The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Apr 12, 2016 3:08 pm

General Patton » Tue Apr 12, 2016 1:41 pm wrote:If you want we can make a thread on the anti-semitic implications of anime girls dancing on a pizza with Donald Trump in the background.


Oh no, not at all! Really! I didn't mean anything by it. Just noticed it when I did an image search to see if I could figure out shtrafbat. Strafen is also German for punish, by the way, so I was almost there... Bat is obviously battalion. Funny thing, language families.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
User avatar
JackRiddler
 
Posts: 15983
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby General Patton » Tue Apr 12, 2016 3:28 pm

It's based in part off of Hitler's success using Strafbattalion (generic term for various penal combat units). But Stalin scaled it up to include around ~420,000 people instead of Hitler's tens of thousands. The terms of admission were also quite a bit looser compared to the German version, piss off the wrong person and you could be stripped of rank and put into a penal unit. Missions include running through mine fields to clear them (and being shot by NKVD if you slow down), charging bunkers and any fortifications head-on to clear the way for regular troops, and hand-to-gun combat due to most solders in a given penal battalion not being issued any weapons.

If a person started to earn merit from combat bravery and had the potential to be released from penal duty, they were usually transferred to mine clearing duty. If you get your legs blown off or whatever, you get left to die.
штрафбат вперед
User avatar
General Patton
 
Posts: 959
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 11:57 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby Luther Blissett » Wed Apr 13, 2016 10:58 am

jakell » Tue Apr 12, 2016 11:00 am wrote:It would have been nice to hear some comparisons of lived experiences of 'multicuturalism' and how they differ from the glittering ideal. As far as I can see, this ideal has not been adequately laid out, but that sort of goes with territory I suppose, too much detail and we start to see through a glass darkly.


I can only continue to give more personal anecdotes about lived experiences of multiculturalism which approach an ideal. I thought I've done that without coming close to basically pinning down my block, but if not, I can try.

I think we know the cases in which it doesn't work and pretty much know the various reasons why (mostly top-down in my opinion). I guess it's okay to critique that, but less is known about how to develop progressive, multicultural, long-lasting, forward-thinking communities.

Why are you more interested in exploring the failures? What's the use in that thought exercise?
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
User avatar
Luther Blissett
 
Posts: 4990
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 1:31 pm
Location: Philadelphia
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby jakell » Wed Apr 13, 2016 12:15 pm

Luther Blissett » Wed Apr 13, 2016 2:58 pm wrote:
jakell » Tue Apr 12, 2016 11:00 am wrote:It would have been nice to hear some comparisons of lived experiences of 'multicuturalism' and how they differ from the glittering ideal. As far as I can see, this ideal has not been adequately laid out, but that sort of goes with territory I suppose, too much detail and we start to see through a glass darkly.


I can only continue to give more personal anecdotes about lived experiences of multiculturalism which approach an ideal. I thought I've done that without coming close to basically pinning down my block, but if not, I can try.


Because if your experience and my experience of this are markedly different, then they aren't really the same thing and can't be expressed by the word 'multiculturalism'.

I initially explored this by looking at the origins of the word itself, because it does seem to be an unwieldy construction. Where I live it wasn't really used until the late 90's (and then only rarely), before that we only conceived of integration, even though that was evidently a pipe dream. The introduction of the word 'multiculturalism' seemed to represent an admission of this failure, and we waited to see what creative new approaches were to come. As it turned out, there were none, apart from some hot air and misdirections, it was a finger-crossing exercise. This is described fairly well in the article I posted.

When did the word first appear in your communites, and was it necessary? What words/concepts did you use before it's advent and how does it differ, if at all?
(I also asked you about CM as a belief system if you recall)

I think we know the cases in which it doesn't work and pretty much know the various reasons why (mostly top-down in my opinion). I guess it's okay to critique that, but less is known about how to develop progressive, multicultural, long-lasting, forward-thinking communities.

Why are you more interested in exploring the failures? What's the use in that thought exercise?


Maybe these cases are sufficiently removed enough from you where you live, in Europe they are pretty real. Like I said, our experiences differ, and what you call 'multiculturalism', we would probably think of as pretty integrated.
I'm talking of the failures where I live because they are grave (Rotherham for instance), and are only going to lead to wider divergence in the longer term, it is not a sustainable situation, and a non-sustainable social policy is worthless except to those who deal in illusions.
" Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism"
User avatar
jakell
 
Posts: 1821
Joined: Wed May 06, 2009 4:58 pm
Location: North England
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby American Dream » Wed Apr 13, 2016 12:47 pm

Image



A Ku Klux Klan (Alabama) poster from the 1930s warning black citizens to stay away from Communist meetings:


"DO NOT ATTEND COMMUNIST MEETINGS.

Paid organizers for the communists are only trying to get negroes in trouble. Alabama is a good place for good negroes to live in, but it is a bad place for negroes who believe in SOCIAL EQUALITY.

The Ku Klux Klan is watching you. Take heed.

Tell the communist leaders to leave. Report all communist meetings to the Ku Klux Klan, Post Office Box 651, Birmingham, Alabama.
"



https://www.facebook.com/TheHamptonInst ... =3&theater
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby jakell » Thu Apr 21, 2016 6:10 am

In the interests of completeness, here is the second part of Kenan Malik's piece on multiculturalism (it's actually a transcript of a talk, but it comes over as a written article). Possibly useful material for those who wish to understand how MC might work (and doesn't work) in different parts of the world, a comparison between relatively similar European countries is not a bad baseline.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MULTICULTURALISM? [PART 2]

The story I have told so far is of a Europe that is not as plural as many imagine it to be, and of immigrants less assertive of their cultural identities than they are claimed to be. Multicultural policies emerged not because migrants demanded them, but primarily because the political elite needed them to manage immigration and to assuage anger created by racism.

