We live in a time that calls for recognition of minority identity
and amidst the confusion these same calls have blended with voices that seek
'identity' in self-referential, solipsistic and even fantastical categories of
gender and sexuality. The cultural confusion is palpable and the consequences
are tragic.
And with these voices, some old and some quite new we are
also witnessing a resurgence of the 'Cultural Marxist' moniker. This label a
favourite in Right-wing circles is actually a form of Red Baiting, a means to
discredit their opponents by associating them with something that is a known
evil. And yet it does not reflect reality.
Cultural Marxism as propagated by the American Right is a Leftist
conspiracy to destroy culture. Marx talked of alienation and thus Cultural
Marxism seeks (it is argued) to re-assert identity through various forms of 'identity
politics' which destroy traditional cultural norms. They believe that Cultural
Marxism seeks to destroy convention thus sowing the seeds for the new era. It's
a form of social revolution that will set the stage for a new basis of social
cohesion and consensus.
It's a very interesting theory but it has absolutely nothing
to do with Marxist thought.
What do the actual Marxists say about police killings and the
Left's focus on race and identity politics? They will consistently point out
that Marxism does not identify race as the primary problem of society. Anyone
who's bothered to spend five minutes learning about Marxist thought will
realise the school is dominated by questions of class. They see the police
shootings as the Establishment or Ruling Class warring on the Working Class.
They will admit that Blacks are killed at a disproportionate level and that
there is plenty of racism in society but the real overarching problem is one of
class warfare. They will point out that just as many Whites are killed by the
police etc. The one thing all police victims have in common is that they are
members of the working class.
In fact the focus on race and identity serves to only divide
the working class and bring into a war against itself. One might even posit that
such divisions are generated and perpetuated by interests in the Ruling Class
as a means to divide and conquer.
Cultural Marxism is actually something of a myth. The values
this faux-position espouses actually have nothing to do with Marxism. The Right
will often appeal to a conspiracy with regard to the Frankfurt School and yet
even a cursory examination will show that they're guilty of not only
misunderstanding the questions being asked but are also reading in a lot of
assumptions that aren't really there.
Cultural Marxism as presented in the American context is a
way of organising the Right-wing attack on multiculturalism and is used as
means to rally support for a monolithic and often sacral vision of society.
While Political Correctness is indeed out of control, both
sides are guilty of this tendency. The doctrine seeks to charge its enemies
with thought-crimes even to the point of controlling speech patterns. The Right
argues that political correctness is
a means employed by 'Cultural Marxism' in order to advance its agenda.
The
Right is just as guilty of 'thought crime' and will attack both 'incorrect' concepts
and the words attached to them. Look at the history of Right-wing regimes from
World War II and in the generation succeeding it. The Right often allied with
ecclesiastical authorities engaged in censorship, often employing violent means
to do so. In the United States this sort of thought-censorship and political
correctness reached its zenith under McCarthyism, an inquisition that sought to
punish thought-crime along with past sentiments and affiliations.
Cultural Marxism is a largely mythological concept employed
by the Right to describe the social trend away from traditionalism and the
narratives which support their agenda. If it is a genuine concept then it would
have to be admitted that thus far it has failed. The Right would see things in
a different light and they view themselves as on the retreat and yet despite
the recent victories in the Supreme Court for homosexuals, most advocates of
Identity Politics can identify as many setbacks as victories.
Individualism and its degenerate offspring Narcissism are an
essential component or force (among many) at work in driving the trajectory of our
culture. The Enlightenment tradition regarding individualist rights and
confidence in the individual's cognition and rationality drive the consumer
culture and are assumed in its modeling. And yet the model has clearly produced
decadence and while the Right is correct to be upset over this tendency they
have demonstrated an amazing ineptitude in grasping its foundations and are
woefully misled in terms of the corrupting nature of wealth and what the quest
for it does to the human soul and the culture at large.
It is noteworthy that Identity Politics and these extreme and
decadent manifestations of Individualism are virtually nonexistent in poorer
countries. The truth is that Identity Politics (as well as the Christian
Right's Dominionist and Vocational paradigms) are largely the offspring of
bourgeois society and its impulses. These tendencies represent the downgrade
and self-destructive impulses of a middle class society built on Classically
Liberal, Democratic and Capitalist foundations and arise in that context.
The truth is Cultural Marxism is something of a faux-paradigm
created to channel emotions and generate a narrative regarding the social
breakdown. It's a bait and switch method of identifying the political enemy.
The Right doesn't really believe in democracy or classical liberal values... that
is, outside the social consensus which is based on common race and culture. Therefore the values held by the Christian
Right are decidedly non-universal
which overthrow the claims of the Americanist paradigm of 'self-evident truths'.
If they're not universal, they're not self-evident and vice-versa.
The charge of Cultural Marxism is little more than a racist
trick to 'trump' counter arguments and once again is reminiscent of the tactics
of red-baiting. It's no accident that the concept appeared in the American
Right's lexicon during the late 1990's just as the Culture War was becoming
white hot.
It is reminiscent of the Right's misunderstanding of terms
like Communism, Socialism and on an even larger scale, that of Fascism.
Socialism sought among other things to synthesize classical
liberalism's understanding of liberty as individual autonomy and the notion of
liberty as individuals being granted access to the benefits of social
participation. This represents a huge difference even today in how many
Europeans view the question of liberty vis-à-vis the United States. Liberty as
access creates the conditions for individual flourishing. A liberty based on
autonomy and self-interest is a reversion to the law of the jungle and only
those who sit atop the power structure will actually enjoy liberty. Those at
the bottom enjoy new forms of serfdom and slavery.
An excessive focus on the individual as found in many forms
of Libertarian ideology is not only anti-collective but essentially
anti-social. This narcissistic and sociopathic schema represents a degenerative
stage of Classical Liberalism's concept of the individual. This is the
individual as a society in and of himself and thus he is essentially at war
with those around him. With this type of individualism there can be no society.
It is man abandoning the image of God embracing the heart of a beast. Beyond
one's immediate familial pack, all are enemies. Society is viewed as the Wild
West... missing the point that the American West was considered anti-Society
and non-civil. It was 'wild' connoting barbarism and bestial conduct. The call
wasn't to celebrate the chaos but to tame it and eradicate its wild nature.
Just as Classical Liberalism birthed Capitalism, the same
forces which celebrate and empower the individual and the pursuit of
self-identity and happiness have created a cancerous monstrosity. It has
manifested itself within the US Left and is championed by the pro-Wall Street
and pro-Pentagon Democratic Party, itself a Right-wing movement.
Identity politics and the various impulses which have falsely
been constructed in the fictional concept of Cultural Marxism may represent
'liberal' impulses but have nothing to do with actual Marxism.
In terms of sociology Marxism is about the surrender of the
individual to the collective. The goals of the revolution and the support of
the social vision become paramount. Expressions of self-focus, self-praise and
self-pity are actually expressions of decadent Capitalist society. In
explaining the current state of affairs in our society, with the ascendancy of
spoiled children, sodomy and even identity politics... these parties and the
parents and institutions that produced them, need look no further than the
mirror. It is the Capitalist system championed by the Right which has produced
these societal poisons.
The fact that Black Americans have fallen back on race as a battle
cry is also no great surprise. They have been manipulated by the pro-Wall
Street and pro-Pentagon Democratic Party. This racial politic is a means of
marshalling their frustration and anger and channeling their fury into the
DNC's political machine. The problems in our society are bigger than race and
the story of their exploitation and present condition is both more complicated
and sinister. As stated at the outset, the continued focus on race and identity
hinders the lower classes from uniting and truly representing a threat to the powers
that be.
See also: