Cultural Marxism: The origins of the present day social justice movement, and political correctness.

BY: Stephen Thomas Kirschner

https://thepolicy.us/cultural-marxism-the-origins-of-the-present-day-social-justice-movement-and-political-correctness-ffb89c6ef4f1






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Cultural Marxism: The origins of the present day social justice movement, and political correctness.

Stephen Thomas Kirschner

Feb 14, 2017 · 8 min read

Karl Marx

Those who have engaged me and others in political discourse may have heard one of us bring up “Cultural Marxism”, but not provide a clear explanation as to what it is and where it comes from. I’m writing this essay to serve that purpose.

“What is Cultural Marxism? Where does it come from?”

Cultural Marxism as I’m sure one can infer from its name, was born out of the economic theory as developed by Karl Marx.

For those who need a brushing up; Marx believed that feudalism would lead to capitalism. Capitalism would create massive inequality between the rich and the poor. The workers would all rise up, and overthrow the hated “bourgeoisie” (the upper class). There would then be a “dictatorship of the proletariat” (the workers) which would ensure equality. Then that government would wear away and break down, and the world would be left with this utopian, egalitarian society. (Although, how and why government would break down and equality would be ensured was never clearly explained.)

Marx believed that this “workers’ uprising” would occur during a massive war. When World War 1 broke out, many Marxists were hoping that their time had come.

Clearly, it did not. The workers in the various Western countries all rallied behind their nations’ flags and fought each other. The only example of a communist uprising during this time was in Russia, and it took tremendous effort to make it happen. (The Russian government was bribed by the United States to continue fighting in the war on the Allied side, ensuring that it was too weak to put down any potential revolt when it happened. Vladimir Lenin was sent by Germany from his exile there in order to spread unrest in Russia, and it took him multiple attempts before successfully seizing power.)

“So why didn’t Marx’s theory work out as planned?”

There are numerous theories for this.

For one, the rise in the average person’s standard of living greatly rose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, despite the general misconception today. It’s true that relative to today things were pretty lousy, but if you look at the era that came before, there were significant improvements. Hours worked decreased, infant mortality decreased, calories consumed by worker increased, wages relative to prices rose, and goods that were considered luxuries before, were now becoming available to the average person.

What we would call “the middle class” today was emerging, and it was no longer just the dichotomy of“the rich” vs “the poor”. With a way out of dire poverty now becoming available, there was fewer reasons to resent one’s lot in life.

However, the two thinkers Antonio Gramsci of Italy, and Georg Lukacs of Hungary took a much different view.

Antonio Gramsci

Georg Lukacs

Lukacs and Gramsci both argued that the reason that the Marxist class theory didn’t play out was because Western values were too deeply entrenched, notably the emphasis on the individual over the collective, and Christianity. These had to be destroyed in order for the communist utopia to be achieved.

In 1919, Lukacs was declared the “Minister of Culture” in the short lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. As someone in charge of education, he introduced some of the first sex education classes, designed to undermine the traditional sexual views of the West which he believed was a step closer to accomplishing his goal.

The Hungarian Soviet Republic collapsed shortly thereafter, and Lukacs fled to Vienna, Austria where he befriended other Marxists, including Antonio Gramsci.

Gramsci returned to Italy, where he was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini in 1926, as communism was considered a primary ideological enemy of the fascist regime. Gramsci worked on his “prison notebooks”, which outlined his chief insight which is called “cultural hegemony”.

Cultural hegemony stated the various factors that made Western civilization what it was, and was thus preventing the communist revolution. The key was to continue the “class war” but at the same, undermine these factors from within. These factors were:

• Christianity
• Authority
• Sexual restraint
• Personal responsibility
• Heredity
• Law
• Truth
• Family
• Patriotism and national unity
• Community
• Conservatism
• Language
• Tradition

Gramsci believed that the media and academia had to issue a “counter-hegemony” message, which would help undermine these planks of Western culture.

Now as a brief mental exercise, think about these things I’m listing, and about how much criticism they have faced in recent times by the media, academia, and popular culture.

The Frankfurt school

In 1923, a group of German Marxists influenced by Gramsci and Lukacs as well as the the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the sociologist Max Weber, opened a think tank at Frankfurt University called “The Institute for Social Research”. This would become simply known as “The Frankfurt School”.

The main thinkers here were Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Fromm. These men (like Gramsci and Lukacs) generally agreed with Marx, but believed that he greatly underestimated the power of culture. They realized that many of “the workers” were now rising into the middle class, so they had no incentive to overthrow the system.

