In the 1970s, the suffering caused by Communism had become so obvious, that no leftist wished to be associated with economic Marxism or Marx in general, lest they lose any credibility they once held. In order to stop this accusation from spreading, leftists from the Frankfurt School and Post-Modernist thinkers developed social theories which primarily focused on the power struggle between different groups. By removing economics from the equation, these “Cultural Marxists” expanded Marx’s “class struggle” beyond bourgeois vs. proletarian. Under the critical theory of the Cultural Marxists, this class struggle extended to anyone of a so-called “oppressor” class vs. anyone of a so-called “oppressed” class. The Left replaced their agenda of Economic Marxism with Cultural Marxism.

The purpose of this article is an examination of Cultural Marxism. We shall begin by examining what Cultural Marxism is not. After showing what Cultural Marxism is not, we shall investigate what Cultural Marxism is and how it is in fact an attack on Western Civilization and its entire value system. Throughout the article, we will see that Cultural Marxism is perhaps the greatest threat to a civil society and must be destroyed if we want liberty in our lifetime.



What Cultural Marxism Is Not

Cultural Marxism is not a grand conspiracy of the Frankfurt School to implement communism. Cultural Marxism was developed through more influences than just the Frankfurt School and critical theory, though they did play a fundamental role in its development.

Cultural Marxism is not some false issue, as many would claim it to be. Many will claim that Cultural Marxism does not exist as it is a label with which the Right has branded certain leftist thinkers. While the first uses of the term do in fact come from critics of Post-Modernism and the Frankfurt School, that does not mean that the term is automatically discredited. It means that individuals on the Right have identified correctly the Marxist tendencies of these actors.

Cultural Marxism is far from a non-issue. These interests have done exactly what they need to do in order to gain power. They have infected the educational institutions. They have hijacked academia. They have distorted the definition of justice. They have disrupted our morals. They have disintegrated our civil society. They are the teachers of our children. They are the single greatest threat the West and liberty faces today, and they will continue to be until libertarians and conservatives alike see them as the threat they are.

Cultural Marxism is not compatible with advocacy for justice, whether it be individual or social. Justice, in essence, is the preservation of the rights of individuals. Cultural Marxists have no concern for the rights of individuals. In fact, they are willing to trample individual rights in the pursuit of one thing: power. They who are complicit in the Cultural Marxist advocacy merely become useful idiots to the power-hungry individuals advocating for this twisted ideology.

Above all, Cultural Marxism is not compatible with libertarianism. As mentioned above, these actors will trample your rights in the pursuit of justice. They will encourage other individuals to follow them in this action. They have no regard for the institution of private property. In fact, they are advocates of the disintegration of private property, as many call it “oppressive.”

What Cultural Marxism is

Cultural Marxism is the new class warfare under the philosophies of Post-Modernism and Critical Theory, which emerged from the Frankfurt School. The fundamental tenet of Post-Modernism is that Western Culture is outdated and must be overthrown for humanity to progress into the future. As for critical theory, every norm and every custom is challenged in order to help the “oppressed” minority.

Take this example from Frankfurt School thinker Herbert Marcuse’s A Critique of Pure Tolerance: “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 minorities.” In other words, if you are a part of a majority, your position is inherently oppressive. Due to the “oppressive” nature of your position, it is ok to violate your rights to implement such an egalitarian outcome. Equality of liberty is not enough for the Cultural Marxists, not even equality of opportunity. What the Cultural Marxist claims to seek is equity: or equality of outcome.

But the goal of the Cultural Marxist is not equality, it is power. For the Post-Modernist, there is nothing BUT power. And the Cultural Marxist gains power by creating a victim class, and winning the hearts of those who see themselves as victims of society. As Saul Alinsky says in his Rules for Radicals: “The organizer’s first job is to create the issues or problems.” By dividing people into groups and claiming some groups to be oppressive while claiming other groups to be oppressed, the Cultural Marxist creates a dangerous dichotomy. With this dichotomy, the Cultural Marxist gains the tool to implement their totalitarian society.

According to the great Ron Paul, Cultural Marxism is “a form of cultural terrorism” against Western countries. The Leftists in academia are not idiots. “If the Western World rejects communism, then we must destroy the Western World.” This is the mindset of the Cultural Marxist. If this were as much of a threat as Economic Marxism, this article would have no relevance. But it is much more dangerous than its economic counterpart, as anyone can be considered a have-not from the Post-Modernist Perspective because of its subjectivity.

So, how does Cultural Marxism actually contribute to the death of the West? This question will be answered as this article develops. Perhaps the greatest blow to the West which the Cultural Marxists have inflicted, however, is the destruction of the notion of individual liberty and its replacement with seeing people as parts of a group. The danger of this idea comes to play when the Cultural Marxist convinces these groups that they are oppressed by other groups, or worse yet, anyone that is not part of their group. Through this, the Cultural Marxist justifies his attempt to trample upon the rights of individuals. He claims it is to provide more equality in the world. But of course we know their true goal: power.

Who are the oppressors and the oppressed according to the Cultural Marxist? In short, the oppressor is anyone of Western origin and the oppressed is anyone of non-Western Origin. To the Cultural Marxist, Parenthood is oppressive; pride in one’s family is oppressive; traditional gender roles, or traditional attitudes towards sex is oppressive; love of one’s nation, community, or in-group (if that group is within the Western Majority, that is) is oppressive; masculinity is oppressive; whiteness is oppressive; Christianity is oppressive; and so on.

