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view · edit Frequently asked questions Some common points of argument are addressed in the FAQ below, which represents the consensus of editors here. Please remember that this page is only for discussing how to improve this article. To view an explanation of the answer, click the link to the right of the question. Frequently asked questions about Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory Q1: Why is this topic called a "conspiracy theory" in the title? A1: Because that's what the reliable sources call it, and Misplaced Pages follows what reliable, independent, secondary sources say. See the sources listed in the footnotes in the lead of the article, for example. Q2: Why is it labeled "far-right" and "antisemitic" in the first sentence? Doesn't that show a biased, leftist point of view? A2: See answer #1; because that's what the reliable sources call it; see the citations for the first sentence. Q3: Dworkin (1997) has the term in the title of his book, so the field clearly must exist. A3: Not if he's the first one to talk about it. Dworkin said (on page 3) that "My account is the first intellectual history to study British cultural Marxism conceived as a coherent intellectual discipline". If he's the first, then either it's not a preexisting field, or no one has discovered or named it before him. Either way, that would be a different topic; this article is about the conspiracy theory dating to the 1990s. Q4: I came here to read (or edit) about scholars who apply Marxist theory to the study of culture. A4: Much of this is covered at a different article, Marxist cultural analysis. Q5: Why is this labeled "antisemitic"? Plenty of people involved with the Frankfurt school were Jewish! A5: This article is about the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory dating to the 1990s, and the reliable sources consistently identify it as antisemitic. The Frankfurt school is a different topic, and dates back to Germany in the 1920s.

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations: David Auerbach (2014-12-11). "Encyclopedia Frown". Slate. Recently, an adequate and fairly neutral page on 'Cultural Marxism,' which traced the history of Marxist critical theory from Lukács to Adorno to Jameson, simply disappeared thanks to the efforts of a single editor. Russell Blackford (2015-07-27). "Cultural Marxism and our current culture wars: Part 1". The Conversation. Russell Blackford (2015-08-02). "Cultural Marxism and our current culture wars: Part 2". The Conversation. McKinney, Kara (2021-11-29). "Tipping Point". One America News Network. Alexander Riley (2022-05-12). "On Cultural Marxism, the Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory? Woke Deception at Misplaced Pages". Minding the Campus. Shuichi Tezuka (2023-12-11). "Introducing Justapedia". Quillette.

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A warning about certain sources: There are two sources on the subject of "Cultural Marxism" that represent a citogenesis or circular reporting risk to Misplaced Pages as they plagiarize verbatim directly from an outdated draft that came from Misplaced Pages, which can be found here (2006 revision here). The sources are N.D. Arora's Political Science for Civil Services Main Examination (2013) and A.S. Kharbe's English Language And Literary Criticism (2009); both are from publishers located in New Delhi and should be avoided to prevent a citogenesis incident.

Cultural Marxism

'Cultural Marxism refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory'

Response:

The characterization of 'Cultural Marxism' as a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory serves as a means to discredit & cancel legitimate criticisms of Marxist ideology.

While Antonio Gramsci never explicitly coined the term 'Cultural Marxism,' it accurately represents principles within his neo-Marxist philosophy.

This characterization mirrors the approach often taken towards critiques of Critical Race Theory, whereby dissenting voices are categorized as racism. GaryI1965 (talk) 05:31, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

I there any argument, evidence or source supporting those claims? Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 07:48, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

«The characterization of 'Cultural Marxism' as a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory serves as a means to discredit & cancel legitimate criticisms of Marxist ideology.» => Because you say so? Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 12:16, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

e cultural Marxist conspiracy theory is not a legitimate criticism of Marxism, which is why it is a conspiracy theory. Unlike rational criticisms, it relies on false claims. TFD (talk) 01:25, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

2024-06 Berkeley

Older versions of the Misplaced Pages article link Special:permalink/566221148#External links a blog article by Bruce Miller, November 21, 2011, A crackpot far-right theory on the Frankfurt School and "political correctness",

• http://townsendlab.berkeley.edu/frankfurt-school-working-group/blogs/crackpot-far-right-theory-frankfurt-school-and-political-correc
• http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/node/38/frankfurt-school-working-group/blogs/crackpot-far-right-theory-frankfurt-school-and-political-correc

I can not find this blog article in The Wayback Machine. I can not find any part of the encompassing blog in The Wayback Machine. Help?