When Hitler rose to power in 1933, these thinkers fled to the United States seeing as how as with Italian fascism, Nazism viewed Marxism as a primary enemy. These intellectuals arrived in New York City, taking up positions at Columbia University. The Frankfurt School was loosely reestablished at Columbia, this time focusing on American society, rather than German.

Critical Theory

In 1937, Horkheimer wrote about what is today known as “critical theory”.

Critical theory is a social theory which is about criticizing the way a culture and “society as a whole” function, in order to change it.

Contrast this with other social theories, which are more just about understanding and interpreting why things are as they are.

“So where does political correctness fit into all of this?”

Largely due to the influence of Gramsci, in the 1930’s the communist leadership in Russia joked about how what they wanted people to believe in order to control them didn’t naturally correspond with reality. Things that weren’t to the Party’s liking weren’t factually correct, but were indeed “politically correct”.

In order to try and achieve this, the Party started policing the language. Hence why you couldn’t criticize the Soviet state, or question the system.

Contrary to popular sentiment, political correctness was never about “saying something nice”. It was about controlling discourse in order to shape culture from day one.

Just look at the words: “politically” followed by “correct”.

Correct according to whose politics?

The Frankfurt School after the war

After Hitler was defeated, many members of the school went back to Frankfurt, Germany to reestablish it. (Unfortunately) Herbert Marcuse stayed in the United States.

In the 1950’s, Marcuse stated the Marxist revolution would not be brought about by “the proletariat” but by a coalition of blacks, feminist women, homosexuals, and students. This is where the term “Cultural Marxism” comes from, as it is applied to marginalized groups rather than class.

Marcuse gained much popularity with students during the 1960’s due the Vietnam War and draft, speaking at protests and writing books that swayed popular opinion. He became “The Father of the New Left” in the United States.

Marcuse was one of the main thinkers to redefine the concept of “tolerance”, notably the view that most left wing ideologies should be embraced because they’re “tolerant”, and most right wing ideologies should be suppressed for the opposite reason. He advocated “undemocratic means”, if this can’t be achieved through the ballot box. (Does this sound familiar at all?)

Cultural Marxism post Marcuse

Marcuse later returned to Germany and died in 1979, but the students he influenced in the 1960’s went on to teach in academia. They carried on his philosophy, but developed it further.. becoming more and more extreme over time.

For example, Marcuse said “discrimination on the grounds of race should not be tolerated”.. A view I think that most rational people on either side of the aisle hold today.

However, over time this became a call for affirmative action, demand for equal outcome (as opposed to equal opportunity), calls for reparations, and so on. To certain people, even citing statistical information regarding specific races is deemed “hate speech”. This is reflective of the egalitarian goals of Marxism.

The same thing happened with feminism, which is why we see things like “manspreading”, “mansplaining”, and the myth about “women earn $0.77 for every $1.00 a man earns!” repeated ad infinitum, despite evidence to the contrary.

Marcuse is also believed to be at least partially responsible for starting the whole “self esteem for doing nothing” mindset. He once said “everyone is an individual deserving of love”.

… Which I actually think is pretty fair, but unfortunately over time this became “everyone is a winner”, “everyone is special”, “everyone is entitled to (x)” and so on. That’s why many people of recent generations have grown up so insecure and narcissistic, because they were told that they were special regardless of what they did, were given trophies and medal for participating, and their grades were raised just because their parents got on the teachers about them. These kids then became adults and got out into the real world, and learned very quickly that they weren’t as special and as entitled as they thought.

Which has usually been met with the reaction along the lines of:

“No, I am special! I deserve (x)! Stop oppressing me!” (Sound familiar?)

“So where does that leave us today? Is there a Marxist conspiracy to overthrow Western society?”

I highly doubt it. There are those that think that there are boogeymen behind the scenes orchestrating these events, but I think a number of influential people just spread bad ideas which festered and became more and more extreme over time. I do think that many have taken advantage of this though, mainly by appealing to the greed, narcissism, and sense of entitlement that many in recent generations have in order to sell them things, get votes, and control them. These ideas have appealed to a disgruntled (sometimes justified, sometimes not) population that has longed for egalitarianism, which I believe is largely unattainable.

I believe that intelligence, looks, athletic ability, work ethic, and most other things operate on a bell curve, with most people in different spots on each bell curve. Some are terrible, most are average, and some are exceptional at most things.

Bell Curve

No overly coercive government, law, or policing of language can change all of that.

It is my hope that we can work together to bring each other up, rather than pull those we resent down.

