Next Conservatism: What is Cultural Marxism

In his columns on the next conservatism, Paul Weyrich has several times referred to "cultural Marxism." He asked me, as Free Congress Foundation's resident historian, to write this column explaining what cultural Marxism is and where it came from. In order to understand what something is, you have to know its history.

Cultural Marxism is a branch of western Marxism, different from the Marxism-Leninism of the old Soviet Union. It is commonly known as "multiculturalism" or, less formally, Political Correctness. From its beginning, the promoters of cultural Marxism have known they could be more effective if they concealed the Marxist nature of their work, hence the use of terms such as "multiculturalism."

Cultural Marxism began not in the 1960s but in 1919, immediately after World War I. Marxist theory had predicted that in the event of a big European war, the working class all over Europe would rise up to overthrow capitalism and create communism. But when war came in 1914, that did not happen. When it finally did happen in Russia in 1917, workers in other European countries did not support it. What had gone wrong?

Independently, two Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary, came to the same answer: Western culture and the Christian religion had so blinded the working class to its true, Marxist class interest that Communism was impossible in the West until both could be destroyed. In 1919, Lukacs asked, "Who will save us from Western civilization?" That same year, when he became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun government in Hungary, one of Lukacs's first acts was to introduce sex education into Hungary's public schools. He knew that if he could destroy the West's traditional sexual morals, he would have taken a giant step toward destroying Western culture itself.

In 1923, inspired in part by Lukacs, a group of German Marxists established a think tank at Frankfurt University in Germany called the Institute for Social Research. This institute, soon known simply as the Frankfurt School, would become the creator of cultural Marxism.

To translate Marxism from economic into cultural terms, the members of the Frankfurt School - - Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Wilhelm Reich, Eric Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, to name the most important - - had to contradict Marx on several points. They argued that culture was not just part of what Marx had called society's "superstructure," but an independent and very important variable. They also said that the working class would not lead a Marxist revolution, because it was becoming part of the middle class, the hated bourgeoisie.

Who would? In the 1950s, Marcuse answered the question: a coalition of blacks, students, feminist women and homosexuals.

Fatefully for America, when Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, the Frankfurt School fled - - and reestablished itself in New York City. There, it shifted its focus from destroying traditional Western culture in Germany to destroying it in the United States. To do so, it invented "Critical Theory." What is the theory? To criticize every traditional institution, starting with the family, brutally and unremittingly, in order to bring them down. It wrote a series of "studies in prejudice," which said that anyone who believes in traditional Western culture is prejudiced, a "racist" or "sexist" of "fascist" - - and is also mentally ill.

Most importantly, the Frankfurt School crossed Marx with Freud, taking from psychology the technique of psychological conditioning. Today, when the cultural Marxists want to do something like "normalize" homosexuality, they do not argue the point philosophically. They just beam television show after television show into every American home where the only normal-seeming white male is a homosexual (the Frankfurt School's key people spent the war years in Hollywood).

After World War II ended, most members of the Frankfurt School went back to Germany. But Herbert Marcuse stayed in America. He took the highly abstract works of other Frankfurt School members and repackaged them in ways college students could read and understand.

In his book "Eros and Civilization," he argued that by freeing sex from any restraints, we could elevate the pleasure principle over the reality principle and create a society with no work, only play (Marcuse coined the phrase, "Make love, not war"). Marcuse also argued for what he called "liberating tolerance," which he defined as tolerance for all ideas coming from the Left and intolerance for any ideas coming from the Right. In the 1960s, Marcuse became the chief "guru" of the New Left, and he injected the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School into the baby boom generation, to the point where it is now America's state ideology.

The next conservatism should unmask multiculturalism and Political Correctness and tell the American people what they really are: cultural Marxism. Its goal remains what Lukacs and Gramsci set in 1919: destroying Western culture and the Christian religion. It has already made vast strides toward that goal. But if the average American found out that Political Correctness is a form of Marxism, different from the Marxism of the Soviet Union but Marxism nonetheless, it would be in trouble. The next conservatism needs to reveal the man behind the curtain - - old Karl Marx himself.

William S. Lind is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism of the Free Congress Foundation.

Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

All, I need your help.

I have been attempting to expose to public scrutiny that the American Library Association [ALA] pushes pornography and/or material inappropriate for children on children nationwide. See, for example, the following web site:

SafeLibraries.org - Are Children Safe in Public Libraries?

But I am often asked just why would people want to push pornography on children? I don't have an answer, yet, and that's why I am writing to you all.

I became aware today of some of the theories of people like Antonio Gramsci. Based on what I heard, I am beginning to entertain the theory the ALA may be acting in accordance with such theories, and that might explain the ALA's prolific porn pushing propensity. I would like your input on this thought.

Some of you have posted on this current thread, "Next Conservatism: What is Cultural Marxism," and some of you have posted on this older thread, "Who is Antonio Gramsci? You Better Learn!!!" Both of which are illuminating reading. From the former I read:

In 1919, Lukacs asked, "Who will save us from Western civilization?" That same year, when he became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun government in Hungary, one of Lukacs's first acts was to introduce sex education into Hungary's public schools. He knew that if he could destroy the West's traditional sexual morals, he would have taken a giant step toward destroying Western culture itself.

And from the second I read:

If you understand Gramsci, you will understand the "peculiar" and "weird" theories that are in vogue today. And you will understand that they are not the work of "weird crazy people" but rather of calculating and quite intelligent operatives.

Well it sure is "weird" to push porn on children. And the chief ALA proponent of pushing porn on children has direct ties to the ACLU. But I would like to specifically connect the dots to the ALA, if such a connection exists, so that I can update the web site to include specific information people will need to help them throw off the yoke of the ALA from their schools and libraries.

I will need specific references to appropriate resources. Personal opinions may be useful in explaining things to me but may not carry weight to the public. I want bullet proof sources to prove the ALA's interests in pushing porn on children is related in any way to the theories of Gramsci and the like, if that is the case at all.

You all have taken an interest in this in the past and you all are knowledgeable so please help me to gather this evidence, if any, so that I can update the SafeLibraries.org web site with relevant information that may help turn the public against the ALA, once the public learns the truth about the ALA.

To give you a small head start, besides reading the threads listed above, consider the following:

The American Library Association (ALA) Successfully Pushes Smut On Your Children - Why Do They Do It? - How Do They Do It? http://www.pabbis.com/news.htm
ACLU Fulfilling Communist Agenda [Where the ALA is accomplishing some of the ACLU's goals]
Librarians For Terror
Intellectual Freedom Begins at Home
The Ideological Librarians
ALA is Big Contributor to Public Library Internet Porn Problem
MOST IMPORTANTLY: US v. ALA [The US Supreme Court case the ALA lost in 2003 that says children should be protected from inappropriate material but, despite that, the ALA still claims it is age discrimination for any librarian to keep any child from anything in the library, including unfiltered Internet computers.]

I hope you are interested in contributing to my efforts as stated. I look forward to your responses. Want to email me directly? Use info@plan2succeed.org and thank you all very much.

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