# Will cultural Marxism affect Europe more than economic Marxism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 4, 2011, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295 "2011-06-04T08:42:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/101 "2011-06-07T00:43:43Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > As an immigrant to Sweden, it is somewhat strange to find out that I am apparently a pawn in a (cultural) Marxist conspiracy. Should I be alarmed? No, no. Just stockpile weapons and wait for orders. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/102 "2011-06-07T01:05:07Z")
> [@SherwoodAnderson](#): > > I stand by everything I said. Consistently failing to apply quality control and refusing to own up to inaccuracies when called on it numerous times indicates a lack of integrity and wastes my time. > … > Do you consider yourself a xenophobe? Would you consider it bad if you were one? Not everyone does. > > Do you consider yourself a racist? Would you consider it bad if you were one? Not everyone does. No, although I am a realist - as opposed to an utopian fantasist. As I indicated above - despite your hamfisted attempt to make it a black/white issue - Indian or Chinese migrants have excellent outcomes in terms of intergenerational academic and economic performance. You apparently have nothing to say about the negative externalities of low skill immigration from culturally illiberal muslim populations. The fact you won’t address this is just insulting 😛 (sorry, I couldn’t resist copying your pretentious rhetoric). I certainly believe that countries with particular cultures have value and should not change their makeup without thinking about what they are hoping to achieve. Asian countries, such as Japan understand this. Tibetans understand this. As do Israelis and most africans. There’s no reason for Sweden, or other European countries to be any different. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/103 "2011-06-07T01:12:52Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > No, although I am a realist . . . :rolleyes: **Chen,** a [“racial realist”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_realism) is still a racist. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/104 "2011-06-07T01:16:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :rolleyes: **Chen,** a [“racial realist”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_realism) is still a racist. I’m not just referring to race, I’m talking about culture. Why would a liberal want to recruit non-liberals to Sweden? You might have read this the last time I linked it, but in case you did not. [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/12/admissions-of-illiberalism/](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/12/admissions-of-illiberalism/) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/105 "2011-06-07T01:28:24Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I’m not just referring to race, I’m talking about culture. Why would a liberal want to recruit non-liberals to Sweden? You might have read this the last time I linked it, but in case you did not. > > [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/12/admissions-of-illiberalism/](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/12/admissions-of-illiberalism/) 1. This has what to do with “gene expression”? 2. This has what to do with “cultural Marxism”? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/106 "2011-06-07T01:44:40Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. This has what to do with “gene expression”? > > 2. This has what to do with “cultural Marxism”? I thought cultural marxist thinkers like Gramsci and Georg Lukacs, wanted to get rid of capitalism and free people from traditional western cultural institutions. Part of this involves breaking down the idea of traditional borders and doing away with traditional cultures (except non-western ones of oppressed peoples). At least that’s my understanding. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/107 "2011-06-07T01:48:18Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I thought cultural marxist thinkers like Gramsci and Georg Lukacs, wanted to get rid of capitalism and free people from traditional western cultural institutions. Part of this involves breaking down the idea of traditional borders. At least that’s my understanding. That would seem to be **RaleighRally’s** understanding, but I believe we’ve established by this point that it’s nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/108 "2011-06-07T01:49:33Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That would seem to be **RaleighRally’s** understanding, but I believe we’ve established by this point that it’s nonsense. I agree that cultural marxism is nonsense 😛 ---
**Author:** ![trabajabamos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/47e85d/32.png) [@trabajabamos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabajabamos)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/109 "2011-06-07T02:28:36Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I agree that cultural marxism is nonsense 😛 In that the phrase is a deliberately vague and uttered with dubious intent? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/110 "2011-06-07T02:37:57Z")
> [@trabajabamos](#): > > In that the phrase is a deliberately vague and uttered with dubious intent? No, in that I consider it really is nonsense. In the sense described in the critiques section here. [Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/111 "2011-06-07T02:41:06Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > No, in that I consider it really is nonsense. In the sense described in the critiques section here. [Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism) Good link. > [@](#): > > 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.” [17] 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.[18] > > Freelance writer Bill Berkowitz adds, “It’s not clear whether this diffusion of the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory into the mainstream will continue. Certainly, the anti-Semitism that underlies much of the scenario suggests that it may be repudiated in the coming years. But for now, the spread of this particular theory is a classic case of concepts that originated on the radical right slowly but surely making their way into the American mind.”[19] > > 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 German 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”.[20] ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/112 "2011-06-07T02:55:28Z")