Thank you very much for reading! — STK

Sources:

Fairly long, but excellent essay explaining the history of political correctness. Best source that I have seen thus far on the subject:

The Rise of Political Correctness

" Comrade, your statement is factually incorrect." "Yes, it is. But it is politically correct." he notion of political…

www.claremont.org

Herbert Marcuse’s essay “Repressive Tolerance”:

Repressive Tolerance

THIS essay examines the idea of tolerance in our advanced industrial society. The conclusion reached is that the…

www.marcuse.org

Peer reviewed resource on the subject:

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Frankfurt School, also known as the Institute of Social Research ( Institut für Sozialforschung), is a social and…

www.iep.utm.edu

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: A SHORT HISTORY OF AN IDEOLOGY

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https://web.archive.org/web/20110813232406/https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1332

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: A SHORT HISTORY OF AN IDEOLOGY

“Political Correctness:” A Short History of an Ideology Edited by Wiliiam S. Lind November 2004 “Political Correctness:”  A Short History of an Ideology is a product of the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative, non-profit public policy institution in Washington, D.C.   To see more of Free Congress Foundation’s work, visit its website at http://www.freecongress.org. Free Congress has given permission to website visitors to print this book for themselves, and to make copies of it for others, without charge. Introduction & Chapter 1 - As Russell Kirk wrote, one of conservatism’s most important insights is that all ideologies are wrong. Ideology takes an intellectual system, a product of one or more philosophers, and says, “This system must be true.” Inevitably, reality ends up contradicting the system, usually on a growing number of points. But the ideology, by its nature, cannot adjust to reality; to do so would be to abandon the system. Chapter II: The Historical Roots of "Political Correctness" - America is today dominated by an alien system of beliefs, attitudes and values that we have come to know as “Political Correctness.” Political Correctness seeks to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans and is therefore totalitarian in nature. Its roots lie in a version of Marxism which seeks a radical inversion of the traditional culture in order to create a social revolution. Chapter III: Political Correctness in Higher Education - On a growing number of university campuses the freedom to articulate and discuss ideas – a principle that has been the cornerstone of higher education since the time of Socrates – is eroding at an alarming rate. Consider just one increasing trend: hundreds (sometimes thousands) of copies of conservative student newspapers have been either stolen or publicly burned by student radicals. In many cases these acts have taken place with the tacit support of faculty and administrators. The perpetrators are rarely disciplined. Chapter IV: Political Correctness: Deconstruction and Literature - Literature is, if not the most important cultural indicator, at least a significant benchmark of a society’s level of civilization. Our nature and environment combine to form each individual mind, which in turn expresses itself in words. Literature, as the words society collectively holds up as exemplary, is then a starting point of sorts – a window into the culture. Chapter V: Radical Feminism and Political Correctness - Perhaps no aspect of Political Correctness is more prominent in American life today than feminist ideology. Is feminism, like the rest of Political Correctness, based on the cultural Marxism imported from Germany in the 1930s? While feminism’s history in America certainly extends longer than sixty years, its flowering in recent decades has been interwoven with the unfolding social revolution carried forward by cultural Marxists. Chapter VI: Further Readings on the Frankfurt School - This is the sixth and final chapter in the Free Congress Foundation’s book on Political Correctness, or – to call it by its real name – cultural Marxism. It is a short bibliographical essay intended not as an exhaustive resource for scholars but as a guide for interested citizens who want to learn more about the ideology that is taking over America. ===================================== Introduction As Russell Kirk wrote, one of conservatism’s most important insights is that all ideologies are wrong. Ideology takes an intellectual system, a product of one or more philosophers, and says, “This system must be true.” Inevitably, reality ends up contradicting the system, usually on a growing number of points. But the ideology, by its nature, cannot adjust to reality; to do so would be to abandon the system. Therefore, reality must be suppressed. If the ideology has power, it uses its power to undertake this suppression. It forbids writing or speaking certain facts. Its goal is to prevent not only expression of thoughts that contradict what “must be true,” but thinking such thoughts. In the end, the result is inevitably the concentration camp, the gulag and the grave. While some Americans have believed in ideologies, America itself never had an official, state ideology – up until now. But what happens today to Americans who suggest that there are differences among ethnic groups, or that the traditional social roles of men and women reflect their different natures, or that homosexuality is morally wrong? If they are public figures, they must grovel in the dirt in endless, canting apologies. If they are university students, they face star chamber courts and possible expulsion. If they are employees of private corporations, they may face loss of their jobs. What was their crime? Contradicting America’s new state ideology of “Political Correctness.” But what exactly is “Political Correctness?” Marxists have used the term for at least 80 years, as a broad synonym for “the General Line of the Party.” It could be said that Political Correctness is the General Line of the Establishment in America today; 3 certainly, no one who dares contradict it can be a member of that Establishment. But