I found a comment by some «Bruce Miller» under a blog article by Ben Alpers, July 25, 2011, The Frankfurt School, Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories, and American Conservatism, https://s-usih.org/2011/07/frankfurt-school-right-wing-conspiracy/ Is this useful?

By the way last april a youtube channel published a video chapter about the Cultural Marxism narrative: Some More News (which is not just Cody Johnston, there is a whole team behind him), Elon Musk's Hitler Problem, 2024-04-04, chapter 9 Wokeness & the roots of Cultural Marxism, from 49:33 to 57:49, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDyPSKLy5E4#t=49m Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 08:53, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Sources to Consideration re: antisemitism and conspiracy theory labeling

Please Engage in Good Faith - Sources for Consideration

Previous post with sources for consideration was disregarded and shut down without any substantive engagement with content. Please do not shut down my discussion before I have the chance to respond.

I did not ask any questions, I did not miss the FAQ, I am not confusing this page with Marxist cultural analysis, and my work is not failing at the most fundamental level.

I am providing legitimate, substantive information for consideration that very clearly undermines the present page's assertion of the controversial Cultural Marxism theory as factually being A) a conspiracy theory and B) wholesale antisemitic.

Again, please, the sources I am putting forward, that I did indeed spend a lot of time gathering, in goof faith, in combination, clearly provide substantive evidence to support that the present page is in need of editing as present assertions are not objective, are not taking the full scope of information on the subject into consideration, and therefore appear to support a blatant bias -

A. The Frankfurt School is well-documented as being a major driving force in social and political philosophical thought of the 20th and 21st century. See Sources 9, 10, 11, and 12

B. The Frankfurt School is well-documented as being noteworthy for its support of utilizing a “cultural” approach to popularize Marxism. See Sources 8, 10, 11, and 12

C. It cannot be stated with any definitive authority that the present-day controversy on “cultural marxism” is inherently anti-semtitic, as the subject of discussion is in no way inherently related to Judaism, is not hostile towards Jewish people, and is not hostile towards Jewish beliefs. The subject of controversy in "cultural marxism" is Marxism, not Judaism. See Sources 5, 7, and 10.

D. Some of the most influential Marxist thinkers of all time explicitly advocate for the popularization of Marxist thought through the overpowering of hegemonic thought via mainstream cultural avenues. This is undeniable fact. See Sources 4, 5, 6, and 10

E. Marxist thinking has indeed been growing in popularity. This is undeniable fact. If the Frankfurt Schools is understood as being the driving force of contemporary Marxian thinking (see point A) with a cultural twist (see points B and D), then it is only logical to connect this growth to Frankfurt School roots. See Sources 1, 2, 3, and 9

Amlans (talk) 03:40, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

= Is the conspiracy theory antisemitic? =

There are no solid and widely established left wing academic definitions of what the words 'cultural Marxism' mean, if anything. The two words sometimes act as a vague illusion towards The Frankfurt School. Other times, such as in Jameson's Conversations on Cultural Marxism, they're just used in the title and don't appear inside said book. There's even a British version "British Cultural Marxism", which doesn't focus on The Frankfurt School. The point is, it's not a well defined or well established left wing concept, idea, school of thought, ideology, movement, or plan to take over as far as solid, academic sources go. It also has little to nothing to do with Identity Politics, Progressive Politics, or whatever else the right accuse it of causing.

So let's look at those accusations, and how the phrase became popular in right wing discourse (and spoiler alert, some of your sources are purely from right wing sources with little to no academic standing or expertise in Marxist academic discourse).

The first usages of Cultural Marxism on the right, were by Paul M. Weyrich (in 1999) founder of The Free Congress Foundation, and co-founder of The Heritage Foundation, and his friend and employee - William S. Lind. Lind has stated that Weyrich asked him to construct a version of what Cultural Marxism means, and write a history of his concept (so he did).

Later Lind represented The Free Congress Foundation at a Holocaust Denial Conference put on by their mutual friend and a confirmed White Nationalist, a man named Willis Carto for his historical revisionist magazine The Barnes Review. That was in 2002. Obviously White Supremacists are into that sort of antisemitic historical revisionist publication (WW2 Holocaust revisionism being the focus of The Barnes Review), and this led to the right wing conception of Cultural Marxism finding early popularity among American White Nationalist communities and websites like Stormfront.org.

