ ideas, even flatly contradicts them. After all Karl Marx had a soft spot for British imperialism. He had nothing but praise for the Raj.

Chuck11          07-12-2012 05:25 PM

The concept is developed in this book. Refer also here.

Quote

Is it possible, however, to talk about “cultural Marxism” as a purely descriptive term? Does “cultural Marxism” describe in a neutral enough fashion the movement of ideas that came out of the Frankfurt School and which has gained a powerful hold on Western countries? In my book, The Strange Death of Marxism, I argued that these ideas established themselves as leftist programs and progressive rhetoric throughout Western Europe, Canada, and the US before the fall of the Soviet empire. They evolved into a form of leftist radicalism that could coexist with consumer societies and mixed economies, because they focused on culture and society much more than they did the economy. Frankfurt School ideas have encouraged a war without quarter against bourgeois institutions and national identities—but that war does not necessarily require far-reaching change in the structure of the economy.

Chuck11          07-12-2012 06:08 PM

Quote  Originally Posted by tomndebb (Post 15262851) Well, that makes sense.

In other words, now it is like “Political Correctness,” nothing more than a glib dismissal thrown out by people who don’t like a topic or the direction of a discussion, based on a vague reference to an historical phenomenon that no longer exists.

Cultural marxism (CM) refers to marxist type critique, moralism, and utopic idealization applied to cultural as opposed to class (e.g., instead of proletariat vs bourgeois, cultural marxists focus on victim versus cultural supremacist; instead of a communist utopia, they strive for a culturally “inclusive, diverse” utopia; their focus on “social justice” is cultural, race, or ethnic based, not class based.) PC merely refers to social taboos, typically established by the left; there’s an overlap between PC and CM, as the latter utilize PC, but the two are conceptually distinct. The difference is comparable to that between “morality” and “Islam.” As for “multiculturalism”, there are senses in which it’s basically cultural marxism by another name, but there are also senses in which it means something different such as the converse of assimilationist policy. Like PC, multiculturalism can be used as a means of achieving the CM utopia (e.g., by deconstructing national characters), but it is not CM, except when it is.

BrainGlutton    07-12-2012 07:49 PM

Quote   Originally Posted by OnePercent (Post 15262811)

Sorry to bump this thread but I just couldn’t resist. Here is my definition of Cultural Marxism:
Cultural Marxism is colloquially known as “multiculturalism” or, less formally, Political Correctness.
Through the use of “Critical Theory” developed by the marxist philosophers of the Frankfurt School and held sacrosanct by the idealists of the “New Left”, indoctrinated Cultural Marxists utilize social class criticism to undermine “capitalist” bourgeois culture. The overarching goal is to reduce the cultural dominance of the “middle-class” in favor of the proletariat, a group that is seen as being more amenable to economic marxism. In practice cultural marxists criticize the major cultural institutions of a society as being “racist” or “sexist” in order to undermine them and cause internal divisions within them. The ultimate goal is to turn a unified and functional culture into a dysfunctional and fractured one. They do this in the belief that such disorder will finally bring about Marx’s fabled “proletarian revolution”.

:dubious: That’s as much as to say that political correctness has “proletarian revolution” as its goal, which is entirely too ludicrous an idea to be taken seriously, and you fucking know it.

Quote

The term political correctness or “PC” usually refers to upholding a social taboo against language and attitudes that might be considered offensive. This term has become a boogey-man for the right, who use it to tar anything that runs contrary to their own policies, such as letting women out of the kitchen or gays out of the closet.

Ruth Perry wrote in an essay entitled A Short History of the Term “Politically Correct” that the term was first coined by Mao Zedong, but was later hijacked by right wing nut jobs conservative eclectics who proceeded to overuse it in exactly the manner above described, hence taking all the juice out of it. More recently, advocates of political correctness have therefore substituted the term “civilized speech” for “politically correct” in order to boost its image in light of the PC backlash. Ironically, conservatives have also adopted political correctness widely; trying to justify censorship on the grounds that something is “offensive to Christians,” for example, or Conservapedia’s insistence on BC/AD to the total exclusion of BCE/CE. Passive-aggressive people who defend racism but don’t want to be labeled that way attack dissenters as “politically correct.” Nor does either equate to multiculturalism.

Quote

Multiculturalism is the phenomenon of multiple groups of cultures existing within one society, largely due to the arrival of immigrant communities. Supporters of multiculturalism claim that different traditions and cultures can enrich society; however, the concept also has its critics, to the point where the term “multiculturalism” may well be used more by critics than by supporters. It could, indeed, be classified as a snarl word.

Definitions
Multiculturalism occurs naturally when a society is willing to accept the culture of immigrants (with, ideally, immigrants also willing to accept the culture of the land to which they have come.) A distinction should be drawn between multiculturalism that occurs simply due to the absense of a single enforced culture, and multiculturalism which is endorsed and actively encouraged by the government; this is often referred to as state multiculturalism.

Kenan Malik states that “The experience of living in a society transformed by mass immigration, a society that is less insular, more vibrant and more cosmopolitan, is positive” but contrasts this with the political process of multiculturalism, which “describes a set of policies, the aim of which is to manage diversity by putting people into ethnic boxes, defining individual needs and rights by virtue of the boxes into which people are put, and using those boxes to shape public policy.”[1]

That has nothing to do with “proletarian revolution” either, of course.

BrainGlutton    07-12-2012 07:57 PM

Quote   Originally Posted by Chuck11 (Post 15266364)

The concept is developed in this book. Refer also here.

:rolleyes: That VDARE piece by Paul Gottfried actually refers to the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “leftist vigilante group.” ‘Nuff said, and less said the better.

tomndebb  07-12-2012 08:49 PM

Quote  Originally Posted by Chuck11 (Post 15266364)

The concept is developed in this book. Refer also here.

So, basically, it is nothing more than a defunct academic exercise, the name of which is still waved about by crusaders from the Far Right to try to poison the well of any discussion in which they have too few facts, so they must wave the “Marx” boogeyman around, (even though he had nothing to do with it), to taint the discussion.

Basically, “cultural Marxism” is simply a bad mindset that libels the person for whom it is named by misapplying some eponymous ideas in totally inappropriate contexts, much like “social Darwinism.” And, as noted, the former is now not even pursued much in academia, remaining in the language only as an insult by people who need a handy code word for “bad” that does not get them branded as rude for using the words they would prefer to use.