that still does not tell us what it really is. This short book, which Free Congress has decided to make available free over its website, seeks to answer that question. It does so in the only way any ideology can be understood, by looking at its historical origins, its method of analysis and several key components, including its place in higher education and its ties with the Feminist movement. Finally, it offers an annotated bibliography for those who wish to pursue the subject in greater depth. Perhaps the most important question facing Americans today is, “Do we really want America to be an ideological state?” Because conservatives know where all ideologies lead, our answer, resoundingly, is “NO!” But if we expect to prevail and restore our country to full freedom of thought and expression, we need to know our enemy. We need to understand what Political Correctness really is. As you will soon see, if we can expose the true origins and nature of Political Correctness, we will have taken a giant step to its overthrow. William S. Lind 4 Chapter 1 What is “Political Correctness”? by William S. Lind Most Americans look back on the 1950s as a good time. Our homes were safe, to the point where many people did not bother to lock their doors. Public schools were generally excellent, and their problems were things like talking in class and running in the halls. Most men treated women like ladies, and most ladies devoted their time and effort to making good homes, rearing their children well and helping their communities through volunteer work. Children grew up in two–parent households, and the mother was there to meet the child when he came home from school. Entertainment was something the whole family could enjoy. What happened? If a man from America of the 1950s were suddenly introduced into America in the 2000s, he would hardly recognize it as the same country. He would be in immediate danger of getting mugged, carjacked or worse, because he would not have learned to live in constant fear. He would not know that he shouldn’t go into certain parts of the city, that his car must not only be locked but equipped with an alarm, that he dare not go to sleep at night without locking the windows and bolting the doors – and setting the electronic security system. If he brought his family with him, he and his wife would probably cheerfully pack their children off to the nearest public school. When the children came home in the afternoon and told them they had to go through a metal detector to get in the building, had been given some funny white powder by another kid and learned that homosexuality is normal and good, the parents would be uncomprehending. In the office, the man might light up a cigarette, drop a reference to the “little lady,” and say he was happy to see the firm employing some Negroes in important positions. Any of those acts would earn a swift reprimand, and together they might get him fired. When she went into the city to shop, the wife would put on a nice suit, hat, and possibly gloves. She would not understand why people stared, and mocked. And when the whole family sat down after dinner and turned on the television, they would not understand how pornography from some sleazy, blank-fronted “Adults Only” kiosk had gotten on their set. 5 Were they able, our 1950s family would head back to the 1950s as fast as they could, with a gripping horror story to tell. Their story would be of a nation that had decayed and degenerated at a fantastic pace, moving in less than a half a century from the greatest country on earth to a Third World nation, overrun by crime, noise, drugs and dirt. The fall of Rome was graceful by comparison. Why did it happen? Over the last forty years, America has been conquered by the same force that earlier took over Russia, China, Germany and Italy. That force is ideology. Here, as elsewhere, ideology has inflicted enormous damage on the traditional culture it came to dominate, fracturing it everywhere and sweeping much of it away. In its place came fear, and ruin. Russia will take a generation or more to recover from Communism, if it ever can. The ideology that has taken over America goes most commonly by the name of “Political Correctness.” Some people see it as a joke. It is not. It is deadly serious. It seeks to alter virtually all the rules, formal and informal, that govern relations among people and institutions. It wants to change behavior, thought, even the words we use. To a significant extent, it already has. Whoever or whatever controls language also controls thought. Who dares to speak of “ladies” now? Just what is “Political Correctness?” “Political Correctness” is in fact cultural Marxism – Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. The effort to translate Marxism from economics into culture did not begin with the student rebellion of the 1960s. It goes back at least to the 1920s and the writings of the Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci. In 1923, in Germany, a group of Marxists founded an institute devoted to making the translation, the Institute of Social Research (later known as the Frankfurt School). One of its founders, George Lukacs, stated its purpose as answering the question, “Who shall save us from Western Civilization?” The Frankfurt School gained profound influence in American universities after many of its leading lights fled to the United States in the 1930s to escape National Socialism in Germany. The Frankfurt School blended Marx with Freud, and later influences (some Fascist as well as Marxist) added linguistics to create “Critical Theory” and “deconstruction.” These in turn greatly influenced education theory, and through institutions of higher education gave birth to what we now call “Political Correctness.” The lineage is clear, and it is traceable right back to Karl Marx. The parallels between cultural Marxism and classical, economic Marxism are evident. Cultural Marxism, or Political Correctness, shares with classical Marxism the vision of a “classless society” i.e., a society not merely of equal opportunity, but equal condition. Since that vision contradicts human nature – because people are different, they end up unequal, regardless of the starting point – society will not accord with it unless forced. So, under both