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Marxist cultural analysis is a form of anti-capitalist cultural critique which assumes the theory of cultural hegemony and from this specifically targets those aspects of culture which are profit driven and mass produced under capitalism.

The Marxist analysis and takes as an area of discourse it has commonly considered the industrialization and mass-production of culture by 'the Culture Industry' as having an overall negative effect on society, an effect which reifies the audience away from developing a more authentic sense of human values.

The original theory behind this from of analysis is commonly associated with the Frankfurt School, and specifically the works of Marcuse, and with Gramsci.

In terms of positive engagement of Marxist dialect to driving change in cultural norms, which is to say Marxism applied to cultural goals, cultural engagement is seen as applying Marx's concept of class war to the field of alleged power relationships between cultural groups in society in a struggle for cultural hegemony, known as social conflict theory.

Development of theory

Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, primarily writing in the lead up to and after the First World War. He attempted to break from the economic determinism of traditional Marxist thought and so is considered a key neo-Marxist.

Gramsci is best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which describes how the state and ruling capitalist class — the bourgeoisie — use cultural institutions to maintain power in capitalist societies. The bourgeoisie, in Gramsci’s view, develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion. Hegemonic culture propagates its own values and norms so that they become the “common sense” values of all and thus maintain the status quo. Hegemonic power, he asserted, is used to maintain consent to the capitalist order, rather than coercive power using force to maintain order, and that this cultural hegemony is produced and reproduced by the dominant class through the institutions that form the superstructure.

The Birmingham School

E.P. Thompson's Marxist humanism as well as the individual philosophies of the founders of The Birmingham School (Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall) provide the influences for their "British Cultural Marxism" (also known as British Cultural Studies) as housed at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham. The Birmingham School of Cultural Studies developed later than the Frankfurt School and are seen as providing a parallel response. Accordingly "British Cultural Marxism" focuses on later issues such as Globalization, Americanization, Censorship, and Multiculturalism. Richard Hoggart's The Uses of Literacy (1957), Raymond William's Culture and Society (1958) and E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working class (1964) form the foundational texts for the school, with Stuart Hall's Encoding/decoding model of communication as well as his writings on multiculturalism in Britain arriving later but carrying equal gravitas.

The Birmingham School greatly valued and contributed to class consciousness within the structure of British society.

Due to their positions as literary experts, Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams were called as witnesses during The Lady Chatterley Affair, a court case concerning censorship in publishing, the outcome of which is widely regarded as defining Britain in the 1960s as a "Permissive society". They argued on the side of freedom of language, and against censorship.

Within Hoggart's major work, The Uses of Literacy, he laments the loss of an authentic working class popular culture in Britain, and denounces the imposition of a mass culture by means of advertising, media and Americanisation. He argues against the concept of 'the masses' which he claims is both condescending and elitist. Later referring to this change in cultural production as "massification" and saying it 'colonized local communities and robbed them of their distinctive features'

Whereas the Frankfurt School exhorted the values of high culture, The Birmingham School have attempted to bring high culture back down to real life whilst avoiding moral relativism.

Cultural Marxism

The application of Marxist ideas in the cultural field is characterised as Cultural Marxism, which has become a disputed term. The concept of Cultural Marxism has been used with two contrasting meanings:

  • The redirection of Marx's concept of permanent class war into a struggle between identity groups in accordance with Marxist cultural analysis; or
  • A conspiracy theory alleging ongoing influence of the Frankfurt School.

Marxism applied to cultural goals

The term "Cultural Marxism" first appeared in Trent Schroyer's 1973 book The Critique of Domination, and has most commonly been applied to trends in analysis developed in the Frankfurt and Birmingham schools of Cultural studies.

Rather than being its own category of Soviet or Orthodox Marxism;- "Cultural Marxism", within Cultural Studies, is seen as an attempt at finding a form of Post-marxist Cultural Analysis which extends beyond the traditional base and superstructure model. It has been suggested by Frederic Jameson that Cultural Studies be redefined as Cultural Marxism as both seek to interrogate the unexamined ideological constraints placed on Cultural Production under capitalism, and to question their implications for society as a whole. In this sense, Cultural Marxism views The Culture Industry as creating a type of false consciousness. As a form of media literacy "Cultural Marxism" seeks to critique ideology itself.

Within more recent history Cultural Marxists have critiqued post modernism and identity politics (also known as recognition politics), claiming that redistributive politics should retain prominence within their discourse. Prominent in the construction of a oppressor-oppressed narrative analysis of culture is the concept of intersectionality, drawing various aspects of perceived identity I terms of modes of discrimination and privilege.

In modern political parlance, Cultural Conservatives have identified Cultural Marxism as the theoretical basis for aspects of cultural liberalism. The hyperbole and misinterpretation involved in this 'Culture War' has led to Cultural Marxism given rise, outside philosophical circles, to a conspiracy theory.

Conspiracy theory

Main article: Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory

As the theme of a conspiracy theory, Cultural Marxism is alleged to be a conspiracy in which the Frankfurt School is part of a continual academic and intellectual culture war systematically to undermine and destroy Western culture and social traditions. As articulated in the 1990s, the conspiracy means to replace traditionalist conservatism and Christianity with the counterculture of the 1960s to promote social changes such as racial multiculturalism, multi-party progressive politics and political correctness in language.

In Norway, Anders Behring Breivik quoted Lind's usages of Cultural Marxism in his political manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, which he emailed to 77 people just 90 minutes before killing 77 people in his bomb and gun attacks in Oslo and on Utøya.

See also

References

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  12. 'Cultural Marxism and Its Conspirators': Paul Pengor in American Spectator 3 April 2019
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  36. Berkowitz, Bill. "Ally of Christian Right Heavyweight Paul Weyrich Addresses Holocaust Denial Conference". Southern Poverty Law Center. SPLC 2003. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  37. Stuart Jeffries, Grand Hotel Abyss, pp.6-11 , Verso 2016
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