SOCIETY AND POWER - 24/07/2016Cultural Marxism is a term used by critics and even self-admitted Marxists are unlikely to use the term to describe their own ideology. Also, Cultural Marxism has its origin in Marxist ideas but those promoting the ideas of Cultural Marxism today may not always know of this or consider themselves to be Marxists. Instead, promoters of Cultural Marxism may use terms such as critical theory, postmodernism, deconstruction, or similar terms.
Since culture is considered the primary factor which sustain inequalities, Cultural Marxism is opposed to other explanations for inequalities such as religious explanations, individual choices, or genetic factors. Unlike Marxism which primarily focuses on economic inequalities and economic classes, Cultural Marxism see culture as a main cause for many different kinds of inequalities:
Race (Whites/non-Whites)
Culture (Western/non-Western)
Family (nuclear family/non-nuclear family)
Religion (Christianity/atheism and religious minorities)
Gender (men/women)
Sexual orientation (heterosexual/LGBT)
Cultural Marxism places great emphasis on analyzing, controlling, and changing the popular culture, the popular discourse, the mass media, and the language itself. Seeing culture as often having more or less subconscious influences on people which create and sustain inequalities, Cultural Marxists themselves often try to remove these inequalities by more or less subtle manipulation and censorship of culture.
A term describing such censorship is political correctness where all views on equality that disagree with the Cultural Marxist view are avoided, censored, and punished. Related to Cultural Marxism are various forms of relativism/subjectivism and denial of the existence of objective knowledge.
The Frankfurt School blended Marx with Freud, and later influences added linguistics to create “Critical Theory” and “deconstruction.” These in turn greatly influenced education theory, and through institutions of higher education gave birth to what we now call “Political Correctness.” The lineage is clear, and it is traceable right back to Karl Marx.
FIRST PARALLEL: FORCED TOTALITARIAN SOCIETY
The parallels between the old, economic Marxism and cultural Marxism are evident.
Cultural Marxism, or Political Correctness, shares with classical Marxism the vision of a “classless society,” i.e., a society not merely of equal opportunity, but equal condition.
Since that vision contradicts human nature – because people are different, they end up unequal, regardless of the starting point – society will not accord with it unless forced. So, under both variants of Marxism, it is forced. This is the first major parallel between classical and cultural Marxism: both are totalitarian ideologies. The totalitarian nature of Political Correctness can be seen on campuses where “PC” has taken over the college: freedom of speech, of the press, and even of thought are all eliminated.
SECOND PARALLEL: HISTORICAL DETURPATION
The second major parallel is that both classical, economic Marxism and cultural Marxism have single-factor explanations of history. Classical Marxism argues that all of history was determined by ownership of the means of production. Cultural Marxism says that history is wholly explained by which groups – defined by sex, race, religion and sexual normality or abnormality – have power over which other groups.
THIRD PARALLEL: ARTIFICIAL CLASSIFICATION OF GOOD VERSUS EVIL
The third parallel is that both varieties of Marxism declare certain groups virtuous and others evil a priori, that is, without regard for the actual behaviour of individuals. Classical Marxism defines workers and peasants as virtuous and the bourgeoisie (the middle class) and other owners of capital as evil. Cultural Marxism defines all minorities, what they see as the victims; Muslims, Feminist women, homosexuals and someadditional minority groups as virtuous and they view ethnic Christian European men as evil. (Cultural Marxism does not recognise the existence of non-Feminist women, and defines Muslims, Asians and Africans who reject Political Correctness as evil, just like native Christian or even atheist Europeans.).
FOURTH PARALLEL: EXPROPRIATION
The fourth parallel is in means: expropriation. Economic Marxists, where they obtained power, expropriated the property of the bourgeoisie and handed it to the state, as the “representative” of the workers and the peasants. Cultural Marxists, when they gain power (including through our own government), lay penalties on native European men and others who disagree with them and give privileges to the ”victim” groups they favour. Affirmative action is an example.
FIFTH PARALLEL:TWISTING FACTS TO CREATE OPPRESSION
Finally, both varieties of Marxists employ a method of analysis designed to show the correctness of their ideology in every situation. For classical Marxists, the analysis is economic. For cultural Marxists, the analysis is linguistic: deconstruction. Deconstruction “proves” that any “text,” past or present, illustrates the oppression of Muslims, women, homosexuals, etc. by reading that meaning into words of the text (regardless of their actual meaning). Both methods are, of course, phony analyses that twist the evidence to fit preordained conclusions, but they lend a ‘scientific” air to the ideology.
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