variants of Marxism, it is forced. This is the first major parallel 6 between classical and cultural Marxism: both are totalitarian ideologies. The totalitarian nature of Political Correctness can be seen on campuses where “PC” has taken over the college: freedom of speech, of the press, and even of thought are all eliminated. The second major parallel is that both cultural Marxism and classical, economic Marxism have single-factor explanations of history. Classical Marxism argues that all of history was determined by ownership of the means of production. Cultural Marxism says that history is wholly explained by which groups – defined by sex, race and sexual normality or abnormality – have power over which other groups. The third parallel is that both varieties of Marxism declare certain groups virtuous and others evil a priori, that is, without regard for the actual behavior of individuals. Classical Marxism defines workers and peasants as virtuous and the bourgeoisie (the middle class) and other owners of capital as evil. Political Correctness defines blacks, Hispanics, Feminist women, homosexuals and some additional minority groups as virtuous and white men as evil. (Political Correctness does not recognize the existence of non-Feminist women and defines blacks who reject Political Correctness as whites). The fourth parallel is in means: expropriation. Economic Marxists, where they obtained power, expropriated the property of the bourgeoisie and handed it to the state, as the “representative” of the workers and the peasants. Cultural Marxists, when they gain power (including through our own government), lay penalties on white men and others who disagree with them and give privileges to the groups they favor. Affirmative action is an example. Finally, both varieties of Marxists employ a method of analysis designed to show the correctness of their ideology in every situation. For classical Marxists, the analysis is economic. For cultural Marxists, the analysis is linguistic: deconstruction. Deconstruction “proves” that any “text,” past or present, illustrates the oppression of blacks, women, homosexuals, etc. by reading that meaning into words of the text (regardless of their actual meaning). Both methods are, of course, phony analyses that twist the evidence to fit preordained conclusions, but they lend a “scientific” air to the ideology. These parallels are neither remarkable nor coincidental. They exist because Political Correctness is directly derived from classical Marxism, and is in fact merely a variant of Marxism. Through most of the history of Marxism, cultural Marxists were “read out” of the movement by classical, economic Marxists. Today, with economic Marxism dead, cultural Marxism has filled its shoes. The medium has changed, but the message is the same: a society of radical egalitarianism enforced by the power of the state. Political Correctness now looms over American society like a colossus. It has taken over both political parties – recent Republican conventions were choreographed according to its dictates, while cultural conservatives were shown the door – and is enforced by many laws and government regulations. It almost totally controls the most 7 powerful element in our culture, the entertainment industry. It dominates both public and higher education: many a college campus is a small, ivy-covered North Korea. It has even captured the clergy in many Christian churches. Anyone in the Establishment who departs from its dictates swiftly ceases to be a member of the Establishment. The remainder of this short book will explore the subject of Political Correctness further: its history, its method of analysis (deconstruction), and the means by which it has attained its influence, especially through education. But one more question must be addressed at the outset, the most vital question: how can Americans combat Political Correctness and retake their society from the cultural Marxists? To that end, it is not sufficient to criticize Political Correctness. It tolerates a certain amount of criticism, even gentle mocking. It does so through no genuine tolerance for other points of view, but in order to disarm its opponents, to let itself seem less menacing than it is. The cultural Marxists do not yet have total power, and they are too wise to appear totalitarian until their victory is assured. Rather, those who would defeat cultural Marxism must defy it. They must use words it forbids, and refuse to use the words it mandates; remember, sex is better than gender. They must shout from the housetops the realities it seeks to suppress, such as the facts that violent crime is disproportionately committed by blacks and that most cases of AIDS are voluntary, i.e., acquired from immoral sexual acts. They must refuse to turn their children over to public schools. Above all, those who would defy Political Correctness must behave according to the old rules of our culture, not the new rules the cultural Marxists lay down. Ladies should be wives and homemakers, not cops or soldiers, and men should still hold doors open for ladies. Children should not be born out of wedlock. Open homosexuals should be shunned. Jurors should not accept race as an excuse for murder. Defiance spreads. When other Americans see one person defy Political Correctness and survive – and you still can, for now – they are emboldened. They are tempted to defy it, too, and some will. The ripples from a single act of defiance, of one instance of walking up to the clay idol and breaking off its nose, can range far. There is nothing the Politically Correct fear more than open defiance, and for good reason; it is their chief vulnerability. That should lead cultural conservatives to defy cultural Marxism at every turn. While the hour is late, the battle is not decided. Very few Americans realize that Political Correctness is in fact Marxism in a different set of clothes. As that realization spreads, defiance will spread with it. At present, Political Correctness prospers by disguising itself. Through defiance, and through education on our own part (which should be part of every act of defiance), we can strip away its camouflage and reveal the 8 Marxism beneath the window-dressing of “sensitivity,” “tolerance” and “multiculturalism.” Who dares, wins