Why, then, have we come to imagine that we are living in particularly plural societies, in which our cultural identities are all-important? The answer lies in a complex set of social, political and economic changes over the past half century, changes that include the narrowing of the political sphere, the collapse of the left, the demise of class politics, the erosion of more universalist visions of social change. Many of these changes helped pave the way for multicultural policies. At the same time, the implementation of such policies helped create a more fragmented society. Or, to put it another way, multicultural policies have helped create the very problems they were meant to have resolved. I want to demonstrate this through two examples. The first is a riot in Britain, of which you may not have heard, the second a cartoon crisis in Denmark, about which everyone has heard.

In 1985, the Handsworth area of the English city of Birmingham was rocked by riots. Blacks, Asians and whites took to the streets in protest against poverty, unemployment and, in particular, police harassment. In the violence that followed, two people were killed and dozens injured. It was almost the last flicker of the Eighties inner city conflagrations.

Twenty years later, in October 2005, another riot erupted in the area. This time the fighting was not between youth and police but between blacks and Asians. An unsubstantiated – and almost certainly untrue – rumour that a Jamaican girl had been raped by a group of Asian men, led to a weekend of violence between the two communities, during which a young black man was murdered.

Why did two communities that had fought side by side in 1985 fight against each other 20 years later? The answer lies largely in the policies introduced by Birmingham Council after the original riots. In response to those riots, the Council proposed a new political framework for the engagement of minority communities. It created nine so-called Umbrella Groups, organizations based on ethnicity and faith that were supposed to represent the needs of their particular communities while aiding policy development and resource allocation. These included the African and Caribbean People’s Movement, the Bangladeshi Islamic Projects Consultative Committee, the Birmingham Chinese Society, the Council of Black-led Churches, the Hindu Council, the Irish Forum, the Vietnamese Association, the Pakistani Forum and the Sikh Council of Gurdwaras.

Birmingham Council’s policies were aimed at drawing minority communities into the democratic process. The trouble was, there was precious little democracy in the process. The groups themselves had no democratic mandate, and indeed no mandate at all. After all why should the Council of Black-led Churches presume to speak for the needs and aspirations of African Caribbeans in Birmingham? Why should all Bangladeshis be represented by an Islamic organisation, or all Sikhs by the gurdwaras? And indeed what is the Bangladeshi community or the Sikh community and what are its needs and aspirations?

Imagine if the council had set up a ‘White Forum’ to represent the needs of the white community in Birmingham. Could such a group have represented the interests of all white people in the city? Clearly not. Why should we imagine that Bangladeshis or Sikhs or African Caribbeans are any different?

This points up a paradox in the multicultural vision. The staring point of multicultural policies is the acceptance of societies as diverse. Yet, there is an unstated assumption that such diversity ends at the edges of minority communities. Birmingham council’s policies, like much multicultural policy, treated minority communities as homogeneous wholes, ignoring conflicts within those communities. As the council’s own report put it,

The perceived notion of the homogeneity of minority ethnic communities has informed a great deal of race equality work to date. The effect of this, amongst others, has been to place an over-reliance on individuals who are seen to represent the needs of the whole community and resulted in simplistic approaches toward tackling community needs.


Multicultural policies, in other words, have not responded to the needs of communities, but have helped create those communities by imposing identities on people. And they have created communities by ignoring internal conflicts – conflicts that arise out of class, gender and intra-religious and other differences. What multicultural policies do is empower not minority communities, but so-called ‘community leaders’, who achieve power not because they represent their community but because they have a relationship with the state.

At the same time as they ignored conflicts within minority communities, Birmingham’s policies created conflicts between them. As one academic study of Birmingham’s policies observes,

The model of engagement through Umbrella Groups tended to result in competition between black and minority ethnic communities for resources. Rather than prioritising needs and cross-community working, the different Umbrella Groups generally attempted to maximise their own interests.

Once political power and financial resources became allocated by ethnicity, then people began to identify themselves in terms of those ethnicities, and only those ethnicities.

Imagine that you are a secular Bangladeshi living in Birmingham. You don’t think of yourself as a Muslim, you may not even think yourself as Bangladeshi. Over time, however, you come to see yourself in those terms, not just because those identities provide you with access to power, influence and resources, but also because those identities possess a social reality through receiving constant confirmation and affirmation. It is how you are seen; so it is how you come to see yourself. You come to fear and resent African Caribbeans and Sikhs and the Irish, partly because they are competitors for that pot of council largesse and power, and partly because the rules of the game are that your identity has to be affirmed as distinctive and different from the identities of other groups. Being Muslim also means being not-Irish, not-Sikh and not-African Caribbean.

The consequence is what the great Indian-born economist Amartya Sen has called ‘plural monoculturalism’ – policy driven by the myth that society is made up of a series of distinct, homogeneous cultures that dance around each other. And policy makes such a segmented society a reality. The result in Birmingham was to entrench divisions between black and Asian communities to an extent that sparked inter-communal rioting.

* * * * *

Not only have multicultural policies entrenched the idea of homogenous communities, with disastrous consequences. They have also enabled the most conservative figures to be seen as the authentic voices of those communities.

Consider, for instance, the controversy over the Danish cartoons. We all know what happened. A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published a series of inflammatory cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Islam forbids the depiction of the Prophet. So millions of Muslims worldwide were enraged to the point of violence.

Except it never happened like that. For a start, there is no universal Islamic prohibition on the representation of the Prophet. It was, in fact, common to portray him until comparatively recently. A number of Islamic, especially Shiite, traditions continue to accept the pictorial representation of Muhammed.