Somewhere around the time of this talk, Weyrich and The Free Congress Foundation also funded a short documentary to be made on the subject of Cultural Marxism, starring William S. Lind, and at one point featuring Laszlo Pasztor - a former member of the Fascist Hungarian Arrow Cross party and actual Nazi Collaborator, who worked with those political parties in Berlin when they were both performing mass killings in their respective countries. He served 5 years in prison after WW2, having being convicted of Crimes Against Humanity for his war time activities. Here is a screen shot of Laszlo Pasztor from The Free Congress Foundation's political "documentary" on their conception of "Cultural Marxism".

That screen shot's from the KnowYourMeme website, which has also documented a bunch of the alt-right's memes on the topic, many of which are from the websites 4chan.org, and 8chan.org, and many of which are antisemitic. That's the basic trajectory of this conspiracy theory, the people who came up with it advertised it to White Nationalists. Those White Nationalists were already working with the think tanks that came up with the concept (1, 2, 3). They were friends and colleagues, that's just the baggage the Republican party brought along with the concept. That's why they had employed a Nazi Collaborator. None of that is Misplaced Pages's doing.

Here are some examples of the conspiracy theory being used as an antisemitic conspiracy theory in the wild: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

So because of this, because it's both a concept which never found a mainstream or singular definition within Leftist academic sources, and because of its early White nationalist, White Supremacist, and Nazi connections, we have to tread very carefully with what we say on the topic, and how much we're seen to bolster or validate it as a concept. Personally, I haven't seen a strong, linear, well sourced, and causal description/argument for the conspiracy being "true", and have only seen the red string and pin board versions of it laid out - ones that require leaps between decades, and only the loosest of connections between individuals. It's often an "argument of influence" claiming 'this person or concept was clearly influenced by this person/idea' without any actual causal evidence.... and that's not even getting into whether 'leftist influencing leftists' constitutes anything other than the normal functioning of politics.

= Are your sources any good? =

Now let's quickly go through your sources and see what you've got:

1. Is housed on a wordpress server and doesn't use the phrase "Cultural Marxism". Whilst it's probably a legitimate organisation it's off topic, and you're using it to back a subjective opinion that isn't really relevant to the contents of the page (I'm sure you'll argue it's relevant, but you probably don't realize that it isn't in Misplaced Pages's view - it would only be if the conspiracy theory was already proven and established as fact, it isn't).

2. A New York times opinion piece from 1989, which again doesn't use the term "Cultural Marxism" and actually states "in the past decade, while the prosperity of Western economies has made Marxism irrelevant to many, new rival radical theories have arisen to challenge the Marxists themselves." and "It's been diluted to the point where it's a very thin gruel," the article can be read as going against your point, as it notes that there's a lively discourse against marxist viewpoints. Meaning it's a matter of the market place of ideas, rather than some subversive take over. Marxists are allowed free discourse just as much as anyone else... but as the source says they're a "very thin gruel" in academia.

3. The Washington Times - is a right wing conservative publication owned by Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. It's known to put out inaccurate and politically charged information, and isn't a reliable source. The author appears to have been a priest at some point, no indication of any expertise or background in Academia, Sociology, or any of the fields relevant to the topic.

4. An article in The New Left Review about Gramsci, not particularly relevant, and actually discusses the difficulty decoding Gramsci, given his major work was written under censorship. Gramsci isn't particularly popular in my view, but the author gives their own subjective opinion. The source doesn't use the phrase "Cultural Marxism" in the text.

5. An opinion piece in the right wing conservative magazine - Tablet Magazine, the first source to use the term, but there's no indication it's being used by an expert in any relevant field, or even that the author is particularly well known or notable. Right wing sources aren't likely to be used for supposedly left wing concepts.

6. Misplaced Pages page for the phrase "Long March through the institutions" which wasn't although someone praised by Marcuse after The Frankfurt School ended, has little to do with them, and came after their hay day. It's also a phrase that came along at the end of Marcuse' career - he only wrote one book after this phrase came along so it has little to nothing to do with The Frankfurt School proper. You could perhaps argue that it might have influenced Marcuse' last book, but the school wasn't operating in a coordinated fashion at that point. The man who came up with the phrase died from a brain injury some time later. There is no indication a movement formed around this phrase or that it's particularly significant (it's obviously derivative of the much more well known Maoist position, which eclipses it in historical significance).