Cultural Marxism and Political Correctness:Western Civilization in Peril

The goal of Political Correctness is the destruction of Western Civilization.  Political Correctness is intentional. It is a deadly insidious evil.
We must wake up before it is too late. It is almost too late now... IF we do not take back our schools and take back control of our media and hold the traitors within it accountable, then we are doomed. Western Civilization will fall. And it will fall on our watch!

Political Correctness is the enemy of the people. It is the enemy of the world. It is the enemy of Truth!


https://www.cairco.org/book/export/html/4238

Cultural Marxism and Political Correctness

Tags: 

society

multiculturalism

political correctness

Western Civilization

Political Correctness is a deadly serious form of Cultural Marxism, which views culture as the basis of class struggle. Cultural Marxism relies on deconstruction to undermine underlying cultural values in order to pave the way to fundamentally transform a society.
An informative synopsis of Political Correctness / Cultural Marxism, by Discover the Networks¹ is included below (adapted from Lind's Political Correctness: A Short History of an Ideology).²

America today is dominated by a system of beliefs, attitudes and values that we have come to know as “Political Correctness.” For many it is an annoyance and a self parodying joke. But Political Correctness is deadly serious in its aims, seeking to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans. It is therefore totalitarian in nature. Its roots lie in a version of Marxism which sees culture, rather than the economy, as the site of class struggle.
Under Marxist economic theory, the oppressed workers were supposed to be the beneficiaries of a social revolution that would place them on top of the power structure. When these revolutionary opportunities presented themselves, however, the workers did not respond. The Marxist revolutionaries did not blame their theory for these failures; instead they blamed the “ruling class,” which had bought off the workers by giving them “rights,” and had blinded them with a “false consciousness” that led them to support national governments and liberal democracy.
One group of Marxist intellectuals resolved this apparent contradiction of Marxist theory by an analysis that focused on society’s cultural “superstructure” rather than on the economic “base” as Marx did. The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci and Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukacs contributed the most to this new cultural Marxism.
Among Marxists, Gramsci is noted for his theory that cultural hegemony is the means to class dominance. In his view, a new “Communist man” had to be created through a changed culture before any political revolution was possible. This led to a focus on the efforts of intellectuals in the fields of education and media.
Georg Lukacs believed that for a new Marxist culture to emerge, the existing culture must be destroyed. He said, “I saw the revolutionary destruction of society as the one and only solution to the cultural contradictions of the epoch.... Such a worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries.”
In 1923, Lukacs and other Marxist intellectuals associated with the Communist Party of Germany founded the Institute of Social Research at Frankfurt University in Frankfurt, Germany. The Institute, which became known as the Frankfurt School, was modeled after the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow. In 1933, when Nazis came to power in Germany, the members of the Frankfurt School fled. Most came to the United States and many became influential in American universities. The Frankfurt School’s studies combined Marxist analysis with Freudian psychoanalysis to form the basis of what became known as “Critical Theory.”
Critical Theory was essentially destructive criticism of the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention and conservatism.
Critical Theorists recognized that traditional beliefs and the existing social structure would have to be destroyed and then replaced with a “new thinking” that would become as much a part of elementary consciousness as the old one had been. Their theories took hold in the tumultuous 1960s, when the Vietnam War opened a Pandora’s Box of reevaluaton and revolution. The student radicals of the era were strongly influenced by revolutionary ideas, among them those of Herbert Marcuse, a member of the Frankfurt School who preach the “Great Refusal,” a rejection of all basic Western concepts and an embrace of sexual liberation, and the merits of feminist and black revolutions. His primary thesis was that university students, ghetto blacks, the alienated, the asocial, and the Third World could take the place of the proletariat in the coming Communist revolution.
Marcuse may be the most important member of the Frankfurt School in terms of the origins of Political Correctness, because he was the critical link to the counterculture of the 1960s. His objective was clear: “One can rightfully speak of a cultural revolution, since the protest is directed toward the whole cultural establishment, including morality of existing society.”
When addressing the general public, contemporary advocates of Political Correctness – or Cultural Marxism, as it might just as easily be called – present their beliefs with appealing simplicity as merely a commitment to being “sensitive” to other people and embracing values such as “tolerance” and “diversity.”
The reality is different. Political Correctness is the use of culture as a sharp weapon to enforce new norms and to stigmatize those who dissent from the new dispensation; to stigmatize those who insist on values that will impede the new "PC" regime: free speech and free and objective intellectual inquiry.
Adapted from: "Political Correctness": A Short History of an Ideology," edited by William Lind (November 2004).²