Shortly after Jyllands Posten published the cartoons, the Egyptian newspaper Al Fagr reprinted them. They were accompanied by a critical commentary, but Al Fagr did not think it necessary to blank out Muhammad’s face, and faced no opprobrium for not doing so. Egypt’s religious and political authorities, even as they were demanding an apology from the Danish Prime Minister, raised no objections to Al Fagr’s full frontal photos.

So, if there is no universal prohibition to the depiction of Muhammad, why were Muslims universally appalled by the caricatures? They weren’t. And those that were driven by political zeal rather than by theological fervour. The publications of the cartoons in September 2005 caused no immediate reaction, even in Denmark. Journalists, disappointed by the lack of controversy, contacted a number of imams for their response. Among the first was Ahmed Abu Laban. He seized upon the cartoons to transform himself into a spokesman for Denmark’s Muslims. Even so, it took more than four months of often hysterical campaigning, and considerable arm-twisting by Saudi diplomats, to create a major controversy.

Why did journalists contact Abu Laban in the first place? His Islamic Society of Denmark had little support. Out of a population of 180,000 Danish Muslims, fewer than a thousand attended the Society’s Friday prayers. He was, however, infamous for his support for Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks. From a journalistic viewpoint, it made sense to get a quote from someone so controversial. But politically, too, it made sense.

Western liberals have come to see figures like Abu Laban as the true, authentic voice of Islam. The Danish Muslim MP Nasser Khader tells of a conversation with Toger Seidenfaden, editor of Politiken, a left-wing newspaper highly critical of the caricatures. ‘He said to me that cartoons insulted all Muslims’, Khader recalls. ‘I said I was not insulted. He said, “But you’re not a real Muslim”.’ In liberal eyes, in other words, to be a real Muslim is to find the cartoons offensive. Once Muslim authenticity is so defined, then only a figure such as Abu Laban can be seen as a true Muslim voice.

The myths about the Danish cartoons – that all Muslims hated the cartoons and that it was a theological conflict – helped turn Abu Laban into an authentic voice of Islam, and to silence other voices. At the same time Abu Laban’s views seemed to confirm the myths about the Danish cartoons.

The question at the heart of the Danish cartoon controversy is not simply ‘what is offensive?’ but also ‘who decides what is offensive?’ In other words, ‘Who speaks for the community?’ Abu Laban or Nasser Khader? That is also the question at the heart of many of the flashpoints about ‘offensiveness’, from the global confrontation over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses to the local struggle over Sikh writer Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s play Bezhti which was forced off stage in 2005 by Sikh activists in Birmingham who objected to it.

The issue of free speech and the giving of offence has become central to the multiculturalism debate. Speech, many argue, must necessarily be less free in a plural society. For such societies to function and be fair, we need to show respect for all cultures and beliefs. And to show respect for all cultures and beliefs requires us to police pubic discourse about those cultures and beliefs, both to minimise friction between antagonistic cultures and beliefs, and to protect the dignity of those individuals embedded in them. As the sociologist Tariq Modood has put it,

If people are to occupy the same political space without conflict, they mutually have to limit the extent to which they subject each others’ fundamental beliefs to criticism.

One of the ironies of living in a plural society, it seems, is that the preservation of diversity requires us to leave less room for a diversity of views.

Leaving aside the question of whether there is anything morally wrong with giving offence (and I don’t believe there is), the problem with this line of argument is that what is often regarded as offence to a community is in reality a debate within that community. That is why so many of the flashpoints over offensiveness have been over works produced by minority artists – not just Salman Rushdie and Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, but also Hanif Kuresihi, Monica Ali, Sooreh Hera, Taslima Nasrin, MF Hussain, and so on.

Take the Rushdie affair. Neither Rushdie nor his critics spoke for the Muslim community. Each represented different strands of opinion in that community. Rushdie gave voice to a radical, secular sentiment that in the 1980s was deeply entrenched. Rushdie’s critics spoke for some of the most conservative strands. Their campaign against The Satanic Verses was not to protect Muslim communities from unconscionable attack from anti-Muslim bigots, but, rather, to protect their own privileged position within those communities from political attack from radical critics, to assert their right to be the truev oice of Islam by denying legitimacy to such critics. And they succeeded at least in part because secular liberals embraced them as the ‘authentic’ voice of the Muslim community.

Just as Abu Laban was seen as an authentic Muslim and Nasser Khader as not a proper one, so Rushdie’s critics were seen as authentic Muslims and Kaur Bhatti’s critics as proper Sikhs, while Rushdie and Kaur Bhatti themselves were regarded as too Westernized, secular or progressive to be truly of their community. The consequence is that the most conservative voices are often seen as the authentic representatives of those communities, while the progressive voices get marginalized.

* * * * *

Having explored the problems of multiculturalism, I want briefly to look at the criticisms of multiculturalism. Much of that criticism is undoubtedly driven by racism, bigotry and sheer hatred for the Other. Nowhere is this more savagely evident than in the case of Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer.

Many feel that faced with a monster like Breivik, we must close ranks and defend that which he wishes to destroy. It is a version of an argument that has gained ground as rightwing leaders, from Germany’s Angela Merkel to Britain’s David Cameron to former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, have in recent years become more fiercein their criticism of multiculturalism. It is an argument that misunderstands both multiculturalism and Breivik’s hatred. The real target of Breivik’s assault is not so much multiculturalism as immigrants, immigration and diversity.

The problem with multiculturalism, I have suggested, is that in putting people in ethnic boxes it undermines diversity. I am critical of multiculturalism precisely because I want to defend diversity. Breivik, however, does not oppose multiculturalism because he wants to defend diversity. Rather, he opposes diversity because he wants to put people into cultural boxes, in his case primarily labeled ‘Christian’ and ‘Muslim’. In his twisted, fantasy world the presence of Muslims in the Christian box pollutes and defiles it and needs to be eliminated.

