No one stole our culture ... thru political ignorance selfishness and laziness we squandered and gave it away
I live in a location that is largely white, working class america and most of the population looks like they walked off the set of an MTV video with their gangsta clothes and their booming, sporty "mom" cars.
Best thing I have read all day.
There are other ways the Left degrades true culture but this is how they go after the young and are thus most effective.
I have stated this many times and usually what I get in response is: Waa! you attacked TV - you a bad man!
Baba Booey.
This a good question to most of the freepers who whine about a boycott against a liberal company. Liberals treat their politics like a religion. Almost all liberal boycotts work because they are united and willing to sacrifice and speak out. 95% of the money donated to charities by the major corps go to liberal orgs. ‘Conservatives’ like Rush etal. claim that boycotts dont work - all while pocketing big dough from the companies that pay them to shut their mouths. Its disgusting that more people are worried about stuffing their face with a big mac than the constitutional freedoms that our founders fought for.
OH MY GOD BB .... I don’t believe it
....you actually posted an article that ISN’T about Serbs or Kosovo ... can this really have happened??
This is a historical moment ... remember July 11, 2008 ....
I’m still in shock ....
bttt
Yes it is interesting article historically, but nothing many of us haven’t heard before. The biggest stumbling block to making it acceptable history is that it explicitly acknowledges conspiracies. That kind of information is flatly ignored by most, and outright ridiculed by many “conservative” talk radio hosts. Like it or not, those talkers are very effective gatekeepers of “acceptable” conservative thought, and that hampers finding solutions.
The article offers a solution. It suggests we take the long view as did the cultural Marxists before us. That is, we should patiently work to reclaim our predominance over institutions by replacing theirs with our own.
What makes it difficult to copy their route to success, however, is the equivalent atmosphere that was available to them. Tolerance for their ideas is what “liberals” demanded and got from our cultural guard-dog predecessors, and that allowed their slow take-over of our institutions.
We are definitely not granted that same courtesy (examples: 1. preaching the gospel in Western nations is gradually being outlawed; 2. PC police prevent us from warning others of dangers lest in the process we upset those others’ feelings).
Wouldn't the fact that so many Hollywood writers are homosexuals have more to do with how television treats this subject than "cultural Marxism"?
The Frankfurt School may be part of the reason for the changes but it's only part.
More than that: people who go into the arts and academia are already alienated from mainstream and business culture. Ideologies aren't the driving force -- they're a rationalizations for what people have come to feel.
If you couldn't wait to get out of your small town and move to New York or Los Angeles, you're going to have a different take on things from people who never left.
Beyond that: affluence changes people. It would be more surprising if people today with all their resources and opportunities lived and thought exactly as people did in the 1950s.
If you celebrate individualism, and the pursuit of happiness it would be surprising if you got duty, discipline, renunciation, and self-sacrifice.
A most timely thread. Here’s my perspective.
The prototype for our present day culture war was Alexander the Great’s attempt at Hellenizing the world. He died young, but his successors carried it on. One of his successors, Antiochus Epiphanes, ran into a major snag in Palestine. Devout, conservative Jews denounced it, while liberal Jews, the majority, were for it.
Thus, in Palestine began the world’s first culture war, and the world’s first purely RELIGIOUS persecution. The book of Daniel foretold these events. Christ used that prophecy in Daniel as a prototype which he projected into the future as an endtime culture war and persecution - which he called “the great tribulation,” Matt. 24:15,21.
The endtime culture war that Daniel and Christ prophesied are upon us. Its not a Greek Hellenistic vs Judaism culture war, its a Marxist vs Christian one. Gramske specifically singled out Christian culture as their target.
The simple story is that the following things happened: (1) Our Judeo-Christian heritage was weakened by the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, (2) The robust cultural confidence of the West was destroyed by the two world wars, (3) Affluence and technology became the new gods that the culture worshiped.
Cultural Marxism would not have had a chance had it not been for these three things. The answer: a return to the roots of our Western culture and a rejection of all the false gods.
btt
A New DirectionThe dire predicament in which we find ourselves demands a drastic change in strategy by cultural conservatives. It is becoming increasingly clear that we must heed Paul Weyrich's call for a tactical retreat from the fields of political battle--not totally or permanently, but until such time as we can confidently proclaim that traditionalists are a force to be reckoned with in the wider society. Without this, any offensives using political means are doomed to failure. They are therefore a waste of our people's time, money, and energy, and for that reason should not even be attempted. We will never succeed in taking over political structures until we can convince the American people that we can be trusted to take them over, and to do that we must win the people over culturally--by defining how man ought to act, how he ought to perceive the world around him, and what it means to live the good life. Political arrangements can only be formed after these fundamental questions have been answered.
Once this basic belief is accepted, our next task is to develop the means by which it can be put into practice. We must, as Mr. Weyrich has suggested, develop a network of parallel cultural institutions existing side-by-side with the dominant leftist cultural institutions. The building and promotion of these institutions will require the development of a movement that will not merely reform the existing post-war conservative movement, but will in fact be forced to supersede it--if it is to succeed at all--because it will pursue a very different strategy and be premised on a very different view of its role in society.
Our movement--which we will call the New Traditionalist movement--will not seek to immediately replace the dominant culture. A retreat will allow us to regroup and find our bearings. The overemphasis on effecting change through political activism has left us disoriented, distracted, and overly prone to accept the cultural assumptions of the Left. But this tactical retreat will ultimately lead to strategic victory.
A central mission of this movement is to advance a true traditionalist counter-culture based on virtue, excellence, and self-discipline. The New Traditionalists will not be exclusively Christians, but many of them inevitably will be. What binds the New Traditionalists is a belief that each individual has a duty to obey a higher law than his own will and appetite. New Traditionalists reject the materialism, hedonism, consumerism, egoism, and the cult of self-actualization which permeate modern life. We share a willingness to face reality and repudiate ideology--i.e., a set of beliefs that bear no relation to how people really think and how people really live.
There will be three main stages in the unfolding of this movement. The first stage will be devoted to the development of a highly motivated elite able to coordinate future activities. The second stage will be devoted to the development of institutions designed to make an impact on the wider elite and a relatively small minority of the masses. The third stage will involve changing the overall character of American popular culture
The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement
I very much recommend reading the entire essay; the above is just a small excerpt.
Great article! Thanks for posting!