Hi again! Regrets for not responding sooner, but I hit post #1999 yesterday afternoon and I wanted to make #2000 something special. So I wrote my first-ever "Introduce Yourself" post.
Just to let you know, I mentioned your post in mine. Thoughts on yours to follow.
Thoughts on your post: the rise of Cultural Marxism is certainly topical. I've read up on it myself, but one point of head-scratch I've had is the fact that Cultural Marxism has grown in tandem with the general economy growing less socialistic by the standard measure. All the analyses I've read about it have focused on its negative aspects (deconstruction) but not its 'positive' aspects.
Namely, what political change did the Cultural Marxists hope for? It would be damned odd if their 'positive' goal were not some kind of socialism. With respect to that, they've been a flat failure. Instead of they being a purely destructive force, I think the boys of the Frankfurt School were good at tearing down but hapless at building up.
As for their influence, I think it resulted from they getting a push-up from the then-WASP elite: particularly from the CIA. The Cultural Marxists were Marxists who showed little-to-no interest in hooking up with the Soviet Union. Since the CIA (for one) dreaded a repeat of the "Red Decade" 1930s, I'm sure they saw the Frankfurt School as a kind of Marxism that would euchre out Soviet Marxism.
In other words, contra those conspiracy theories, Cultural Marxism got a boost from the then-powers-that-be because it provided a Marxism that would forestall another Red Decade and consequent national-security nightmares.
From the standpoint of managerialism, you can peg Cultural Marxism as assimilated Marxism. At least apparently, Cultural Marxist are not bothered by today's wide income disparities - over and above tongue-clucking.
The New Left terrorists (almost all red diaper babies), wanted to be komisars on their own behalf, not beholden to rule from outside their own influence circles
There's a lot of sense in that. Based upon what David Horowitz wrote about his own parents, I'm sure the red-diaper babies were worried that they'd wind up as puppets of the Kremlin like their parents.
It also explains why Cultural Marxism gained strength after the Soviet Union fell. With the U.S.S.R. gone, so did the worry that the Kremlin would step in and hijack the movement.
But in a way, it put the New-Left terrorists in a bind. The fall of the Soviet Union meant the fall of socialism, except as a relic. There's a geopolitical explanation as to why Cultural Marxists are talented at destroying but hapless at building.
I know that C.M. is the big bugaboo now, but the West did dodge a bullet when Communism collapsed. There was a time in the 1970s when it looked like the Soviet Union would make inroads into Western Europe: France and Italy were going down that road to Hell.
He was as vain as a drug-addled lefty could be, but Billy Ayres wasn't joking when he said that the imposition of Communism in America would require the democide of ~25 million Americans:
(Source.)
The irony is, there wasn't a cold chance in Hell that the New Left could have pulled this off unless the Soviet Union stepped in and took over - which would have entailed the read-diaper babies becoming puppets of the Kremlin like their parents.
inherent to leftism, I think
Obviously, there is some cross-over (Ayers mentoring Obama), but that is to be expected in power politics and the double-dealing nature of these people
Well, if Clinton represents the New Left - there's a good argument that she does - then the New Left is gentrified (or, as I like to say, assimilated.)
I still remember the avalanche of BernieBros flaying Clinton for being the Wall Street candidate. You can take this as a sign that the Democratic-Unnderground Left is goofy, but I do remember reading one DUer saying that President Obama was a "moderate Republican."
No foolin': that's an exact quote.
rofl I remember that quote...it was bandied about quite a bit with a great deal of accompanying laughter
the Old Left/New left split was one of those things that I wanted to take a good look at, but was always being set aside for other projects
Right: participating actively on Steemit does have a way of turning into a job. :) Mostso if it's the job you love.
It is significant that the rebel part of the Left has latched onto a more old-left vibe. The Berniebros hate the Clinton left about as much as conservative populists hate the RINOs: maybe more.
Cultural Marxism is more akin to Fabianism (if that's a word). It's a purley social movement rather than economic. The "original" Marxists saw the conflict in purely economic terms... That the class warfare would come as the result of the workers "throwing off the chains of the oppressive managerial class." WWI rolled around and much to their disappointment- nationalism kicked in and the workers took up arms for their respective countries.
To succeed the neo-Marxists changed their focus away from economics to society... More particularly in destroying it- in effect payback for the failure of economic Marxism. The only political change I can see coming from it is the destruction of the status quo- Western Civ. I can't see anything positive coming out of the radical left- they just hate everything Christian, moral... It's an ideology of negativism/nihilism. The only result I can see is licensiousness.
Fabianism is a word; don't worry. :)
You're right about Cultural Marxists changing over because of their disappointment with straight Marxism. In addition to the disillusionment over WW1, a lot of them had hoped that the German Communist party would either beat the Nazis or come roaring back after widespread disgust with Nazism. Neither wish came true.
As a result, they were pretty embittered about the working classes. Significantly, that part of Cultural Marxism has led to life becoming harder for the same group that Marx himself pegged as the proletariat.
Well.... there is a difference between "positive" in the sense of beneficial and "positive" in the sense of achieving a goal. Lemme put it this way: For Cuba, Communism was a disaster - but for Castro and his buds, it meant that they succeeded in taking over the country. In this sense, Castro was talented at achieving a 'positive' goal in that he did conquer the country.
On the other hand, the Cultural Marxists - as you noted - haven't been able to successfully push any kind of political program except for making universities into Loonyversities, reinforcing the ideological rationale behind special status for so-called disadvantaged minorities, pushing for censorship that sometimes taints the laws, but little else.
That paucity is profoundly different from what the Fabians can brag about. They have a fair brag in claiming credit for the modern welfare state.
Good point about the Fabians... I hadn't thought about that aspect- I was focusing more on the social vs economic differences. Communism/Socialism/Fascism... any political system always benefits somebody... "It's good to be the King."
I understand. If I had any ulterior motive ;) , it was to deflate the implicit puff-job that the conspiracy theorists have given to the Frankfurt School. Sure, they have power, but conspiracy theorists tend to exaggerate the power of a certain group.
True story: one of the reasons why David Horowitz detached himself from the Left came from he and his then-writing-partner Peter Collier writing a book on the Rockefellers. They went into it planning a lefty-type of expose of the Rockefeller's great power, but when they dug into the real lives of the real family they saw "a family in pain."
I'm not trying to stir up any sympathy for cultural Marxists; far from it. If you read that snippet in a certain way, Collier and Horowitz discovered that the real Rockefellers were far less powerful than the New Left's pegging of them.
The same deflation can be made with zero sympathy. After the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, Vox Day made the point that the specifics of Weinstein's sexual harassment made him look pathetic.
I couldn't find the exact quote, but here's a related one:
(From here.)
With regard to Weinstein and the others, Day makes explicit what you kinda-sorta realize but don't realize fully until someone spells it out. Namely, those purportedly super-powerful moguls aren't all that great.
Sometimes, the Bastille can be stormed with mocking laughter.
In a similar way, or so I hope, the gap between the Fabians' record and the Frankfurt School's makes the latter look politically incompetent. That's good news, as it entails they'll be less difficult to beat.
the biggest reason was that he introduced a friend (a lady accountant) to the Black Panthers to do their accounting; they then murdered her (in his opinion, but very likely)
That's right: I forgot that. I was thinking of him as a New-Lefty-type intellectual, not activist. You're right: he withdrew from the New Left and buried himself in theoretical work after that murder. It certainly was the "first doubt."