Few but the most psychopathic have any sympathy for Breivik’s homicidal frenzy. Yet, many agree with his intellectual assault. The idea that ‘Christian Europe’ is under threat, that Muslim immigration amounts to an invasion, and that ‘Western civilization’ is facing collapse finds a widespread hearing. In a television debate during the French Presidential elections, Nikolas Sarkozy called for a restoration of border controls and passport checks in order ‘to defend a European civilization’. Christopher Caldwell, whose work I mentioned earlier, suggests that Islam has ‘broken’ the fundamentals of the European tradition, ‘not enhancing or validating European culture’, but ‘supplanting it’. In his polemical screed America Alone, the Canadian journalist Mark Steyn talks of the Madrid train bombings and of 7/7 attacks on the London transport system as the ‘opening shots of a European civil war’ that will lead to ‘societal collapse’, ‘fascist revivalism’ and a never-to-return journey into ‘the long Eurabian night’.

Such ideas draw their power from a vision of a world torn apart by a ‘clash of civilizations’. An idea first popularized by the American political scientist Samuel Huntingdon a decade before 9/11, it has, for many, come to define the decade after.

What is striking about these two approaches – multiculturalism, on the one hand, the clash of civilizations, on the other – is how much they have in common. It is true that there is little love lost between multiculturalists and clash of civilization warriors. The former accuse the latter of pandering to racism and Islamophobia, while the latter talk of the former as appeasing Islamism. Beneath the hostility, however, the two sides share basic assumptions about the nature of culture, identity and difference. Both view the key social divisions as cultural or civilizational. Both see cultures, or civilizations, as homogenous entities. Both insist on the crucialimportance of cultural identity and on the preservation of such identity. Both perceive irresolvable conflicts arising from incommensurate values.

It’s not just multiculturalists and clash of civilizational warriors who draw upon these themes. The far right, too, in recent years, has increasingly, in public at least, swapped the old language of biologicaldifference, for the new idiom of cultural identity. At the heart of the far right and populist assault on multiculturalism is a defence of ‘my culture’, ‘my history’, ‘my tradition’.

Listen to the language that Breivik employs. Multiculturalism, he told his trial, is a ‘hate ideology’. He lamented its ‘deconstruction of European cultures and traditions’, and saw himself as acting ‘in defence of my culture and of my people’. This is precisely the language of culture and identity that multiculturalism has done so much to foster in recent years.

If the far right has appropriated the language of pluralism, many pluralists have slipped into the idiom of exclusion. The late Isaiah Berlin was probably the pre-eminent philosopher of modern pluralism, hugely influential, not least on that torchbearer of Canadian liberalism, Michael Ignatieff. Shortly before his death Berlin was interviewed by the political philosopher Steven Lukes. Was it possible, Lukes asked, for peoples of different cultures to live together?

‘When you have two peoples of different origins and cultures’, Berlin replied, ‘it is difficult for them to live together in peace… it is quite natural that each side should think that they cannot lead free lives in an integrated society if the others are there in quantity.’ Black immigration to Western Europe, he added, was ‘a problem’ because ‘cultures which have grown up with no contact with one another have now collided’.

Berlin is not alone in making a multiculturalist case for ‘keeping them out’. Will Kymlicka, who gave this lecture four years ago, has perhaps inherited Berlin’s mantle as the most important and cogent philosopher of multiculturalism, a highly subtle thinker, and an unswerving liberal. In his book Multicultural Politics, Professor Kymlicka makes a case for the right of cultures to protect their unique characters from changes wrought from the outside. ‘It is right and proper’, he argues, ‘that the character of a culture changes as a result of the choices of its members’. But ‘while it is one thing to learn from the larger world’, he insists, it is quite another ‘to be swamped by it’.

That is a telling phrase. For the fear of being ‘swamped’ has long been a rightwing trope, used to whip up fears about immigration. It’s at the heart of the current hysteria about Islam. Professor Kymlicka is liberal to his bones, resolutely hostile to the arguments against immigration and Islam. Yet, once it becomes a matter of political principle that cultures should not be swamped by outsiders, then it is difficult to know how one could possibly resist the anti-immigration arguments of the right.

The irony of the polarised debate in Europe is that the assault on multiculturalism is all too often pursued through the language of multiculturalism. Perhaps the biggest indictment of multiculturalism is that it has transformed racism into another cultural identity.

* * * * *

I began this talk by distinguishing between the idea of diversity as lived experience and that of multiculturalism as a political process. I want to end this talk by returning to that distinction.

The real failure of multiculturalism as a political process, it seems to me, is its failure to understand what is valuable about diversity as lived experience.

When we say that we live in a diverse society, what we mean is that it is a messy world out there, full of clashes and conflicts. And that is all for the good, for it is out of such clashes and conflicts that cultural and political engagement emerges. Diversity is important, not in and of itself, but because it allows us to break out of our culture-bound boxes, by engaging in dialogue and debate and by putting different values, beliefs and lifestyles to the test.

But the very thing that is valuable about diversity – the cultural and ideological clashes that it brings about – is the very thing that many people fear. And that fear takes two forms. On the one hand, you have the nationalist sentiment: immigration is undermining the national fabric, eroding our sense of Britishness or Frenchness or Germanness. And on the other you have the multicultural argument: diversity is good, but it has to be policed to minimise the clashes and conflicts and frictions it brings in its wake.

To say that clashes and conflicts can be good does not mean, of course, that every clash and conflict is a good. Political conflicts are often useful because they repose social problems in a way that asks: ‘How can we change society to overcome that problem?’ We might disagree on the answer, but the debate itself is a useful one.