7. An opinion piece from the "Let's Talk" section of The Jewish Chronical - it states specifically "In short, Cultural Marxism can be and has been used as an antisemitic phrase, to confer antisemitic meaning or as an antisemitic dog whistle. Because of that, it should be avoided."' - this confirms the current page's usage and description.

8. Is from a "post-christian" blog out of Atlanta, it indicates no expertise in Academia, Sociology, or Marxist discourse. The author was at some point a seminarian, has also written for the Libertarian website Reason.org. His writings are mostly focused on religion and the fighting a perceived "culture war" (which he has written a book on). The website also has writings on the ills of critical race theory, and he seems to be firmly on the Christian Right side of things. His religious education doesn't suggest any expertise in Sociology or Marxist discourse. Although he may have a background in history.

9. Is a somewhat interesting essay from someone seemingly with relevant credentials - but it doesn't use the term Cultural Marxism and in its conclusion states specifically "As an intellectual movement within a disciplinary context, neo-Marxism affected sociology but was ultimately constrained and marginalized within it." and "In the confrontation between sociological Marxism and the empirical mainstream in American sociology, sociological Marxism's initial insights in the 1970s have pushed the field in a novel direction, but nowhere has Marxism consistently maintained an adjudicatory advantage." - so it's actually arguing against your point (the 3rd or 4th of your sources to do so).

10. Is from The Colson Center, which was set up by Charles Colson "Once known as President Nixon's "hatchet man", Colson gained notoriety at the height of the Watergate scandal, for being named as one of the Watergate Seven and also for pleading guilty to obstruction of justice for attempting to defame Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg." - so is obviously not a reliable source on this topic area.

11. Whilst Kellner is an academic, and can be considered a reliable source with relevant credentials/expertise, this particular essay doesn't use the term "Cultural Marxism" that I can see - he does have writings on the topic, but doesn't strictly offer a definition that disagrees with Marxist cultural analysis. This source falls into the "Marxists have a right to exist, and yes there are writings about them" category.

12. Whilst hosted on scribd, this source probably falls into a similar category as the above. I can't see the term "Cultural Marxism" used, but sure it's probably a valid description of some of the history of Marxism. Conspiracy theories include some of that history, but what makes the conspiracy theories is when they go off the script, and decide that Marxists existing = proven Marxist take over of the mass media.

So in conclusion, MOST of your sources don't use the phrase "Cultural Marxism". Many of your sources are opinion pieces (eg. just someone whose writings are on the internet). Some are from Christian non-experts. Some are from right wing organizations or publications, and don't have expertise or any academic background that warrants their inclusion as sources on Misplaced Pages. Some of your sources are from academics with relevant backgrounds, but none of those bolster your claims. Unfortunately for you, the most valid sources you offered went against your claims. All your sources were checked. None of them warranted substantive changes to the page... and as stated earlier, some of your most valid sources support the current contents of the page. 2405:6E00:22EE:7EE0:F9ED:A4D4:C6DE:B3A5 (talk) 08:38, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

1. "U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism, Communism, and Collectivism: October 2020" (PDF). Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and YouGov.
2. Berringer, Felicity (1989). "The Mainstreaming of Marxism in U.S. Colleges". The New York Times.
3. Salai, Sean (2021). "U.S. Adults Increasingly Accept Marxist Views, Poll Shows". The Washington Times.
4. Anderson, Perry (1976). "The Antimonies of Antonio Gramsci". New Left Review.
5. Zubatov, Alexander (2018). "Just Because Anti-Semites Talk About 'Cultural Marxism' Doesn't Mean It Isn't Real". Tablet.
6. "Long march through the institutions". Misplaced Pages. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
7. Stone, Danny (2023). "Is the Term 'Cultural Marxism' Really Antisemitic? How the Phrase Became the Latest Flashpoint in the Culture Wars". The Jewish Chronicle.
8. Breshears, Jefrey. "The Origins of Cultural Marxism and Political Correctness" (PDF). The Areopagus.
9. McCarthy, Michael (2011). "The Neo-Marxist Legacy in American Sociology". Annual Review of Sociology. 37: 155–83.
10. Sunshine, Glenn (2019). "Cultural Marxism: Gramsci and the Frankfurt School". Breakpoint.
11. Kellner, Douglas. "The Frankfurt School" (PDF). UCLA School of Education and Information Studies. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
12. Ryoo, J.J.; McLaren, P. (2010). "Critical Theory". International Encyclopedia of Education (3): 348–353.

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