Recently,
the Clarion Project published a fact sheet, Cultural Marxism 101, a brief
and objective summary of Left- and Right-wing views on the term ‘cultural
Marxism’. Its main contention it that its original
concept was developed into an anti-Semitic trope by the Nazis and persists as a
shadow even today. The conclusion is
that the term should be replaced with ‘neo-Marxism’, which is shadow-free. I take no issue at all with the facts as
presented, and I myself will use the terms ‘neo-Marxism’ and ‘cultural Marxism’
interchangeably, unless I sense a challenge from someone I can debate with.
However,
there is residual value in the term ‘cultural’ that derives from an essential
component of any successful ideology, ‘cultural hegemony’. This is a concept created by Antonio Gramsci
who considered the failure of the Marxist revolution to be caused by an error
in process.
Gramsci
theorised that if Communism achieved ‘mastery of human consciousness,’ then active
revolution would be unnecessary. Mastery over the consciousness of the great
mass of people could be attained if Communists or their sympathisers gained
control of the organs of culture — churches, education, newspapers, magazines,
the electronic media, literature, music, the visual arts, and so on. By winning
‘cultural hegemony,’ Communism would control the deepest wellsprings of human
thought and imagination. One need not control all information itself if one can
gain control over the minds that assimilate that information. Under such
conditions, opposition would disappear since people will no longer be capable
of grasping the arguments of Marxism's opponents. In 1967 the West German student movement leader
Rudi Dutschke reformulated Gramsci's philosophy of cultural Marxism with the
phrase ‘the long march through the institutions’ of the nation and the state –
the church, entertainment, civil service, educational faculties, family
institutions and marriage – to replace the dominant culture.
In Gramsci’s
view, the state isn’t simply a coercive instrument of the ruling class, but
also a site on which ruling-class policies can be contested and crucial
concessions won. The Left must make use
of liberal institutions and ideas in order to redirect them to its own
purposes. Key to cultural Marxism’s success, and an
essential component of Gramsci’s Long March through the Institutions, is what
Piaget calls ‘the messianic stage of youth development’ where they want to
change the world in a challenge to their parents. But it also involves integration with the
existing world, in a manner that does not destroy the structure or anything of
value. Jordan Peterson says “The problem I have with the Marxist perspective is
that I don’t think you should trust people whose primary goal when they’re
attempting to change the world to the better is to change other people. You can tell who those people are because
they are always blaming other people and they’re looking for perpetrators and
victims.”
Managing
youth development is a role delegated to ‘community organisers’ such as Barack
Obama. The term was coined by the
radical Chicago activist Saul Alinsky, a Marxist who believed in capturing the
culture as the most effective means of overturning Western society. The way to do this was through ‘people’s
organisations’ composed largely of discontented individuals who believed
society was fundamentally unjust, and who would take their lead from trained
community organisers. These organisers,
taught Alinsky, should “rub raw the resentments of the people” and “agitate to
the point of conflict.” His handbook of
sedition, Rules for Radicals was highly influential over the Democratic
Party, and is a textbook assiduously followed by Left-wing activists.
While
Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony has been most prominently adopted by the
far Left, it itself is secular and needs to be used by any ideology to gain success. Of the five ideologies that I consider are changing
the direction of the Western world, environmentalism, feminism, neo- or
cultural Marxism, neo-liberalism and Islam, all employ the process. French/American political scientist Dr Susan
George, author of Shadow Sovereigns: how global corporations are seizing power,
showed how Right–wing Gramscians established their own cultural hegemony, that
of neo-liberalism. Gramsci understood that no regime could remain in power and
rule by force and coercion alone. People
also wanted a belief system. Gramsci
said that a major characteristic of “any group that is developing towards
dominance is its struggle to assimilate and conquer ideologically the
traditional intellectuals.” This new
group must develop and nurture its own ‘organic’ intellectuals and to
accomplish this those who seek dominance must also make the long march through
the institutions. This is exactly the
programme the neo-liberals understood and carried out.
The
Clarion Project’s conclusion that the term ‘neo-Marxism’ is “far more specific
and accurate” than ‘cultural Marxism’ may be unwarranted, not to mention
somewhat sterile. For example, the
subject can’t be explained in full without reference to the Frankfurt School,
critical theory, or to post-modernism, all of which relate to
cultural manipulation. Given that cultural
Marxism is the application of Marxist aims to the culture instead of to
economics and society, ‘culture’ is indispensable to its concept. Its anti-Semitic shadow is, like all conspiracies,
ideologies and cults, a belief without evidence, and dismisses its perpetuator
as someone with a form of locked-in syndrome.