Multiculturalism, on the other hand, by reposing political problems in terms of culture or faith, transforms political conflicts into a form that makes them neither useful nor resolvable. Multicultural policies both constrain the kinds of clashes of opinion that could prove politically fruitful, and unleash the kinds of conflicts that are socially damaging. They transform political debates into cultural collisions and, by imprisoning individuals within their cultures and identities, make such collisions both inevitable and insoluble.

The lesson of Europe, it seems to me, is that if we want to preserve diversity as lived experience, we need also to challenge multiculturalism as a political process.


Part one here
" Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism"
User avatar
jakell
 
Posts: 1821
Joined: Wed May 06, 2009 4:58 pm
Location: North England
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The slippery Cultural Marxists

Postby Jerky » Tue Aug 23, 2016 2:27 am

It should come as no surprise to MOST of you here, reading this, that the growing cohort of conservative movementarians trying to promote the "Cultural Marxism" conspiracy theory haven't got the first fucking clue what they're yammering about. But in case you're still curious as to what all the hubbub is about, why not check out what an actual, bona fide Marxist has to say about the subject?

Michael Acuña begins his excellent analytical and historical overview thusly:

****

Across the paleoconservative blogosphere, on every “libertarian” forum and racist webpage, a strange concept is faulted for the turmoil witnessed in North America and Europe today, as well as for the alleged breakdown of Western social mores. ‘Cultural Marxism’ is the name these courageous right-wing dissidents have assigned this corrosive force.

So what exactly is cultural Marxism and how is it that so many ostensibly capitalist societies haven fallen victim to it? The narrative varies depending on the political leaning of the individual disseminating it, but its standard rendition is as follows: a sect of European intellectuals, disillusioned by the failure of orthodox Marxist parties to mobilize the proletariat into conflict with the bourgeoisie, came to the conclusion that the original Marxist formulation was incorrect. Western workers simply possessed too conservative a disposition for communism’s egalitarian rhetoric to appeal to them. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s dialectical theory of capitalism’s internal contradictions generating a qualitatively higher mode of production—communism—was flawed. There were ideological obstacles preventing the economic synthesis from being realized. The solution to Marxism’s theoretical errors these thinkers arrived at was to replace class as the locus of struggle with culture. In other words, the traditional Marxist Klassenkampf was to be entirely replaced by a neo-Marxist Kulturkampf.

These men, many of whom were psychoanalysts of Jewish descent (a fact of particular interest to fascists), came to be known as the ‘Frankfurt school’ due to their affiliation with the Institute for Social Research at Goethe University, located in Frankfurt, Germany. The subversive ideas this faction of assorted academicians and literati conjured up had a profound effect on Western intellectuals and eventually infected the minds of North America’s and Europe’s cultural elite via university indoctrination, the story goes on, thereby leading to the liberal social movements and various projects of social engineering observed today, e.g., feminism, LGBTQ rights, multiculturalism, and political correctness. To quote the late conservative political commentator Andrew Breitbart:

"We can call it cultural Marxism, but at the end of the day, we experience it on a day to day basis. By that I mean, a minute by minute, second by second basis. It’s political correctness and it’s multiculturalism."

But how well does this chilling tale conform to reality? Not very. However, before describing the actual causes of the social maladies certain conservatives impute to ‘cultural Marxism,’ I believe it would be instructive to trace the origins of this conspiracy theory; for, in so doing, we shall discover that it is little more than the latest iteration of the right-wing’s ceaseless Red Scare effort.
Let us begin at the beginning, with Karl Marx himself...

****

What follows is a carefully constructed, engagingly written, and convincingly definitive account of this patently ridiculous, reactionary meme. Also, be sure to read through the voluminous comments section, where Acuña makes a good faith effort to patiently engage with and educate an alt.right True Believer. The latter's increasingly desperate flailing in the face of an ideological opponent whose knowledge and basic intelligence so obviously eclipse his own comes close to being as revealing about the insidious core of the Current Crisis as Acuña's essay, itself.

More at this link:
https://commonruin.wordpress.com/2014/0 ... l-marxism/

Cheers!
yer old pal Jerky

Sounder » 24 Mar 2016 12:32 wrote:
^^^^Yeah, what a load of shit.


OK then 82-28 and jerky, use your scintillating intellect to break down this rhetoric and show us specifically in what ways this is a 'load of shit'.

-or Jack or AD, no c+p, your own words, thanks.

RI is after all, not a faith based organization. :thumbsup
User avatar
Jerky
 
Posts: 2240
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:28 pm
Location: Toronto, ON
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The slippery Cultural Marxists

Postby FourthBase » Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:02 pm

Jerky » 23 Aug 2016 01:27 wrote:It should come as no surprise to MOST of you here, reading this, that the growing cohort of conservative movementarians trying to promote the "Cultural Marxism" conspiracy theory haven't got the first fucking clue what they're yammering about. But in case you're still curious as to what all the hubbub is about, why not check out what an actual, bona fide Marxist has to say about the subject?

Michael Acuña begins his excellent analytical and historical overview thusly:

****

Across the paleoconservative blogosphere, on every “libertarian” forum and racist webpage, a strange concept is faulted for the turmoil witnessed in North America and Europe today, as well as for the alleged breakdown of Western social mores. ‘Cultural Marxism’ is the name these courageous right-wing dissidents have assigned this corrosive force.