In The Authoritarian Personality, Theodor Adorno takes this to a whole new level, contending that such beliefs are a sickness, classifying them as “pathological phenomena.” This is the origin of classifying any pro-Western ideal as “phobic.” The terms homophobe, xenophobe, islamophobe, transphobe, et al. all emerge from Adorno’s train of thought. The desire to stick to one’s in-group, if pro-Western, is considered a sickness. But when the so-called oppressed self-segregate, it is called “Multi-Culturalism.” In essence, if you are a straight, white, Christian, monogamous male with any semblance of pride in Western Culture, you are sick and oppressive to be corrected by your Marxist betters.

Ultimately, if you follow the traditions of the West, you are by default an oppressor and you must be marginalized, shamed, and removed from existence if the twisted view of “justice” conveyed by the advocates of Cultural Marxism is to be achieved. Dr. Paul’s accusation of “cultural terrorism” makes much more sense when one cross-applies the articles which I have linked in this article.

This creation of victim classes destroys individual responsibility, a concept fundamental to Western Civilization. If one buys the myth of Cultural Marxism, nothing is ever the fault of the supposedly oppressed minority. If something goes wrong in their life, then it clearly is because of the fact that they are part of an oppressed social class. If you are well off, you didn’t accomplish that. Your privilege was responsible for that. If there is inequality, it is because of oppression and oppression alone, thinks the Cultural Marxist.

Along with this, it is the goal of Cultural Marxism to destroy civil society. As mentioned above, community, family, church, tradition, all seemingly non-governmental aspects of society are considered oppressive, and must be destroyed according to the Cultural Marxist. Libertarians tend to forget that the family is the first line of defense against the State. By destroying the institutions of civil society, the one entity which a person in distress can resort to is the government.

For this matter, the Cultural Marxist must destroy the Church. By destroying God, the Cultural Marxist makes the State, the territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making, the highest being in society. Disrespecting state power becomes the new blasphemy, and the punishment goes beyond excommunication. By destroying humanity’s mythologies and replacing it with the State, the window for totalitarianism swings open.

Another tactic of the Cultural Marxist is the creation of new rights. This is why one must fight against the notion of “positive rights.” One does not have the right to impose a burden upon another individual. They only have the right not to be aggressed upon. By adding rights such as food, healthcare, housing, equality, and other privileged based on the labor of others, Cultural Marxists implement legal positivism and compel the public to believe that rights come from the State, rather than human nature. This deals a devastating blow to the Western value of Liberty.

How to Fight Cultural Marxism

Libertarians make the mistake of ignoring Cultural Marxism. Some corporate-backed weak libertarian groups such as Libertarianism.org, Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Reason Magazine, and other organizations like these have gone so far as to support the egalitarian nature of Cultural Marxism. This tacit support for Cultural Marxism, however, has only led to the modern libertarian movement contributing to the destruction of property rights. I will elaborate on this point as this section progresses, but it is important to note that this tacit support of Cultural Marxism is extraordinarily counter-productive to the cause of liberty.

Perhaps the single most effective and important way to fight Cultural Marxism is to never send one’s children to public schools. The Cultural Marxists in academia have trained the primary school teachers. The Cultural Marxists know that indoctrination is easier when one is young, so convincing adults of their twisted ideology is their last concern. For long term results, the Cultural Marxists have infiltrated the public education system. Not everyone can avoid sending their kids to public school. For those in that position, actively engaging with the curriculum your child is learning. Don’t be afraid to tell your child that their teachers are liars. Be ready to teach them the truth.

Next, reject the notion of victim classes and oppressor classes. This is merely a divide-and-conquer tactic that the State relies on. One must promote individual responsibility. I, as a white male, am not responsible for your shortcomings simply because you are a minority. We have to return to the notion that the individual is in charge of his or her life. This is not to be misconstrued with the rejection of community. In the same way the right to exclusion is a fundamental of libertarianism, the right to association is as well. To deny community, family, the institutions of civil society is to deny the nature of humans as “social animals,” as Aristotle describes us.

Which brings me to my next point: libertarians must resist the urge to advocate non-discrimination. Discrimination is everywhere! When you choose your friends, you are discriminating between your friends and other people. Your time priorities are acts of discrimination. Private property is an act of discrimination. Exclusion is necessary for libertarianism. We have libertarians in their isolated Washington D.C. corridors who advocate against discrimination so they will be taken seriously, but this contradiction only makes their ideas come across as laughable.

Because of this process of voluntary association and disassociation, the institutions of civil society emerge. The family, the church, the community, and so on serve as a defense against a society centered around the State. To reject civil society opens a hole in the human heart. Humans look for something bigger than them. If the person loses their community, the State will soon fill that void.

Libertarians must embrace the idea of exclusion, as it is the fundamental to private property. I own my land, and you do not. You have no right to come to my property without my consent. You are trespassing otherwise. It is the goal of the Cultural Marxist to expel the “evil” of discrimination in all regards. Forced integration is their program, and exclusion is our resistance. By ignoring the importance of discrimination in a free society, beltway libertarians have given the State the ability to regulate how you can manage your property. You cannot choose whom you may hire and fire, to whom you may rent, to whom you may sell, and so on. This erosion of private property rights is the start of the cultural disintegration which will allow for new value systems that are compatible with economic Marxism.

In closing, everyone can fight Cultural Marxism, and it is immensely important that libertarians take part in this fight lest we lose the West, the cultural framework from which liberty emerged. Cultural Marxism is the single greatest threat to Liberty as it breaks down the framework of a free society. Now, some may consider this view to be insane, but think about this: if one drops a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out; but if you put it in lukewarm water and slowly heat it up, it will eventually die from the heat of the water, as the cold-blooded creature will not notice the temperature steadily increasing. This is what the Cultural Marxists are doing to individuals: by slowly stigmatizing Western Culture, the Left is normalizing perhaps the most despicable acts one could commit, such as pedophilia. This would be unacceptable in a moral society, but the Cultural Marxists have waged war against morality, slowly poisoning it. It is time we fight back lest we lose all that is left of Western values.