Deconstruction

Author William Lind describes in the article The Origins of Political Correctness how the agenda of Cultural Marxism is implicitly deconstructionist:³

...We have it primarily on college campuses, but it is spreading throughout the whole society. Were does it come from? What is it?
We call it “Political Correctness.” The name originated as something of a joke, literally in a comic strip, and we tend still to think of it as only half-serious. In fact, it’s deadly serious. It is the great disease of our century, the disease that has left tens of millions of people dead in Europe, in Russia, in China, indeed around the world. It is the disease of ideology. PC is not funny. PC is deadly serious.
If we look at it analytically, if we look at it historically, we quickly find out exactly what it is. Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. It is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I. If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious.
First of all, both are totalitarian ideologies...
... the cultural Marxism of Political Correctness, like economic Marxism, has a single factor explanation of history. Economic Marxism says that all of history is determined by ownership of means of production. Cultural Marxism, or Political Correctness, says that all history is determined by power, by which groups defined in terms of race, sex, etc., have power over which other groups. Nothing else matters. All literature, indeed, is about that. Everything in the past is about that one thing.
... just as in classical economic Marxism certain groups, i.e. workers and peasants, are a priori good, and other groups, i.e., the bourgeoisie and capital owners, are evil. In the cultural Marxism of Political Correctness certain groups are good – feminist women, (only feminist women, non-feminist women are deemed not to exist) blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals. These groups are determined to be “victims,” and therefore automatically good regardless of what any of them do. Similarly, white males are determined automatically to be evil, thereby becoming the equivalent of the bourgeoisie in economic Marxism.
... both economic and cultural Marxism rely on expropriation. When the classical Marxists, the communists, took over a country like Russia, they expropriated the bourgeoisie, they took away their property. Similarly, when the cultural Marxists take over a university campus, they expropriate through things like quotas for admissions...
For the cultural Marxist, it’s deconstruction. Deconstruction essentially takes any text, removes all meaning from it and re-inserts any meaning desired... So the parallels are very evident between the classical Marxism that we’re familiar with in the old Soviet Union and the cultural Marxism that we see today as Political Correctness...

History

Chuck Rogér summarizes Cultural Marxist history:⁴

... In the 1920s and 1930s Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, who argued that traditional values must be obliterated in order to free "oppressed" social groups, called for eliminating social decorum and glorifying perverse behavior in order to destroy the Western middle class and collapse society from within. Translated into today's terminology, the plan prescribed the commandeering of news and entertainment media, religious and financial institutions, organized labor, health care, and education.Gramsci's cultural Marxism began to reach throughout society when Frankfurt University's Institute for Marxism -- renamed the Institute for Social Research and informally called the Frankfurt School - fled Nazi Germany, took up temporary residence at Columbia University in 1933, and then, during World War II, began using Gramsci-derived "critical theory" to "deconstruct" American society. German-born philosopher-writer Herbert Marcuse and other Marxists carried cultural Marxism beyond Columbia, and progressives adopted the disease as a weapon of "change" to be deployed within the education system...
So camouflaged has been the use of Gramsci's brainchild that most education school indoctrinees -- K-12 teachers -- have never really weighed the consequences of conditioning students to reject a moral and prosperous America...

Critical Theory

An integral component of Cultural Marxism is Critical Theory. Lind describes it as:^2,3

Critical Theory was essentially destructive criticism of the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention and conservatism.
Critical Theorists recognized that traditional beliefs and the existing social structure would have to be destroyed and then replaced with a “new thinking” that would become as much a part of elementary consciousness as the old one had been...
... the radical feminism, the women’s studies departments, the gay studies departments, the black studies departments – all these things are branches of Critical Theory. What the Frankfurt School essentially does is draw on both Marx and Freud in the 1930s to create this theory called Critical Theory. The term is ingenious because you’re tempted to ask, “What is the theory?” The theory is to criticize. The theory is that the way to bring down Western culture and the capitalist order is not to lay down an alternative. They explicitly refuse to do that. They say it can’t be done, that we can’t imagine what a free society would look like (their definition of a free society). As long as we’re living under repression – the repression of a capitalistic economic order which creates (in their theory) the Freudian condition, the conditions that Freud describes in individuals of repression – we can’t even imagine it.
What Critical Theory is about is simply criticizing. It calls for the most destructive criticism possible, in every possible way, designed to bring the current order down. And, of course, when we hear from the feminists that the whole of society is just out to get women and so on, that kind of criticism is a derivative of Critical Theory. It is all coming from the 1930s, not the 1960s...