So what exactly is cultural Marxism and how is it that so many ostensibly capitalist societies haven fallen victim to it? The narrative varies depending on the political leaning of the individual disseminating it, but its standard rendition is as follows: a sect of European intellectuals, disillusioned by the failure of orthodox Marxist parties to mobilize the proletariat into conflict with the bourgeoisie, came to the conclusion that the original Marxist formulation was incorrect. Western workers simply possessed too conservative a disposition for communism’s egalitarian rhetoric to appeal to them. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s dialectical theory of capitalism’s internal contradictions generating a qualitatively higher mode of production—communism—was flawed. There were ideological obstacles preventing the economic synthesis from being realized. The solution to Marxism’s theoretical errors these thinkers arrived at was to replace class as the locus of struggle with culture. In other words, the traditional Marxist Klassenkampf was to be entirely replaced by a neo-Marxist Kulturkampf.

These men, many of whom were psychoanalysts of Jewish descent (a fact of particular interest to fascists), came to be known as the ‘Frankfurt school’ due to their affiliation with the Institute for Social Research at Goethe University, located in Frankfurt, Germany. The subversive ideas this faction of assorted academicians and literati conjured up had a profound effect on Western intellectuals and eventually infected the minds of North America’s and Europe’s cultural elite via university indoctrination, the story goes on, thereby leading to the liberal social movements and various projects of social engineering observed today, e.g., feminism, LGBTQ rights, multiculturalism, and political correctness. To quote the late conservative political commentator Andrew Breitbart:

"We can call it cultural Marxism, but at the end of the day, we experience it on a day to day basis. By that I mean, a minute by minute, second by second basis. It’s political correctness and it’s multiculturalism."

But how well does this chilling tale conform to reality? Not very. However, before describing the actual causes of the social maladies certain conservatives impute to ‘cultural Marxism,’ I believe it would be instructive to trace the origins of this conspiracy theory; for, in so doing, we shall discover that it is little more than the latest iteration of the right-wing’s ceaseless Red Scare effort.
Let us begin at the beginning, with Karl Marx himself...

****

What follows is a carefully constructed, engagingly written, and convincingly definitive account of this patently ridiculous, reactionary meme.


Did we read the same thing?

That thing was fucking lame.

"All of these features of the doctrine were obviously exaggerated, in an attempt to frighten religious and/or nationalistic workers, and purposely omitted was the fact that communists have never possessed a unified stance on the national question, the family, or religion."

All of these features were "exaggerated", lol. Mostly fucking true, of course, sure, the features are indeed there in the doctrine, but they were exaggerated, so, nothing to see here, move along. Naturally, communists themselves are never so impure as to ever exaggerate anything, lol.

It also amazes me how communists will always treat not-being-perfectly-unified as an alibi for just about any criticism. #notallcommies

Also, be sure to read through the voluminous comments section, where Acuña makes a good faith effort to patiently engage with and educate an alt.right True Believer. The latter's increasingly desperate flailing in the face of an ideological opponent whose knowledge and basic intelligence so obviously eclipse his own comes close to being as revealing about the insidious core of the Current Crisis as Acuña's essay, itself.


I do not trust your depiction. And I do not care to mine a voluminous comments section. Please quote an excerpt so that I can sense whether it's actually worth reading or if it's fucking rubbish like main entry you inexplicably raved about.

[/quote]More at this link:
https://commonruin.wordpress.com/2014/0 ... l-marxism/

Cheers!
yer old pal Jerky

Sounder » 24 Mar 2016 12:32 wrote:
^^^^Yeah, what a load of shit.


OK then 82-28 and jerky, use your scintillating intellect to break down this rhetoric and show us specifically in what ways this is a 'load of shit'.

-or Jack or AD, no c+p, your own words, thanks.

RI is after all, not a faith based organization. :thumbsup
[/quote]

I'll gladly dissect this whole entry and its comments for dishonesty but first I want to see proof that the comments section is actually worthwhile and interesting before I sacrifice precious time perusing it.
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
User avatar
FourthBase
 
Posts: 7057
Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 4:41 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby Luther Blissett » Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:35 pm

Alt rightists and libertarians should spend a month or two limiting their own internet usage to black tumblr and twitter and not comment, just read. Or just come hang out in my neighborhood. It would be hilarious to watch them cry about how we've all been coerced by the state to live in multicultural harmony: "why don't we just see it!!?" Searching all the anarchist and communist spaces for all that sweet federal cash and getting sad when they realize that progress is just progress and that it's free. "Where are all the crack babies? Where are all the welfare Cadillacs? WHERE ARE YOU HIDING THEM?"

People need to get out and experience the world and not self-segregate. The whole conspiracy theory falls apart if you ask the devotee to walk down the street. There is no other idea that is as patently ridiculous as compares to the last 30 years of my own lived experience.

Studies have shown that all children do better in more diverse classrooms and this is true.
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
User avatar
Luther Blissett
 
Posts: 4990
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 1:31 pm
Location: Philadelphia
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby American Dream » Tue Aug 23, 2016 12:42 pm

The most retrograde of reactionaries love the Frankfurt School as a handy bête noire because it allows them to dismiss wholesale all the forms of "identity politics" they don't like. Feminism, Black Liberation, Queer struggles, all that sort of thing are woven into one nefarious (jewish) plot, which need not be thought about in any particularly rigorous or insightful way whatsoever.

Never mind that most of the figures concerned are mostly influential- if at all- in an academic sense and even that, not so much. Marcuse may have had his heyday amongst certain activists 1968-1972, but that does not bother the far Right much at all!

Benjamin, Adorno and Fromm had even less pull amongst revolutionaries but do have their place amongst certain scholars. I like Habermas myself- he has interesting things to say. Marcuse also cool, but hardly the person who destroyed Western Civilization.

