CULTURAL MARXISM: BACKGROUND AND MAIN CHARACTERISTICS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

The cultural Marxism is a branch of Marxism emerges as a critique of traditional values prevailing in Western society and the main components of this: family, culture, media, sexuality, religion and race.

This current argues that the true system of oppression exceeds the economic structure, and that rather it has to do with an oppressive cultural system. Cultural Marxism seeks to introduce the basic principles of Karl Marx to confront capitalist societies (Western-European style), by introducing liberal concepts and ideas.

Karl Marx

Background and history

Although the term was formally introduced during the 90s, the birth of this ideological and political trend occurred during the first years of the s. XX.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, profound political and social reforms were expected to take place both in Russia and in the rest of Europe, at the same time that Marxist ideals would spread throughout the West for the establishment of a new economic system.

However, these approaches did not penetrate as expected and the few attempts did not yield the expected results. This resulted in an analysis and restructuring of the bases of Marxism by the thinkers Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukács.

For Gramsci and Lukács the real problem was not class conflict but the immersion of the working and peasant class in traditional capitalist values. Therefore, the real conflict was on the cultural level.

Counteracting the dominance of the capitalist cultural system would then require a kind of combat or revolution that would be directed at the most important institutions of society: the Church, schools and universities, and the media.

Frankfurt school

In 1923 a group of Marxist philosophers, theorists and thinkers met to establish the Institute for Social Research attached to the University of Frankfurt. Later this institute would be commonly known as the Frankfurt School.

The bases of the investigations would be Marxism and the psychoanalytic approaches of Sigmund Freud. From both the Critical Theory would originate.

Bases of critical theory

- Western culture generated a pattern of behavior that was decisive in affective relationships, in sexual development and in the conception of Christian values.

- The organization of culture was what led to differences between groups and individuals.

Transfer to the United States

Due to the rise of the Nazi party, the group had to move to the United States, where they could deepen their studies in the fields of social sciences and philosophy.

After the end of World War II, several of the members returned to Germany and Europe to expand the importance of Marxism in understanding social, political and cultural movements.

The implementation of these Marxist ideals began in the 1960s with the counterculture, a current that served for the emergence of student revolts, for the formation of movements in favor of the rights of Afro-descendants and women, and for the settlement of the foundations of multiculturalism.

Main features

- Criticism of Western society.

- The denial of differences between individuals.

- Promotion of miscegenation.

- Criticism of repressive patterns, which would only generate neurotic and anxious individuals (psychoanalysis).

- Criticism of positivism as a philosophy, as a scientific method and as a political ideology.

- Exaltation of the feminist current and matriarchal societies.

- Support for homosexuality.

- Criticism and opposition towards religions, especially towards Christianity.

- Denial of nationalist movements.

- Promotion of the multiculturalist movement and globalization.

- Defense of abortion.

- Promotion of a socialist democracy.

- Liberation of the unconscious.

- Cultural Marxism seeks to establish itself as a model of values ​​in all peoples.

- Opposition to conservatism.

- Critical Theory is the basis for the elaboration of the most important postulates found in cultural Marxism.

- After the Frankfurt School, there were a series of similar initiatives in various European countries. One of the most important was the Birmighan School, which also conducted social studies related to cultural Marxism in Great Britain.

Current cultural Marxism

Despite studies and research, the term cultural Marxism was not well known outside of the academic environment.

However, it was in the late 1990s that conservatives (members of the extreme and pro-white nationalism groups) used it to describe a cultural process that represented an attack on Western society.

In view of a worrisome social and cultural scenario, a proposal was made that would allow us to confront emerging ideologies. This would be achieved through a “cultural conservatism”, for which they would be supported by a system of traditional values.

Conservatism adherents indicate that cultural Marxism, born in the Frankfurt School, is the cause of modern feminism, anti-white racism, degradation in the arts, and sexualization.

Conspiracy theory

The writings and assumptions of William S. Lind - one of the most important figures against cultural Marxism - penetrated the extreme right in the late 1990s and early 1900s. XXI.

During a conference in 2002, Lind gave a speech with two important points to highlight: the denial of the Holocaust and the emphasis on pointing out that all the members of the Frankfurt School were Jewish.

This would mark the establishment of a conspiracy theory, which would carry out the destruction of Western society through the movements and postulates promoted by cultural Marxism.

In more recent information, the bomb explosion and the subsequent Oslo shooting in 2011 by the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, included a manifesto in which fragments of the statements made on cultural Marxism by William S. Lind were found.

References

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3. Frankfurt School. (sf). On Wikipedia. Retrieved: February 23, 2018. In Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org.
4. Cultural Marxism. (sf). In Encyclopedia. Retrieved: February 23, 2018. In Encyclopedia of encyclopedia.us.es.
5. Cultural Marxism. (sf). In Metapedia. Retrieved: February 23, 2018. In Metapedia of es.metapedia.org.
6. Cultural Marxism. (sf). On Wikipedia. Retrieved: February 23, 2018. In Wikipedia at es.wikipedia.org.
7. October Revolution. (sf). On Wikipedia. Retrieved: February 23, 2018. In Wikipedia at es.wikipedia.org.