Critical Theory is used by leftist deconstructionists to reframe the political debate from discourse about good and bad ideas to good and bad people. The far left believes that their battle is not about political ideas, but about bad people - that is, the Republicans - who should be taken out via every means possible, including violence.

Multiculturalism

Linda Kimball points out that multiculturalism is but another facet of Cultural Marxism:⁵

Both communism and the New Left are alive and thriving here in America. They favor code words: tolerance, social justice, economic justice, peace, reproductive rights, sex education and safe sex, safe schools, inclusion, diversity, and sensitivity. All together, this is Cultural Marxism disguised as multiculturalism.

The blogger Fjordman notes that:⁶

Not only has Marxism survived, it is thriving and has in some ways grown stronger. Leftist ideas about Multiculturalism and de-facto open borders have achieved a virtual hegemony in public discourse, their critics vilified and demonized. By hiding their intentions under labels such as “anti-racism” and “tolerance,” Leftists have achieved a degree of censorship of public discourse they could never have dreamt of had they openly stated that their intention was to radically transform Western civilization and destroy its foundations.
The Left have become ideological orphans after the Cold War, or perhaps we should call them ideological mercenaries. Although the viable economic alternative to capitalism didn’t work out, their hatred for this system never subsided, it merely transformed into other forms. Multiculturalism is just a different word for “divide and conquer,” pitting various ethnic and cultural groups against each other and destroying the coherence of Western society from within.
At the very least, the people living in the former Communist countries knew and admitted that they were taking part in a gigantic social experiment, and that the media and the authorities were serving them propaganda to shore up support for this project. Yet in the supposedly free West, we are taking part in a gigantic social experiment of Multiculturalism and Muslim immigration every bit as radical, utopian and potentially dangerous as Communism, seeking to transform our entire society from top to bottom, and still we refuse to even acknowledge that this is going on.

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References
1. Political Correctness / Cultural Marxism, Discover the Networks.
2. Political Correctness: A Short History of an Ideology, Edited by William Lind, November 2004. Read the entire book (pdf).
3. The Origins of Political Correctness, by William Lind, Accuracy in Academia, February 5, 2000.
4. Cultural Marxism in Education: The Gathering Revolt, by Chuck Roger, American Thinker, April 18, 2010.
5. Cultural Marxism, by Linda Kimball, American Thinker, February 15, 2007.
6. Political Correctness: The Revenge of Marxism, by Fjordam, Gates of Vienna, June 14, 2006.
7. Who Stole Our Culture?, by William Lind, World Net Daily, May 24, 2007.
8. Why There Is A Culture War: Gramsci and Tocqueville in America
9. What Is the Frankfurt School (And Its Effect on America)?, by Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson, Western Voices World News, August 1, 1999.
10. Multiculturalism and Marxism, by Frank Ellis, Discover the Networks, November, 1999.
11. A Guide for the Perplexed: A Brief History of Political Correctness and Its Origins, by Cartes A. Jouer, Pamela Geller - Atlas Shrugged, September 3, 2012.
12. What is Cultural Marxism?, Destroy Cultural Marxism, January 8, 2013.
13. A Progressive's Guide to Political Correctness, Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will:


14. What Is Cultural Marxism?, Katehon:

...In brief, a Cultural Marxist is one who believes that that cultural/civilizational factors are irrelevant in understanding any type of social, political, or international form of relations, and in order to advance their "cultural-blind" end goal ideology, they:
(1) first support the dilution and then abolishment of majority cultures via the ‘politically correct’ dominance of minority/immigrant cultures, typically using slurring accusations of “racism”, “fascism”, and “white supremacy” to attack those who oppose this radical platform;
(2) and then afterwards ‘smoothing over’ all the remaining cultural mass into an amorpheous and unoriginal ‘blob’ which loses all aspects of its former cultural identity and is thenceforth molded into a new and unprecedented form of being.
Stage one is in process all throughout the EU and parts of the US...

15. The Democrats’ Second Secession & America’s New Civil War - How to look at the bizarre turn our political life has taken, by David Horowitz, FrontPage Mag, May 26, 2017.
16. A Long History of Leftist Hatred, by Pat Buchanan, American Renaissance, June 16, 2017.
17. How leftist philosophy fuels political violence, by Nate Madden, Conservative Review, June 16, 2017.
18. Leftists versus the People, by Jeffrey Folks, American Thinker, February 24, 2018. Do they really hate ordinary people that much?