The overall trope of right wing Cultural Marxist Conspiracy Theory is truly ludicrous, and a real embarrassment wherever it is espoused.
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby Luther Blissett » Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:11 pm

Looks like people who believe cultural marxism is real are currently staging an armed protest outside of NAACP offices in Houston.

Armed, Confederate flag-waving White Lives Matter protesters rally outside Houston NAACP

White Lives Matter[ha] staged a rally outside the NAACP’s Houston headquarters on Sunday, sparking controversy and counterprotests in a city where racial tensions remain high after a string of recent incidents.

Clutching Confederate flags, white supremacist signs and, in several cases, assault rifles, roughly 20 White Lives Matter members stood on the sidewalk of a historically black neighborhood to denounce the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“We came out here specifically today to protest against the NAACP and their failure in speaking out against the atrocities that organizations like Black Lives Matter and other pro-black organizations have caused the attack and killing of white police officers, the burning down of cities and things of that nature,” organizer Ken Reed told the Houston Chronicle. “If they’re going to be a civil rights organization and defend their people, they also need to hold their people accountable.”

Reed, who was wearing a “Donald Trump ’16” hat and a “White Lives Matter” shirt with white supremacist symbols, said protesters were “not out here to instigate or start any problems,” despite the weaponry and body armor on display.

“Obviously we are exercising our Second Amendment rights but that’s because we have to defend ourselves,” he told the Chronicle. “Their organizations and their people are shooting people based on the color of their skin. We’re not.”

Reed appeared to be referring to attacks targeting white police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge last month, which were carried out by lone gunmen espousing black nationalist beliefs. (In Dallas a Latino officer was killed and in Baton Rouge, an African American officer was killed). Both Black Lives Matter and the NAACP denounced the attacks.

Sunday’s demonstration in Houston’s predominantly black Third Ward quickly spurred a counterprotest, which soon dwarfed the White Lives Matter gathering.

As police arrived and set up barricades around the White Lives Matter protesters, locals stood across the street. Some shouted, while others shook their heads in disbelief that Confederate flags were flying in front of an NAACP office in a black neighborhood.

“It’s a physical manifestation of white supremacy, white privilege and racism being protected by this country,” a black female counterprotester told KPRC2.

The White Lives Matter protest comes at a tense time for Houston and the country. On July 9, Houston police fatally shot a black man who they said pointed a gun at officers. The shooting, which came the same week as fatal police shootings of two other black men, one in Baton Rouge and another in Falcon Heights, Minn., prompted criticism from Black Lives Matter activists. The Houston shooting came two days after the attack on Dallas police.

Several other incidents in the city have raised racial tensions even further. At the University of Houston, the vice president of the Student Government Association was sanctioned after she wrote “Forget #BlackLivesMatter … More like AllLivesMatter” on Facebook shortly after the Dallas attack.

Earlier this month, authorities released video showing an African American woman calling 911 and saying she was “really afraid” of a white cop who had pulled her over. The woman was then violently arrested, although the officer was cleared of wrongdoing.

In May, city officials voted to rename seven schools named after people with ties to the Confederacy, including Robert E. Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Jefferson Davis.

Last year, the University of Texas announced it was removing a statue of Davis from its campus in Austin, about 160 miles west of Houston.

Sunday’s rally was not the nation’s first White Lives Matter gathering. Others have drawn similarly small crowds, such as a July 30 protest in Buffalo that was organized by neo-Nazis and also was dwarfed by counterprotests.

Comments by the White Lives Matter protesters Sunday also seemed to echo opposition to the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse last summer. The flag was taken down after avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof allegedly killed nine African Americans at a church in Charleston.

“It has nothing to do with racism on our part,” Reed told the Chronicle in reference to the Confederate flags on display at Sunday’s protest. “We’re proud to be Southern. It has all to do about heritage, nothing to do with hate.”

In videos posted online by local news outlets, bystanders and counterprotesters, Reed appeared to be the leader of the demonstration.

He had appeared on television the day before to promote the rally.

“Attacks on white officers, the calling for the murder of white officers, the burning down of cities, the stopping of traffic in streets,” Reed told Fox26. “A cop or ambulance could be trying to take someone to the hospital where a matter of minutes matters, and [Black Lives Matter protesters] are stopping them from going. The NAACP is not speaking out against this and if you aren’t speaking out against it you are, in our eyes, condoning it.”

Whites were under attack, he claimed.

“We’re being told that it’s bad to be white,” he told the television station. “Every other race is encouraged to promote their heritage and culture, but as soon as a white person does it they are labeled as evil or racist.”

On Sunday, he stood out front of the NAACP office on Wheeler Avenue with a bullhorn.

“White Lives Matter refuses to feel any white guilt,” he shouted, according to a KPRC2 video.

“I ask Black Lives Matter and I ask the New Black Panther Party why, we ask why Black Lives Matter is not being labeled a hate group or domestic terrorist group,” he said into the bullhorn, according to Chronicle footage.

Reed said he thought whites were receiving unequal treatment and had been drowned out by Black Lives Matter.

“We’re out here just to show White Lives Matter has the right to support our rights and our heritage and culture, just as they do,” he told the Chronicle. “But they do not have the right to kill, they do not have the right to assault, they do not have the right to threat[en] and they do not have the right to damage personal property.”

Other protesters were even more blunt.

“We came here because the NAACP headquarters is here and that’s one of the most racist — supposedly ‘civil rights’ — groups in America,” said Scott Lacy, who could be seen waving a Confederate flag.

“It seems like in the country today that it’s wrong to be white,” fellow protester Billy Gaston told KPRC2.

One sign simply read “14 words,” a reference to the white supremacist motto: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

The protest struck many in the neighborhood as nonsensical and offensive.

Quintana Richardson, who is black, said Reed’s demand for equal rights for whites didn’t fit with historical fact.

