Cultural Marxism

Cultural Marxism is a pejorative term with links to the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory which alleges an organized and concerted effort on the part of Marxists to subvert the traditional Christian values and cultural norms of western society and to, ultimately, destroy Western civilization. Despite the absence of evidence that "Cultural Marxism" is an actual school of thought, American commentators such as William S. Lind and Pat Buchanan have claimed that it is a dominant strain of thought within the American left, intended to promote "the capture of Western culture". Lind has connected it to political correctness, which he believes is likewise an effort by Leftists to undermine Western civilization. Critics of the term have associated it with antisemitism, claiming that Lind's attacks on the Frankfurt school were partially based on the school's main ethnic background.
The words "Cultural Marxism" have also occasionally been used to refer to various unrelated applications of Marxist theory to culture, or to Marxism in culture, although there is no commonly accepted definition for or significant use of the term in academia.
As a political term
According to German political scientist Thomas Grumke, the new American extreme right undertook a reinterpretation of the enemy image in the 1990s because the classical Red Scare ceased to work. Part of this strategy is the introduction of fighting terms such as “Cultural Marxism”, which is used by American conservatives to describe an alleged conspiratorial attempt of the Left to destroy the cultural and moral values of the United States through systematic attacks on the American Way of Life . According to the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory, Cultural Marxism supposedly began in the culture war of the 1930s when a small group of Jewish philosophers fled from the German Reich to the United States. These representatives of the Frankfurt School allegedly started teaching at Columbia University, where they are said to have developed a form of Marxism that did not focus on the economic system, but on cultural issues. This group is said to have had the goal of talking white Americans out of their ethnic pride in their European heritage, as well as portraying Christian family values as reactionary and antiquated. Consequently, this group also supposedly praised the sexual revolution. According to Grumke, American military theorist and political commentator William Sturgiss Lind fabricated connections to several other ideological and political groups who allegedly had ties to Cultural Marxism, including feminists, homosexuals, multiculturalists, migrants, and environmentalists, all of whom had been labeled by Lind as supposedly being hostile “cultural warriors” controlled and directed by the Marxist philosophers of the Frankfurt School.
The term is popular with many modern social conservatives, such as historian William S. Lind and mass shooter Anders Breivik, who both associate it with a set of principles that they claim are in simple contradiction with traditional values of Western society and the Christian religion and multiculturalism, which are identified with cultural Marxism, are argued to have their true origin in a Marxian movement to undermine or abnegate those traditional values. Google is unable to track the terms search history before 2007 as it doesn't have extended use online before that year.
Allegations of Antisemitism
Many of the Frankfurt School were Jewish, and according to Kevin B. MacDonald criticism of them was often explicitly linked to the School's main ethnic background; Critics have found in other accounts, specifically broadcast "Political Correctness: The Frankfurt School", "a transparent subtext which is not hard to discern and has become more explicit with each telling of the narrative".
"In a nutshell, the theory posits that a tiny group of Jewish philosophers who fled Germany in the 1930s and set up shop at Columbia University in New York City devised an unorthodox form of 'Marxism' that took aim at American society's culture, rather than its economic system.
The theory holds that these self-interested Jews — the so-called 'Frankfurt School' of philosophers — planned to try to convince mainstream Americans that white ethnic pride is bad, that sexual liberation is good, and that supposedly traditional American values — Christianity, 'family values,' and so on — are reactionary and bigoted. With their core values thus subverted, the theory goes, Americans would be quick to sign on to the ideas of the far left."
Critiques
Since the 1990s, the term "cultural Marxism" has been widely used by cultural conservatives. Many conservatives have argued that "Cultural Marxists" and the Frankfurt School helped spark the counterculture social movements of the 1960s as part of a continuing plan of transferring Marxist subversion into cultural terms in the form of Freudo-Marxism.
Since the early 1990s, paleoconservatives such as Patrick Buchanan and William S. Lind have argued that "cultural Marxism" is a dominant strain of thought within the American left, and associate it with a philosophy set on destroying Western civilization. Buchanan has asserted that the Frankfurt School commandeered the American mass media, and used this cartel to infect the minds of Americans.
Lind argues that,
"Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. It is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I. If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious."
Lind argues that "political correctness" has resulted in American citizens, particularly in academia, being "afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic" and that such changes can be attributed to the influence of cultural Marxists.
In a similar vein, in her Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature, Elizabeth Kantor says that it is possible to determine what works of literature are valuable, but that "cultural Marxists" since the 1960s have completely changed the criteria so as to reward mediocre books and denounce truly good literature as racist, sexist, homophobic and elitist.
Many of the conservative attacks on "cultural Marxism" have dwelt on an alleged Jewish involvement in the current. Psychology professor Kevin B. MacDonald gives "cultural Marxism" as an example of Jews "pursuing a Jewish agenda in establishing and participating in these movements."
Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik placed this critique of "cultural Marxism" as a cornerstone of his ideology.
According to Richard Lichtman, a social psychology professor at the Wright Institute, the Frankfurt School is "a convenient target that very few people really know anything about... By grounding their critique in Marxism and using the Frankfurt School, cultural conservatives make it seem like it's quite foreign to anything American. It takes on a mysterious cast and translates as an incomprehensible, anti-American, foreign movement that is only interested in undermining the U.S." Lichtman says that the "idea being transmitted is that we are being infected from the outside." Lichtman's critique parallels that of rhetorical critic Edwin Black who demonstrated how John Birch Society co-founder Robert Welch used a similar disease metaphor in his writings and speeches during the "Red Scare" era of the 1950s and 60s.
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Lind's theory as "one that has been pushed since the mid-1990s by the Free Congress Foundation—the idea that a small group of philosophers known as the Frankfurt School had devised a cultural form of Marxism that was aimed at subverting Western civilization." The SPLC reports that this theory has been taken up by "a number of hate groups."
As a description of Marxist approaches to culture
The words 'Cultural Marxism' have also occasionally been used to refer to various unrelated applications of Marxist theory to culture. According to UCLA professor and critical theorist Douglas Kellner, "Many 20th century Marxian theorists ranging from György Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, and T.W. Adorno to Fredric Jameson and Terry Eagleton employed the Marxian theory to analyze cultural forms in relation to their production, their imbrications with society and history, and their impact and influences on audiences and social life." Scholars have employed various types of Marxist social criticism to analyze cultural artifacts . The words 'Cultural Marxism' were also allegedly used together in an unrelated context by literary critics Lawrence Grossberg and Cary Nelson in their book "Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture".

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