# Is "Cultural Marxism" a real thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2017, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026 "2017-11-08T05:21:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/41 "2017-11-10T04:47:22Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > For a complete history you should read Mark Singleton’s[Yoga Body](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/yoga-body-9780195395341?cc=us&lang=en&#). That’s the book I linked to in my post just above yours, but your take on it is **very** distorting. > [@puddleglum](#): > > For a taste of it here is a story by him in the [yoga journal](https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/yoga-s-greater-truth). > Briefly it shows how modern yoga was created by an Indian named [Krishnamacharya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirumalai_Krishnamacharya) out of the meditative practice traditional yoga combined with various European exercises that were popular at the time. One of his students taught it to a russian lady who brought it to the US. No, that is not what either the article or the book shows. Both discuss Krishnamacharya as **one** of the major influences on the early 20th-century hybridization of traditional hatha yoga and other yoga practices (not just Vivekananda’s meditation-focused approach) with European physical-culture regimens. But they don’t say that Krishnamacharya **created** modern yoga: > [@](#): > > Rather, as syncretic yoga practices were developing in the modern period, they were interpreted through the lens of, say, the American harmonial movement, Danish gymnastics, or physical culture more generally. And this profoundly changed the very meaning of the movements themselves, creating a new tradition of understanding and practice. […] > > One way out of this false debate, I reasoned, was to consider certain modern practices as simply the latest grafts onto the tree of yoga. Our yogas obviously have roots in Indian tradition, but this is far from the whole story. Thinking about yoga this way, as a vast and ancient tree with many roots and branches, is not a betrayal of authentic “tradition,” nor does it encourage an uncritical acceptance of everything that calls itself “yoga,” no matter how absurd. On the contrary, this kind of thinking can encourage us to examine our own practices and beliefs more closely, to see them in relation to our own past as well as to our ancient heritage. Okay, enough from me about yoga in a thread on Cultural Marxism, sorry and carry on. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/42 "2017-11-10T15:49:10Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > That’s the book I linked to in my post just above yours, but your take on it is **very** distorting. > No, that is not what either the article or the book shows. Both discuss Krishnamacharya as **one** of the major influences on the early 20th-century hybridization of traditional hatha yoga and other yoga practices (not just Vivekananda’s meditation-focused approach) with European physical-culture regimens. But they don’t say that Krishnamacharya **created** modern yoga: > Okay, enough from me about yoga in a thread on Cultural Marxism, sorry and carry on. The first sentence of his wikipedia entry is “Often referred to as “The Father of Modern Yoga,”[3][4][5] Krishnamacharya is widely regarded as one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century and is credited with the revival of hatha yoga.” Saying the Father of Modern Yoga did not create modern yoga is splitting hairs. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/43 "2017-11-10T16:07:58Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > A few things. First, Cultural Marxism is already a termfour a specific school of thought, and it’s one that has nothing to do with identity politics or the things you described. So calling the latter group cultural Marxists is just confusing and misleading. > > Second, your definition is vague. Generally, you should call people what they want to be called, but as you said, nobody identifies themselves as a cultural Marxist. So who are the leaders and thinkers of the movement? Because, there is, for instance, Marxist Frminism. Shelia Rowbotham, for instance. Because, it seems like you’re just bringing together a lot of different parts of the new left and labeling it cultural Marxism. I did not say that those practicing identity politics are cultural Marxists only that a particular kind of identity politics that emphasizes destroying or displacing the structures of society is on outgrowth of cultural marxists. It has to do with the way ideas are promulgated in society. The way it works is that cultural marxists come up with an idea, “lets apply Marx’s theories to race and gender”. Then they or their followers come up with a framework, “White people or men have constructed society to oppress women or black people just like Capitalists did to oppress workers”. Then intellectuals and popularizers take that framework and build on it. “There is such a thing as the partriachy/white supremacy that exists in our society and it is oppresses women/blacks” Then influencers try to build a movement, " Patriarchy/White supremacism is bad, Lets build a movement to fight it". Then politicians other people in power try to appeal to that movement by crafting policies “Only black people/women should be allowed to speak during meetings.” No one in this chain needs to know about anything before the step they are on. The only people who would identify as cultural marxist would be those in the first step and many of those are old or dead now. There probably aren’t enough self identifying cultural marxists to fill a good size movie theater. The problem is not the amount of people but rather their ideas which have grown in influence. In the yoga analogy, the women who put on their tights and go down to the studio to workout using the various positions all have been influenced by Prussian fitness enthusiast who died 150 years ago despite not having the first clue how. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/44 "2017-11-10T17:12:01Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > I did not say that those practicing identity politics are cultural Marxists only that a particular kind of identity politics that emphasizes destroying or displacing the structures of society is on outgrowth of cultural marxists. > It has to do with the way ideas are promulgated in society. > The way it works is that cultural marxists come up with an idea, “lets apply Marx’s theories to race and gender”. Then they or their followers come up with a framework, “White people or men have constructed society to oppress women or black people just like Capitalists did to oppress workers”. Then intellectuals and popularizers take that framework and build on it. “There is such a thing as the partriachy/white supremacy that exists in our society and it is oppresses women/blacks” Then influencers try to build a movement, " Patriarchy/White supremacism is bad, Lets build a movement to fight it". Then politicians other people in power try to appeal to that movement by crafting policies “Only black people/women should be allowed to speak during meetings.” No one in this chain needs to know about anything before the step they are on. > The only people who would identify as cultural marxist would be those in the first step and many of those are old or dead now. There probably aren’t enough self identifying cultural marxists to fill a good size movie theater. The problem is not the amount of people but rather their ideas which have grown in influence. > In the yoga analogy, the women who put on their tights and go down to the studio to workout using the various positions all have been influenced by Prussian fitness enthusiast who died 150 years ago despite not having the first clue how. Is Hillary Clinton one of those Cultural Marxists? ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/45 "2017-11-10T17:25:29Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > If we broke up the big banks tomorrow—and I will if they deserve it, if they pose a systemic risk, I will—would that end racism? “Would that end sexism? Would that end discrimination against the LGBT community? Would that make people feel more welcoming to immigrants overnight?" That is a the new critique, that class is not the dividing line but identity is. That’s diametrically opposed to Marxist and communist ideas, which makes ‘cultural marxism’ a contradiction in terms. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/46 "2017-11-10T17:28:17Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The way it works is that cultural marxists come up with an idea, “lets apply Marx’s theories to race and gender”. Then they or their followers come up with a framework, “White people or men have constructed society to oppress women or black people just like Capitalists did to oppress workers”. . This isn’t Marx’s formulation, and he certainly didn’t believe society was ‘constructed’ at all (it _evolved_, based on economic and technological processes, it wasn’t ‘designed’ or ‘constructed’). Anyway, you can’t just apply class-based analysis to race or gender and call it “Marxism”. That’s like saying that the real Resurrected Messiah was Apolonius of Tyana, not Jesus, and then calling it “Apollonian Christianity”. A Marxism that isn’t primarily focused on the ownership of the means of production isn’t Marxism. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/47 "2017-11-10T17:56:27Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The first sentence of his wikipedia entry is “Often referred to as “The Father of Modern Yoga,”[3][4][5] Krishnamacharya is widely regarded as one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century and is credited with the revival of hatha yoga.” Saying the Father of Modern Yoga did not create modern yoga is splitting hairs. That would be like saying that since George Washington is a founding father that therefore there is no one else. I see then that Krishnamacharya as the most important one that made modern yoga a thing in the western world. While in the original locations he would be seen more like one that popularized the thing in the modern world outside India, and that is the case: [http://www.mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?25096/Yoga+Its+Origin+History+and+Development](http://www.mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?25096/Yoga+Its+Origin+History+and+Development) > [@](#): > > Now in the contemporary times, everybody has conviction about yoga practices towards the preservation, maintenance and promotion of health. Yoga has spread all over the world by the teachings of great personalities like Swami Shivananda, Shri T.Krishnamacharya, Swami Kuvalayananda, Shri Yogendara, Swami Rama, Sri Aurobindo, Maharshi Mahesh Yogi, Acharya Rajanish, Pattabhijois, BKS. Iyengar, Swami Satyananda Sarasvati and the like. So they call him a great teacher, but not the main one nor the father. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/48 "2017-11-10T19:14:28Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > . > . > The only people who would identify as cultural marxist would be those in the first step and many of those are old or dead now. There probably aren’t enough self identifying cultural marxists to fill a good size movie theater. The problem is not the amount of people but rather their ideas which have grown in influence. Again, who were these people? Even if they’re old or dead, who were these self identified Cultural Marxists? Did they write anything? What groups did they start? And how did they spread these ideas? I know you mentioned their followers and then influencers and so on, but how did that work? It’s not like Marxism is all that successful in the US. There’s not a big group of influential Communists in this country that shape public opiniom, nor are there a lot of Communist footsoldiers. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/49 "2017-11-10T20:00:49Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Again, who were these people? Even if they’re old or dead, who were these self identified Cultural Marxists? Did they write anything? What groups did they start? > > And how did they spread these ideas? I know you mentioned their followers and then influencers and so on, but how did that work? It’s not like Marxism is all that successful in the US. There’s not a big group of influential Communists in this country that shape public opiniom, nor are there a lot of Communist footsoldiers. One does not have to be a communist to be influenced by the Cultural Marxists. The original cultural marxists were of the frankfurt school and were people such as Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and Erich Fromm. They developed [critical theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory). It is very influential in the humanities. From there scholars such as [Derrick Bell](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/03/derrick_bell_controversy_what_s_critical_race_theory_and_is_it_radical_.html), Patricia Williams, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Mari Matsuda developed [critical race theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory). Scholars such as Judith Butler, Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James helped create [critical gender theory](http://sk.sagepub.com/books/gender-sexuality). Popularizers of Critical Race theory include Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander. Popularizers of Critical gender theory include[Barbara Ehrenreich](https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/ehrenreich-barbara/socialist-feminism.htm). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/50 "2017-11-10T20:14:11Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > This isn’t Marx’s formulation, and he certainly didn’t believe society was ‘constructed’ at all (it _evolved_, based on economic and technological processes, it wasn’t ‘designed’ or ‘constructed’). > > Anyway, you can’t just apply class-based analysis to race or gender and call it “Marxism”. That’s like saying that the real Resurrected Messiah was Apolonius of Tyana, not Jesus, and then calling it “Apollonian Christianity”. A Marxism that isn’t primarily focused on the ownership of the means of production isn’t Marxism. Based on the latest from **puddleglum** , it is clear that he is following the school of “because I said so” from the current conspiracy theorists of the right. And the school they are learning from is mostly the worst kind of right: the one that is more in tune with the neo Nazis of today: > **[Trump’s Racism and the Myth of “Cultural Marxism”](https://newrepublic.com/article/144317/trumps-racism-myth-cultural-marxism)** > > A bizarre memo by an administration official suggests why Trump was so hesitant to blame white nationalists for the fatal violence in Charlottesville. > [@](#): > > It takes some effort to translate this gibberish into English, but here is the gist of Higgins’s argument: Trump embodies traditional American values, which are under siege by political forces that accuse him of racism, sexism, and homophobia; but these critiques are not valid because they are “memes” created by cultural Marxists for the express purpose of destroying Western civilization. > > Holding up “cultural Marxists” as the mastermind of all evil in the world is not original to Higgins, but an old trope on the conspiratorial far right. The actual historical “cultural Marxists” were the Frankfurt School of social thinkers who formed in the 1920s, notably T.W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse (some parallel thinkers like Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukacs are also sometimes grouped with them). The Frankfurt School emerged during the rise of Nazism and Stalinism, both movements they opposed. What defined the Frankfurt School was their argument that a purely economic account of history was inadequate for accounting for the new dictatorships. Instead, there was a need for cultural analysis of authoritarianism, racism, and patriarchy. > > During the 1960s, Herbert Marcuse, then teaching in San Diego, rose to prominence as a mentor to the New Left. Angela Davis, who also studied with Adorno, was Marcuse’s protege, and some New Left activists cited Marcuse’s abstruse works. Right-wing groups, notably the John Birch Society, made Marcuse a scapegoat for the upheavals of the 1960s. Marcuse himself received death threats from a right-wing militia. In a 1971 interview with Playboy, actor John Wayne blamed Marcuse for student protests, saying, “Marcuse has become a hero only for an articulate clique. The men that give me faith in my country are fellas like Spiro Agnew, not the Marcuses.” > > The conspiracy theory was later revived in the 1980s by the paleo-conservative thinker William S. Lind, who claimed that the Frankfurt School was the foundation for political correctness. Via Lind, it has become a popular argument on the far right, often cited by figures like columnist Pat Buchanan and the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik. In a 2012 interview, Buchanan said, “Cultural Marxism has certainly been more successful than the economic Marxism of the 19th century and the Leninism associated with it.” > > \*\*The theory that the Frankfurt School is the root of political correctness is historically absurd. \*\*Anti-racism, feminism, and the gay rights movement