Posted on 09/16/2001 9:12:08 PM PDT by cicero's_son
The great Marxist tactician Antonio Gramsci was, fortunately for the West, never recognized as Communism's greatest talent. Had Lenin, Stalin et alia caught onto Gramsci's brilliance earlier, the war against Communism might have gone differently.
Gramsci's key insight was the marriage of Hegelian dialectic theory to communism revolution. By introducing "agents of change" into Western institutions who were really sleepers for the communist cause, he would weaken the very institutions that guaranteed the West's moral and philosophical stability.
Even though we whipped Communism, the toxic effects of Gramscism linger. Our churches are cheerleading organizations for dictators like Castro. Our universities are more hostile to western ideals than the worst enclaves of Radical Islam. Our entertainment and popular culture? The process of recovery will take decades.
So it bears asking, how would Gramsci handle radical Islam?
Would he seed the Middle East with sleeper imams, friendly to Western goals? Would he introduce agents of change into these societies to reconstruct their value systems? Would he set up new Islamic academies, where the curriculum is friendly to the West?
This will be a total war. Let's learn from our previous enemies, and ask ourselves "What Would Gramsci Do?"
I realize that the soviets used Gramscian tactics against us to great effect. My point was merely that the early leadership of the Internationale did not see the power of Gramscianism. They banged tables, promised war and destruction, and generally confronted us head on.
If they had chosen a pure Gramscian tack from the outset, I believe far more damage might have been done.
Yes -- and we need to step it up greatly for the new and improved Afghanistan, Iraq, and whatever other Jihadistans need to be uprooted.
Yes, it might be. The thought troubles me.
That said, I believe that the capitalist forces unleashed in Russia, China, and throughout the former Warsaw Pact are irreversible. Whatever Gorbachev's original intentions, this is now way beyond his control.
It has the feel of a dark art to me, and I wonder if anyone can really employ it without being contaminated. I have never been able to reach a conclusion about this.
Some have argued that it is morally neutral; are chemical weapons "morally neutral?"
I'm not familiar with gramscianism. How then is it not an organic development? how could one tell the difference?
But I can't imagine one Christian culture fighting a true war of extermination against another today.
At the very least, we would have the common ground of Christ's lovingkindness.
Simply put, Gramscianism is the tactic of infiltrating the enemy's institutions and "infecting." The Soviets did this with our academic and media elites, and we continue to suffer for it today. They also managed to do it to various western churches, and so you have Western Christians siding with Fidel Castro against the United States, promoting liberation theology, and creating schisms over such nonsense as homosexual marriage.
It is a very complicated and intricate strategy. It involves using so-called "agents of change" who adopt radical positions and slowly mainstream them.
If you want to see an artful Gramscian strategy at work, watch the Reparations debate. It's a textbook case.
Good questions!
Have you seen the thread where the Bin Laden people are imbedding their messages in Porn Pictures?
They are very clever. It should be clear to all by now that our enemies are engaged in a total war effort.
It has the feel of a dark art to me, and I wonder if anyone can really employ it without being contaminated. I have never been able to reach a conclusion about this.
Some have argued that it is morally neutral; are chemical weapons "morally neutral?"
Gramscian tactics may work in infiltrating and weakening Western institutions in the interest of those with anti-Western and anti-freedom philosophies, but that doesn't mean the tool can be turned around and used against the latter. The situation is asymmetrical.
Dominus Vobiscum
patent +AMDG
That said, I would argue that every belief system has an antinomian mode and is vulnerable to exploitation and corruption along those lines. The more rigid the belief system, in some ways, the more powerful the antinomian undercurrent.
Your concerns are valid, and I share them.
Gramscianism may be a dark art; may my moral betters (and they are many!) instruct me on this.
The Gramscian Roots of America's Culture War
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a174123.htm
Who is Antonio Gramsci? You Better Learn!!!
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3a4c610569be.htm
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