The Myth of Cultural Marxism
The right wing created a boogeyman
It seems that most people prefer to reduce complex realities to simplistic fallacies. Society and politics are complex, and many people would rather take the easy route of playing blame games than expend the effort of working for a better society. Regrettably, people from all political orientations do this.
Is Your Politics One of Principles or Pettiness?
Politics brings out the worst of people; it doesn’t have to
The easiest way to play the blame game is with a conspiracy theory. In brief, a conspiracy theory works by convincing people to fear an imaginary plot. It’s a method of control to get people to be so afraid they play the blame game rather than think constructively much less work together constructively.
The Right Wing’s Second Favorite Conspiracy Theory
Pushing conspiracy theories is at the core of right-wing strategy because keeping people distracted and fearful is an effective way to reach their goal of concentrating power. A conspiracy theory imagines an enemy from which you need protection. Any enemy will do. Immigrants are a prime target, as are minority ethnicities and religions. As long as the right wing can keep their target audience afraid of others, it helps the right wing concentrate power.
Since 1919, the favorite conspiracy theory for the right wing, dethroning their previous favorite (people conscious of history can guess), has been the menace of Marxism. The most effective conspiracy theories sound plausible and even have a grain of truth. “The Reds are coming to get you,” fit the bill. America’s first Red Scare began in 1919, pointing to events in Europe and amplifying any threat the Reds actually posed to the US. But like all good conspiracy theories, the Red Scare served extra duties as a propaganda campaign that also targeted leftists; labor unions; and, of course, immigrants.
Never mind that labor unions were making reasonable demands like “pay us enough to feed our families” and “make working conditions safe enough so the job doesn’t kill us by our early forties.” Such demands for basic human rights were clearly subversive and a threat to corporate profits. They had to be stopped. So Americans were told to be afraid — they are all Reds, Marxists, commies — they are all a threat to America, you, and your little dog too.
I am not a fan of Marx or of Marxism in general. Like all ideologues, they take what insights they have to totalizing extremes. That the capitalists exploit workers is true; that the nature of factory labor alienates workers is true; that economic determinism will necessarily cause the collapse of capitalism? Not so much. Marx was good at diagnosing problems but lousy at predictions. And to the dismay of hardcore anti-capitalists, the levels of exploitation and forced alienation of workers are at levels higher than ever.
The Pivot to a New Conspiracy Theory
For whatever reason, capitalism survived. The specter of armed revolt from the proletariat diminished. Corporate mass media and consumer culture had successfully placated the masses. The Soviet Union was gone. The right wing needed a new enemy.
The right wing created its new enemy and called it “Cultural Marxism.” Here is a succinct example from a major conspiracy theory outlet.
The problem with the new conspiracy theory that “Cultural Marxism is out to get you” is that “Cultural Marxism” doesn’t exist and has never existed. The term “Cultural Marxism” is used only by right-wing reactionaries who have no conception of either culture or what Marx actually said.
Marx’s “social critiques?” Where? One of the fatal flaws of Marx’s philosophy was his failure to include social and cultural influences. He was so fixated on economic exploitation and capitalist excesses that he couldn’t see the rest of human society.
“Social structures cause the systemic oppression of minority groups?” Uh, yeah, duh, but that’s not a Marxist idea. Aristotle in the 300s BCE warned people that social structures cause systemic oppression of social groups. Spartacus in 73 BCE could have told you about systemic oppression. Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792 was telling people about systemic oppression based on sex. Alexander Crummell in 1840 was talking about the systemic oppression of the Black minority in the US. And I’m leaving out many hundreds of thousands of other people over the past millennia who realized that social structures cause oppression and spoke out against them. They were all Cultural Marxists? Might as well throw in Jesus as someone preaching “Cultural Marxism.”
The myth of “Cultural Marxism” is a based on a misappropriation of Antonio Gramsci’s term, “cultural hegemony.” He was a Marxist, but like Marx, Gramsci was fixated on economic oppression. Capitalism hadn’t failed, Gramsci argued, because bourgeois ideology was maintained in cultural institutions. But by “cultural,” Gramsci meant indirect economic and political forces beyond the direct means of production. He observed that the bourgeoisie propagate their values through their control of the press, the education system, and the arts. Their values become “common sense,” part of the common background of culture. The proletariat learns to associate their good with the good of the bourgeoisie. Bourgeois culture and values have hegemony throughout society. For Gramsci, the hegemony is all about class.
So why is the right-wing “Cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory about social oppressions that Marx and Gramsci didn’t talk about? Because the right-wingers’ fixation is on enforcing social segregation based on factors outside of economic class. The working-class MAGA voter isn’t all that bent out of shape about economic inequality. They want the systemic oppression of minority groups, and specifically they want the oppression to be based on race, sex, gender, religion, and sexuality, among other factors. The concern to maintain those social divisions outweighs economic concerns.
The right-wing “Cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory isn’t about fighting Marxism; it’s about seeing too many Blacks and women in schools, jobs, and TV. It’s about gays being allowed to live free of persecution. The Red Scare is long gone but the Rainbow Scare is going strong.
Yes, the right wing is all bent out of shape about Christians not hating on the gays. They are still angry there was a Black president. They are freaked out that some women realize they don’t need to kowtow to men.
So why the blathering about “Cultural Marxism?” For the old men creating the right-wing’s propaganda memes, “Marxism” is the boogeyman with which they were raised. It remains their go-to because for all the strengths of right-wingers, coming up with new ideas that adapt to changing times is not one of them. It’s the easy route to refer to everything that unnerves them as “Marxist.”
My more perceptive readers will note that the targets of the label “Cultural Marxism” overlap with the targets of the label “woke.” We may be seeing a gradual shift from the boogeyman “Cultural Marxism” to the boogeyman of “woke.” I’ve written about this “wokeness” boogeyman elsewhere. But I had to type a few words about the “Cultural Marxism” boogeyman after seeing an advertisement pushinh the conspiracy theory from the propagandists at Hillsdale College. Their ad was quaint even though the bigotry behind it is anything but.