all have roots that well precede the Frankfurt School and owe far more to the activism of women, people of color, and LGBT individuals than to any German theorist. While Marcuse was friendly with the New Left, his main work dealt with themes of the impact of technology that are far removed from political activism. Although nominally they were on the political left, Adorno and the other members of the Frankfurt School had little truck with activism (and indeed were often accused by their students of being hermetically removed from practical politics). In an infamous 1969 incident, feminist students mocked what they saw as Adorno’s prudishness by baring their breasts to him. Adorno was a deeply Eurocentric thinker who hated jazz. Horkheimer defended the Vietnam War and admired the Catholic Church’s stance against birth control. These are not thinkers than can plausibly be seen as the creators of modern political correctness or debates about identity politics. > > But the “cultural Marxism” myth persists because it’s convenient for the right, allowing them to pretend that bigotry is not a real problem but rather an ideology created by sinister thinkers, who, as it happens, were Jewish. As Jason Wilson noted in The Guardian, “The theory of cultural Marxism is also blatantly antisemitic, drawing on the idea of Jews as a fifth column bringing down western civilisation from within, a racist trope that has a longer history than Marxism. Like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the theory was fabricated to order, for a special purpose: the institution and perpetuation of culture war.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/51 "2017-11-10T20:34:25Z")
I’m finding this re-writing of history to shoehorn in a nonsense phrase rather amusing. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/52 "2017-11-10T21:24:43Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2017, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/53 "2017-11-10T23:21:23Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > One does not have to be a communist to be influenced by the Cultural Marxists. > The original cultural marxists were of the frankfurt school and were people such as Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and Erich Fromm. They developed [critical theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory). It is very influential in the humanities. > From there scholars such as [Derrick Bell](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/03/derrick_bell_controversy_what_s_critical_race_theory_and_is_it_radical_.html), Patricia Williams, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Mari Matsuda developed [critical race theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory). Scholars such as Judith Butler, Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James helped create [critical gender theory](http://sk.sagepub.com/books/gender-sexuality). > Popularizers of Critical Race theory include Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander. > Popularizers of Critical gender theory include[Barbara Ehrenreich](https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/ehrenreich-barbara/socialist-feminism.htm). So you are admitting it is pejorative term, which allows a person to discount an entire concept through an attribution error is the main purpose of the term? Because a group may look to make an individuals trait like skin tone or gender stateless in society where all are equal may qualify as a “Cultural Marxist” But by that same line of thinking, Europeans who consider Finnish people non-European could(and do) refer to them as “Snow n\*gg\*\*s” The term was coopted by neo-Nazis who want a word expressing contempt or disapproval. [ > [@](#): > > Cultural Marxism generally refers to one of two things: > First — extremely rarely — “Cultural Marxism” refers to the general application of the Frankfurt School’s Marxist ideology to the social sciences. > Second — in common usage in the wild — “Cultural Marxism” is a snarl word used to paint anyone with progressive tendencies as a secret Communist. The term alludes to a conspiracy theory in which sinister left-wingers have infiltrated media, academia, and science and are engaged in a decades-long plot to undermine Western culture. Some variants of the conspiracy alleges that basically all of modern social liberalism is, in fact, a Communist front group. ]([Cultural Marxism - RationalWiki](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism)) The claim that “Cultural Marxists taking over culture!”, is purely Nazi propaganda updated for the modern era. It plays the role of the **enemy** in the neo-Nazi movement > [@](#): > > “The enemy—the indispensible devil of every mass movement—is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors.” ― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements It is not being used to describe something related to “Frankfurt School’s Marxist ideology to the social sciences.” ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026/54 "2017-11-29T22:45:28Z")
I wish lefties had 10% of the power conservatives thought they did. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > While I do know that some misguided ones on the left indeed do, overall most of the ones on the left side of things do understand the difference between a Nazi, a fascist a neo fascist or a plain conservative. “Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds” is one of the more popular catchphrases in leftist spaces I’ve seen. Maybe they can delineate the differences, but at some point you’re either for socialism or barbarism. That, or they just run this heuristic: everyone to the right of me is a Nazi, everyone to my left is a tankie (or infantile leftist) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-cultural-marxism-a-real-thing/801026.md?page=2)