“When he says ‘equal rights,’ that’s what we are trying to say. Let’s have equal rights. We’ve been saying that for years as black people,” she told the Chronicle.

Jose Grinan ✔ @JoseGrinanFOX26
White supremacists protest @naacp_houston and Black Lives Matter.Is this a part of what some call the "Trump effect?
4:24 PM - 21 Aug 2016


And whatever message White Lives Matter might have had, it was obscured by the symbols on display, Richardson said.

“The Confederate flag throws me off,” she said. “You’re saying Black Lives Matter is a racist organization but when you’re throwing the Confederate flag up and you’re saying White Lives Matter, are you saying you’re racist as well?”

Adding to the tension were the assault-style rifles, which could be seen slung over the shoulders of at least two women and one man during the protest. Several protesters also wore body armor.

Some locals said they felt like the White Lives Matter crowd had descended on Houston with no intention of holding a dialogue.

“They didn’t even want to talk,” Trevor Clark, who is black, told KPRC2. “Things like this are going to continue to happen, tragedies are going to continue to happen if we don’t have an open dialogue.”

Brandon Walker, a reporter for the TV station, also said that there was little communication between groups literally on either side of the street.

“Organizers of the White Lives Matter movement say they held this protest and were here to spark dialogue on both sides of the street,” he said. “Also, people who were here in response to the rally said they hoped to have some dialogue too. Neither side, though, said they were able to accomplish that. The rally ended before any conversation on either end of the street was slated to take place.”

It was much the same online, where there was lots of heated comments but little exchange of ideas.

By Sunday night, “White Lives Matter” was trending nationwide on Twitter.

Many poked fun at the protest.

Jerry Ford Jr., a Black Lives Matter activist who appeared alongside Reed on TV the day before, linked the protest to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Jerry Ford, Jr. @JerryFordJr
Trump got these folks bold as hell holding a White Lives Matter protest outside of Houston NAACP @rolandsmartin
2:07 PM - 21 Aug 2016 · Houston, TX, United States


Some White Lives Matter supporters, however, suggested the movement was a tit-for-tat response.

“Very few blacks were on board with All Lives Matter, so we are doing our own thing now,” wrote one on Twitter. “White Lives Matter.”

“We expect every race to be proud of who they are,” Reed said on Fox26. “We’re out there fighting for our rights just like everyone should.”

Many portrayed White Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter as equivalents.

“Black Lives Matter is allowed. Why not White Lives Matter?” wrote one. “It’s either both of them or none of them. Pick one.”

“I don’t want to hear ‘White lives matter.’ I don’t want to hear ‘Black lives matter,'” wrote former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, who has his own controversial history involving BLM. “Only ‘All lives matter.’ Got it? Good. Now grow up.”

Critics, however, said equating the two movements was absurd as it ignored centuries of slavery and institutionalized racism in America.

a girl is no one @OhNoSheTwitnt
The fact that "White Lives Matter" is even a thing just proves that too many white people don't understand what "Black Lives Matter" means.
6:02 AM - 22 Aug 2016


David Harris-Gershon @David_EHG
"White Lives Matter" has a silent "only," whereas "Black Lives Matter" has a silent "also." One is racism, the other a call for equality.
8:53 PM - 21 Aug 2016


X ✔ @XLNB
The major difference:

Black Lives Matter (Too)
White Lives Matter (More)

Remember that.
11:22 PM - 21 Aug 2016


Raquel Willis ✔ @RaquelWillis_
Anybody who thinks White Lives Matter is at all on the same level as Black Lives Matter is a lost cause. I don't have the energy anymore.
8:58 PM - 21 Aug 2016


Perhaps the most powerful response came from Andre Smith, a young black man and the son of NAACP Houston’s executive director, Yolanda Smith.

“So this is what the Houston branch of the NAACP looked liked today,” he wrote under a photo of the protest posted on Instagram. “White supremacist protested with Confederate flags and banners that read ‘White lives matter.’

“Little did they know the executive director of this particular branch birthday was today, which so happens to be my mom. So we spent the day celebrating a black life that did matter and will continue to do great work at this place you protest! Thank you and try again! #blacklivesmatter #NAACP”
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
User avatar
Luther Blissett
 
Posts: 4990
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 1:31 pm
Location: Philadelphia
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby Jerky » Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:30 pm

Holy crap, FourthBase. I'd noticed some rightward drift in your comments over the last few months, but I didn't realize you'd actually decided to go "full retard", as they say in Tropic Thunder.

You should never go full retard.

Cheers!
YOPJ
Last edited by Jerky on Tue Aug 23, 2016 2:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Jerky
 
Posts: 2240
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:28 pm
Location: Toronto, ON
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby DrEvil » Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:33 pm

^^Those idiots should just go full John McClane. That's what they really mean after all.
Image

Edit: this was a response to Luther's post, not Jerky's. :D
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 3968
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby American Dream » Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:36 pm

"White Lives Matter" in Houston surely has very smart opinions about the Cultural Marxist World Conspiracy, too:


Image
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

Postby FourthBase » Tue Aug 23, 2016 3:49 pm

Jerky » 23 Aug 2016 12:30 wrote:Holy crap, FourthBase. I'd noticed some rightward drift in your comments over the last few months, but I didn't realize you'd actually decided to go "full retard", as they say in Tropic Thunder.

You should never go full retard.

Cheers!
YOPJ


Nah, dude. Outward. Un-handicapped. Not half-sighted anymore. I've drifted into stereoscopy. I see twice as much to be justifiably paranoid about as I used to. The binary you feel compelled to impose is worse than useless.
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
User avatar
FourthBase
 
Posts: 7057
Joined: Thu May 05, 2005 4:41 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests