Post: #1

Hello there.
I believe this is the correct place to put this thread.

A friend of mine received editorship for Know Your Meme's article on Cultural Marxism and came to me for help.

He asked me to provide him with sources on Cultural Marxism, that are neutral.

This is harder than expected. While I have a few nearly every non-rightist website states that Cultural Marxism is a conspiracy theory cooked up by crazy right wingers (hilariously, pathologizing one's opposition is something the Frankfurt School would do). I am also curious how saying a set of ideas has caught on in academia is a conspiracy but that's beside the point.

Frankly, most of the few I have are from the Wikipedia article's sources. The wikipedia article which says the idea is a conspiracy theory. I think these will be enough ultimately but any assistance would be great.

Post: #2

Just go to the source, Marx & Engels, and then people inspired by them.

Marx just produced his own, highly potent brand of leftism. The 'cultural' part of it is the non-economic parts. For example, the core was socialism 'from each according to ability, to each according to their need' (loot the able, give to your friends). Marx and Engels then came up with peripheral cultural aspects like marriage being evil, and women being opressed etc.

Post: #3

I am still unclear on what Cultural Marxism is meant to refer to.

Is it what is taught in Academia as "Critical Theory"? Or is it more than that?

It seems like often the term is used as a blanket smear for any lefty stuff you do not like, in which case the term "liberalism" or "leftism" already exist.

Post: #4

(08-01-2015 08:21 AM)Sonsowey Wrote:  I am still unclear on what Cultural Marxism is meant to refer to.

Is it what is taught in Academia as "Critical Theory"? Or is it more than that?

It seems like often the term is used as a blanket smear for any lefty stuff you do not like, in which case the term "liberalism" or "leftism" already exist.

I snagged this from metapedia, but I think the first paragraph defines it nicely:


http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism

It is what is taught at many levels in the universities but it is more than that. It's what you see subtly (or sometimes not so subtly) put into TV shows, movies and media print ( propaganda). It's when you're walking down the street to go to lunch and some college age grungy kid tries to stop you to talk to you about some cause, give you some pamphlets and possibly ask for money ( usually in larger cities)

In my own words, CM is the belief/philosophy/ideology that the culture ( specifically Western Culture) and the characteristics and practices of said culture that have been in place for years, is the source of unfairness , and "inequality of outcomes" in society.

Inequality of outcomes being such things as :
1. Certain ethnic and racial groups are at lower ends of the economic strata more so than other ethnic / racial groups. This is 'unfair' according to cultural marxism.
2. Certain groups disproportionately hold positions of power and influence in all areas of society ( corporations, political groups, municipalities) over other groups. This is unfair.
3. Women earn less than men and hold less managerial/authoritative positions of 'power' in society. This is unfair.

In addition to the above, also falling under the umbrella of CM are the ways in which to remedy these unfair "realities". This of course, is political correctness. The actions to be taken, as it were.

The prevailing opinion, I believe is that which is considered 'liberal' or 'leftist' today are the descendants of Marxist ideology.

Post: #5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjNJX64c...1001nights
Chomsky on the use of language by SJW

https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/...etkin1.htm
Quotes from Lenin on women and marxism

Post: #6

The website friesian.com is a treasure trove of good reading across several topics.

Here is a brief intro that touches on your subject, and some articles below that may offer some insight:

The Kantian sense of "Critical," it should be noted, is unrelated to recent uses of the term in "critical" literary theory, "critical legal theory," "critical race theory," or even in "multicultural" textbook treatments of "critical thinking," in all of which the word is usually a (Frankfurt School and other) dissimulating substitute for "Marxist" -- where all analysis is about "power" and class relationships, is contemptuous of "bourgeois" values and freedoms, including freedom of speech, and where the "voices" of other cultures are always coincidentally about oppression by capitalism, globalization, and/or American "imperialism" (i.e. self-defense against terrorists and fascists). Considering the millions murdered, tortured, enslaved, and impoverished by Marxists in the 20th Century, one would have to consider continued true believers among the most uncritical people, let alone the most naive or dishonest, in intellectual history -- a description that is sadly all too applicable to much academic culture in the United States, where Marxist doctrine and Leninist behavior are alive and well. These recent uses of "critical," meaning the dogmatic application of ideology rather than any genuinely critical attitude, are thus oxymoronic examples of Orwellian "double think," just as when terms like "people's republic" and "democratic republic" were used to mean, not popular sovereignty and responsible government, but totalitarian statism and dictatorship. Today we see expressions like "People's History" or the "People's Climate March," whose ideological commitments are thus rather openly indicated. Combinations of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and others, as developed by Sartre, Marcuse, Foucault, Derrida, etc., is promoted under the term "Theory," and scholarly work that doesn't invoke the canon and its jargon is dismissed as "under-theorized." Thus, a miserable and largely exploded fragment of 20th Century philosophy comes to be accepted, mainly outside of philosophy, in Anthropology, Sociology, and English Departments, as the equivalent of essential and unproblematic method and truth. Since this preserves a flame from the moral, political, and economic debacle of Marxism (recently reignited through the statism, demagoguery, and dictatorial manner of President Obama), it is a nice irony that one of the signers of Karl Marx's own doctoral dissertation on Democritus was none other than Jakob Fries.

http://www.friesian.com/marx.htm
http://www.friesian.com/relative.htm
http://www.friesian.com/feminism.htm

Post: #7

Thank you all. This is perfect. Thank you.

Any more info, kindly dump in this thread just to be safe.