Last week, I gave an introduction to the philosophical and ideological schools of thought that comprise something which can be categorized as Cultural Marxism and its most prominent present-day iteration: Postmodernism. That is, the philosophy that personal experience of the world has more weight than objective facts, and that arguing for objective truth is a form of intolerance that cannot be accepted. We looked at a few of its real-life results like the Sokal Affair and #CancelColbert, and how the mindset of the Cultural Marxist is characterized by embracing Truthiness. This week let us explore what the rise of this way of thinking means for politics, the media, and how these interact with current events. And let’s take a look if Cultural Marxism is a good name for all this.



Source: Public Domain – Wikimedia

Many Cultural Marxist thinkers focused on the problems that are tackled by the present-day ‘Social Justice’ movement. After the 2nd World War, Marxists were forced to contend with the failure of Marx’s prediction that the Collapse of Capitalism (which was thought to have happened in the Interbellum period) would result in the rise of Communism out of the Proletariat’s rebellion against the Bourgeoisie and Aristocracy who exploited them. Some abandoned Marxism entirely, but others explained it by various means and shifted their focus based on their conclusions; in the case of Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School, their conclusion was that the Working Class considered themselves too upwardly mobile to rebel against the social order, and so looked to other populations whom they considered to be repressed. In pursuit of understanding these issues, they gained overwhelming influence in numerous Social Science departments in Europe and the United States.

There were entire movements that rose up such as the student protesters of the New Left, which sought improvements to civil rights with regard to sexuality, drugs and free speech, based largely on the teachings of the Frankfurt School. They moved away from supporting the Labor movement and much traditional Economic Marxism, in line with the philosophical evolution of Cultural Marxism. Eventually, they integrated in to the Democratic Party in the United States.

The focus on civil rights issues and Social Justice continued, blending class analysis and rejection of objectivity with the preexisting ideologies of Feminism and similar movements. Consequently, we now have Postmodern Feminism, which holds that gender is constructed through language and culture, rather than a natural occurrence based on actual biology or any other measurable reality. There is Critical Race Theory, which examines the interconnecting effects of race, legalism, and other power. The field of intersectionality, the politics of difference and recognition emerged from Postmodernism in the ’90s; as did Identity Politics in general. Each of these has been deeply influenced by and in turn they have shaped the modern incarnations of Cultural Marxism, taking their place in Political Science, Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies and more. They are each uniquely Western phenomena, mostly centered in and focused on the United States; maturing in the greatest bastion of capitalism.

Indeed, Identity Politics in the United States in particular are where these Cultural Marxist schools of thought may exert their greatest influence today. Political activists campaigning based on their religion, gender, ethnicity, class, or ideology quickly recognize the power of ‘the means of cultural production’, i.e. the media: the tools of cultural dissemination are required to ‘get your message out’, and at the start of their activist careers most do not have access to such tools. As minorities, they are forced to adopt methods of minority influence to impact the behavior and politics of the majority in their favor: first personal involvement in the media to spread their message and then gradual conversion of their colleagues towards adopting their (frankly positive) ideas of diversity and inclusivity. This flows as a natural process: few find advancing civil rights objectionable. But this also (unintentionally) spread Postmodernism, and by doing so strengthened an already nascent belief that media reporting could change the world, and indeed could shape reality through controlling what cultural products people are exposed to.

As media grew more and more accustomed to the intrusion of politics, they were helped along by economic factors incentivizing newspapers and television stations to cater to an ideologically homogenous audience with the reality as they wished to see it, rather than provide factual reporting in the Realist tradition. The philosophy that there is no such thing as objective reality which one should strive to report on is a great boon to those who are becoming more aware of the power they could use to affect change in the world by presenting reality as they would like it to be. Power they could use, and at times abuse.



Source: Epoch Times

In 2007 the situation had progressed so far that hundreds of influential ‘left-leaning’ journalists and academics joined in a secret forum called the JournoList (which just happened to exclude conservative opinions because of “empiricism, not ideology”) where they discussed how to present – and at times withhold – certain stories from the public to the apparent benefit of then-Presidential-candidate Barack Obama. Despite protestations that it was entirely proper and acceptable that they should secretly discuss these matters with their supposed rivals as friendly colleagues, and that no actual collusion had taken place, revelation of the JournoList to the public was the end of it in 2010. The extent of its influence while it operated has never been quantified, but there is another aspect to this kind of behavior beyond collusion: the ideological isolation leads to something called an echo chamber. It’s understood that people who only hear certain media will grow to believe that media’s version of the truth… but when those media themselves are shutting themselves off from critical voices, they tend to amplify the confirmation of each other’s opinions to the point where doubts disappear and they will believe their isolated point of view is a broad consensus. This can distort reality significantly.

The movements that entered this new media landscape took the place of the social movements of the ‘60s and ‘70s, after Second Wave Feminists, Black Nationalists, Gay Pride activists and other Civil Rights campaigners found homes in the political establishment; they found far greater media support. The new radicals were emerging in the ‘90s, a time where the Left was ‘dead’ after the fall of the Soviet Union and with Tiananmen fresh in people’s minds. Marxism was not a winning philosophy to be associated with in the West, and Eastern communist thinkers had little clout left. So how can it be that a neo-Marxian ideology has such a hold on the world now, just two decades later? Surely that trend towards activist rather than objective media isn’t an actual Left Wing Media Conspiracy? How on earth could such a concept possibly influence President Bush, arch-conservative?

No, indeed it is not a leftist conspiracy. It’s an entirely natural ideological and economic process which is well suited to operate in a capitalist society; it has evolved within that society and has broad appeal to Left and Right alike. The reason this is possible is that Cultural Marxism bears little resemblance or relation to Economic Marxism, to Communism, or to the Reds. It’s questionable whether it ever did. So, when right-wing commentators point to these activists and accuse them of being Communists this seems patently absurd to them (being mostly unaware of the Marxist thinking that helped shape their movement) and to Leftists (who don’t see these people fighting for the Working Class very often) alike.

Though both Economic and Cultural Marxism apply broadly the same reasoning to a problem, the actual problem and conclusions are vastly different:

Marx and his economic theorist allies saw the dominant economic system as the majority of people, the proletariat, alienated from what they produce economically and struggling against exploitation by the minority, the wealthy Bourgeois capitalists. He believed this was part of a progression of class conflicts as different groups of people gained and lost economic power. He further held that inevitably the proletariat would be deprived of ever more until they would revolt and throw out their overlords and replace the oppressive capitalist system with an egalitarian Utopia: communism – that is, after a period of lamentably necessary but hopefully brief democratic dictatorship. These theories came out of a form of Realism applied to economics and society.

Cultural Marxism on the other hand set to examine very different oppression: that in the dominant culture. On witnessing the end of the World Wars and they moved past the failure of the Proletariat to revolt, despite having been thrown in to the meat grinder of war by their rulers. These theorists concluded that the working class never would revolt, as they were taking advantage of capitalism to join the Bourgeousie themselves, as part of a ‘One-Dimensional’ culture. Abandoning Marx’s focus on the exploitation of the majority by an economically privileged few, these theorists looked toward other injustice: the cultural oppression of minority populations and of the subjects of Western Imperialism. Discarding entirely Marx’s focus on power flowing from wealth, they concluded that oppressed populations are kept under the thumb of White, Western culture; this culture had been that of the ruling class, but had become ubiquitous and hegemonic. According to this view, all women are suppressed by Patriarchy. Homosexuals, transgender individuals and all others with differing sexual or gender identity are victims of hetero-normativity. Those struggling in former Western colonies are suffering from Western Hegemony, and have for generations; suffering that current generations in the West benefit from as White Privilege, and so bear some responsibility for. This oppression is not held to be the result of unequal distribution of economic (or cultural) power; instead, unequal distribution of power is concluded to result from the biases and bigotry of Imperialists. The basis of much of this thought is anti-realist.

This is how many apparent contradictions of Cultural Marxism are possible: When minorities gain disproportional media representation, they will have control of ‘the means of cultural production’, and can dictate their will to the majority. How does desiring such media influence mesh with Marx’s contention that a disenfranchised majority will naturally rise up against a minority owning the means of production? It does not, but then Cultural Marxism has little in common with Marxism.

Feminists of various waves have fought each other rhetorically with gusto. Arguments have raged over gender feminism vs equality feminism with each side stating the other are not true feminists. There is frequent application of ideological purity tests in Social Justice activism, where activists must agree with the ‘right people’ (i.e. any vague hint of socially-unacceptable thoughts going against authority result in ostracism and social censure). How does such authoritarianism, frequently bordering on McCarthyism, reconcile with Marx’s famous quote “[those who are oppressed] of all countries, unite!”? It can’t, but then Cultural Marxism has little in common with Marxism.

One prominent Postmodernist, Martin Heidegger, lived in an era where anti-Semitism was normal. Consequently, he had no reservations about joining the Nazi party in 1933; his philosophy became quite influential in Nazi ideology. He was critical of Marxism, examining it through the Nazi conflation with Judaism, but commented on how the “final form of Marxism […] has essentially nothing to do with either Judaism or even with Russia” and it seems any anti-Semitism he might have harbored had little bearing on his philosophy. He was not a Marxist, but his thinking was quite influential to the Critical Theorists, being synthesized into ‘Heidegerrian Marxism’ by Marcuse. How could Marxist class theories be compatible with a philosophy so suited to Fascist surroundings? They are not, but then Cultural Marxism has little in common with Marxism.

Despite Heidegger’s questionable past, many Critical Theorists like Max Horkheimer were Jewish, and experienced the 2nd World War quite differently. Horkheimer initially set out what Critical Theory should entail: looking at the significance of social relationships between people and how the ruling understandings of the bourgeoisie contributed to justifying their dominant position over the proletariat. As the only son of a wealthy Jewish family at the turn of the 20th century, he was set to inherit his father’s factory, but went in to academia and became Professor of Social Philosophy in Frankfurt University in 1930. Despite his wealth and personal success, he and the rest of the Frankfurt School were soon confronted by Hitler’s rise to power, and they moved to the US where Columbia University granted them a building to house their institute in 1934. This experience with the abstract nature of class advantage being entirely overwhelmed by anti-Semitism in Nazi culture undoubtedly caused reflection in Horkheimer’s – and subsequently the entire Frankfurt School’s – examination of power dynamics, and was likely instrumental in the differentiation from Economic Marxism.

Along with many other differences, cultural power differentiates itself from economic power by being extremely hard to quantify. Culture is not something which the masses of the people regularly produce in order to trade it for other goods or services, and accumulation of culture or cultural power cannot be easily examined as the co-opting of something belonging to an individual, as labor can. Especially in our modern, individualistic age, this makes an examination of power differentials within and between cultures very difficult. Does having a blog make you powerful? Does having a strong Twitter presence with many followers make you powerful? The cultural theorists rarely look at specifics in this way, focusing instead on the broad patterns of racism, misogyny and other structural oppression rather than pointing out individual actual bigots. As such, broad discrimination problems are frequently countered by positive discrimination policies like affirmative action.

The prominent Critical Theorist Herbert Marcuse wrote: “The small and powerless minorities which struggle against the false consciousness and its beneficiaries must be helped: their continued existence is more important than the preservation of abused rights and liberties which grant constitutional powers to those who oppress these minorities. It should be evident by now that the exercise of civil rights by those who don’t have them presupposes the withdrawal of civil rights from those who prevent their exercise.”

This unfortunately has the side effect of discounting individual cases where traditional roles are reversed: when men are the victims of sexual discrimination; when white people are disadvantaged in favor of a black person. Imposing individual disadvantage is acceptable when it balances out the scale of what is now commonly called Privilege. This avoidance of looking at individual cases makes the philosophy very appealing to individuals whom stand to personally gain from it, as no matter how wealthy, powerful or influential they are, they can appeal to belonging to an oppressed class and so be seen as deserving of preferential treatment despite already being in ad advantaged position.

This can be quite strikingly self-contradictory at times, when the ideology of favoring the culturally oppressed group leads to differing conclusions in similar situations: Racial disproportionality in prisons, where African-Americans comprise a far higher percentage of prison inmates (37%) than their percentage of the population at large (14%), is held to be quite obviously racist. However, gender disproportionality in prisons, where males comprise a far higher percentage of prison inmates (93%), than their percentage in the population at large (49%) is held to be an obvious sign that men are more criminal and dangerous than women.

Due to these identity politics, this ideology can also lead to very odd invocations of oppression. Witness U.S. House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Speaker Pelosi is one of the most powerful women in America; her personal wealth is in the tens of millions; through her office, she is able to command the attention of the nation and pick and choose what major media institutions to appear in almost at-will (note the almost, it’s important). Recently she commented on receiving critical questions that her male colleagues would not be asked the same thing (they were asked the same thing). She also indicated a concern that her being skipped over for a Time magazine cover was due to her gender (though Hillary Clinton has been featured multiple times). Rather than a focus on individual merit and possible personal successes or failures, the differential treatment was attributed to structural difference and fault on the part of society in general, with an implicit accusation: there must be ingrained bigotry at Time. Speaker Pelosi is a member of an ‘oppressed’ minority. She is therefore a victim.



Source: House.gov

Does Speaker Pelosi actually believe she is a victim of structural oppression, from her position as the most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives? I suspect she does not. But the narrative of sexism is remarkably hard to defeat, once it’s out there. The Washington Times and Business Insider both ran stories covering how Speaker Pelosi slammed Time for sexism, and many others followed suit. It is quite beneficial to be a victim in this way: it’s an invitation for positive discrimination to correct the ‘mistreatment’. So long as enough people believe Time acted in a sexist manner, Time is sexist, and must atone for this to the victim’s satisfaction. Similarly, being a victim of Stephen Colbert’s ‘racism’ was beneficial to Suey Park, granting her vast media attention, propelling her personal brand to the forefront of Asian-American activism and garnering her significant influence.

While individuals fighting for Feminist causes may not really believe that Speaker Pelosi is a victim, it is in their interests to support her and the narrative of Patriarchal Oppression at the Highest Levels, in order to gain a powerful political ally. In an unfortunate coincidence, Speaker Pelosi had just denied her colleague, disabled Iraq war veteran and minority Representative Tammy Duckworth, the right the vote by proxy, necessitated on grounds of her being pregnant – and apparently for reasons of political expedience. However, the feeling Speaker Pelosi expresses of having been discriminated against is enough to justify this alliance, despite the reality of her incredibly privileged position in society and plainly anti-feminist denial of the vote to a woman due to something related to her gender. It is in her interest to speak about Feminist ideals which are totally at odds with her actions, to maintain the support of grass-roots activists which significant reach and a message which it is socially difficult to oppose; especially as this alliance also aids her party.

And so we arrive at the final contradiction of Cultural Marxism: its adoption by those whom Marx called the Bourgeoisie. A capitalist (in Marxist terminology), self-marketing politician, part of the eternally-incumbent establishment; a person with vast economic and cultural capital discounting every single advantage she’s ever had to play up a disadvantage which doesn’t limit her. Doing so in order to deflect criticism and to ally with those nominally fighting for Social Justice. These are the reality-warping effects of applying Cultural Marxism in the name of equality.

I suspect that Karl Marx would be wondering – if he were alive – why these Feminists were not seizing Speaker Pelosi’s means of production right about now. It is because the ideology that they share in their cooperation is brutally mercenary.

And that thought, dear reader, brings me to the title of these two pieces. Perhaps flippant, certainly ironic; it may be as inaccurate a descriptor of the philosophy of Identity Politics which blights the modern political landscape as the label Cultural Marxism is.

Whatever we choose to call it, let us recognize the influence and insidious power of that which has born all these names. Very simply: the practical outcome of applying Cultural Marxism – of rejecting objective reality – is destructive to reason, that’s what makes it bad.

Not its ties to Communism as Lind asserted, and not its cozy relationship with Capitalism which I have asserted. Witness this very article: written by a Marxist at the urging of a Libertarian friend, united in horror at the insanity flowing from this philosophy. Cultural Marxism is as much a product of Fascism as it is of Marxism, and as much of Capitalism as of either of those. Its fundamental tenet is the rejection of objectivity, of facts, and of reason; this bears no relation to any theories of economics or government. It is an anti-intellectual beast all its own.

Richard van Schaik is a non-expert in every field attempting to complete his degree in Developmental Psychology while engaging in procrastination through political writing. He lives, studies, and teaches Psychology in Maastricht, part of that bulbous dangly bit on the Southern end of the Netherlands.

Don’t miss last week’s piece: Cultural Marxism (Part I).

Image sources: Telegraph.co.uk | Marcuse.org