Marxism is alive and well. Not so much in the former Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact countries, or even in Communist China! Where is Marxism thriving? The same place it always has thrived: In Universities and in the teaching schools. It has thrived to the point that it is rapidly supplanting the American civic heritage of liberty and virtue.
In order to fight back against them, we must understand them. They are no longer the stereotypical type who shout “workers of the world unite!!1!” at the top of their lungs. The Marxism we face is Cultural Marxism, and their academic vanguard is Critical Theory.
Cultural Marxism can be defined as “a branch of Marxism advocated by the Frankfurt School of philosophers such as Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse that focuses on cultural factors as agents for social change, as opposed to the traditional Marxist view that focused on economic factors.”
“Chandler’s Ghost” over at “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot” explains further:
“Basically, Cultural Marxism uses the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat as its framework, and substitutes economic class with race, sex, religion, etc. It’s still an oppressor vs. oppressed thing, but the true goal of destroying capitalism, which is always the ultimate goal, is hidden in a humanitarian framework.
“The general rule works something like this: the new bourgeoisie is always white, almost always straight, usually male, and not confused about the nature of its private parts. There are bonus points for having money, but it’s not necessary. The proletariat is everyone else, which is why straight white women and white lesbians sometimes fall into the bourgeoisie category.”
Critical Theory is a fake study that basically starts with the conclusion that society is innately false and oppressive because it is embodies the normative values of “Whiteness,” the “cis-gender,” “heterosexuality,” and “Patriarchy ™” (all of which are declared “false and oppressive”), and must therefore be recasted “in a given mold, of shaping the mentality of the population as a whole in accordance with a predetermined model and instilling the ideas and sentiments they though desirable in the minds of all.” Critical Theory serves, then, as simply a mode of tearing down society.
Understanding how Marx’s core ideas live on under Cultural Marxism is also important. “Chandler’s Ghost” explains:
“In Marxist theory the base is the economic system (called the means or mode of production in Marxist terms.) The base that Marx was agitating against was industrial capitalism, owned and run by the class of individuals known as the bourgeoisie. Since the bourgeoisie can be anyone from the guy who owns the corner taco truck to Bill Gates, think Henry Ford or Andrew Carnegie for simplicity’s sake.
“The class struggle in Marxism is based on ownership and control of the base. In Marx’s context, the battle is between the bourgeoisie and the class of workers, the proletariat.
“…
“The superstructure is the culture created to keep the ruling class in control of the base. It includes religion, popular culture, the political structure, and just about every other form of cultural expression. Marxists are in disagreement as to whether or not the superstructure is controlled completely by the base or if the superstructure influences the base, but that’s not something I want to get into on a Sunday afternoon. Think of the superstructure as an expression of the base. One example would be Protestant Christianity and the fabled Protestant work ethic as an expression of entrepreneurial capitalism.”
While this sounds outdated, the core idea and what is necessary to overthrow it have simply mutated from an economic idea into a cultural one that reaches right into our core humanity, wherein the Cultural Marxists and modern day Progressives wish to rewrite humanity with the social equivalent of Intelligent Design.
“Cultural Marxism (also called Cultural Studies) takes the basic model but uses multiple cultural bases instead of an economic one. The most common bases are white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and now, increasingly, cis-normativity (God help us.) The job of the cultural Marxist critic is to ferret out examples of the above in the superstructure. Religion is probably the easiest place to find examples of these, hence the hostility to obvious targets like the Catholic Church, but the critic gains much more prestige finding examples of the new cultural bases in places where they aren’t obvious. A Lefty Facebook friend of mine posted an article stating that it was racist for people to criticize Rihanna for going back to Chris Brown because no one was criticizing Madonna for dating Sean Penn, even though the latter example happened around thirty years ago.”
The sad folly of this, is that they truly believe that a utopia will spontaneously pop into existence once the “evil” had been rent asunder.
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