I don’t see what’s radical about describing these academic movements. Critical theory is another example. > **[Critical theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory)** > > South Asia > Middle East > Europe ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/113 "2011-06-07T02:59:25Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I don’t see what’s radical about describing these academic movements. Critical theory is another example. > > [Critical theory - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory) Nothing wrong with describing them, but attributing such evil intent, and such sociopolitical power to them as Lind does is both mistaken and dishonest. BTW, you seem to have confused [William S. Lind](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=William_S._Lind) with somebody who has credibility – [Michael Lind,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lind) perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/114 "2011-06-07T03:00:25Z")
This is the kind of [nonsense](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-swedish-voucher-system.html) I was referring to: > [@](#): > > I googled for less than two minute courses in Pedagogic at Swedish universities. From the first-page description of the masters-program in Stockholm University: > > The program aims to “advance your knowledge in …normality and power-structure” > > I don’t know how much you know of this, but these are code-words from post-structural theory, which is in turn a code-word for post-modern Marxism. This is not the ‘let’s take control of the means of production’ Marxism, it is modern academic Marxism from the 1960s developed by the like of Derrida and Foucault. > > Post-modern Marxism teachers people that no objective knowledge exists and that any claims of fact and knowledge are ways of the capitalist system to control people’s minds. > > If this sounds too outrages for you to believe, I suggest you read one of their textbooks. I first encountered them in Handelshögskolan, teaching feminism and management theory, and they are just as loony as their theories sound. How can you have a reasonable conversation with someone who denounces the existence of both logic an objective reality? > > Let’s continue. This masters program studies: > > “the interaction between different social categorizations of people which may be used to discriminate, e.g. gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, or disability. A key aspect is how these categorizations can be related to the different perspective of power.” > > Clearly, in a country where math test-scores are crashing the most pertinent job of schools is to teach educators to criticize (imagined) capitalist power-structures and to tell them objective reality is a tool for repression. And don’t forget ethnic studies and feminism! Much more important to teach immigrants that the “norm” of the Swedish language is a tool of repression than to actually teach them Swedish so they can get a job… > > The way post-modernism truly rots the brain is that they are taught that the most important question to ask in a debate is not about the logistical or factual basis of an argument, but _why_ you are making the argument, _who_ you are and what your _interests_ is. > > This gives the left a license to believe any nonsense they like, since facts and logic no longer anchor them. > > Many students in Sweden share my experience, which is that the old-school teachers that were left when I went there were far superior to the new ones. > > This is not to say that they ruin all the new teachers, many of them are great people who want to teach knowledge. But since the post-modernist and the believers of modern pedagogic theory (mostly nonsense) are dominant, they prevent real reform. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/115 "2011-06-07T03:19:29Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > This is the kind of [nonsense](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-swedish-voucher-system.html) I was referring to: Yes, that person **is** talking nonsense; Stockholm University’s catalog is not. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/116 "2011-06-07T03:33:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Nothing wrong with describing them, but attributing such evil intent, and such sociopolitical power to them as Lind does is both mistaken and dishonest. The intent is neither here nor there, it’s the effect that this thread is about. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/117 "2011-06-07T03:34:28Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > The intent is neither here nor there, it’s the effect that this thread is about. The “effect” is what I meant by “sociopolitical power.” There’s no there there. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/118 "2011-06-07T04:12:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The “effect” is what I meant by “sociopolitical power.” There’s no there there. I don’t know about that. The Swedes appear to have adopted the most far left aspects of what is described above as cultural marxism. Their Integration Act 1997 basically acknowledges there is no common Swedish culture or history, stating: \*Since a large group of people have their origins in another country, the Swedish population lacks a common history. \* Also, you have politicians like Jens Orback saying they have to be tolerant so when Muslims become a majority they will be nice to the non-muslim Swedes 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/119 "2011-06-07T04:49:41Z")
**Chen** , surely you noticed that the post you quoted: a) is not a citation — some unknown schmuck with a blog is precisely as authoritative as an anonymous message board poster — [ETA: sorry, I see the source was named, though no link was provided] b) fails to cite its own source; c) seems to be discussing something different from the master’s program it denigrates; d) thanks to ©, tries to link the idea that there is no objective reality to the (completely independent) ideas that identity groups can be malleable and that categorization can be used for discrimination (so you have to be some postmodernist weirdo to think that discrimination is bad); and e) seems to be saying that, on the evidence that some Swedish master’s program teaches a handful of students an esoteric specialty, Sweden is indoctrinating its children in Marxist thought. In short: some nutjob on the internet agrees with you. Wow, now you have me convinced convinced. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295/120 "2011-06-07T04:52:26Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I don’t know about that. The Swedes appear to have adopted the most far left aspects of what is described above as cultural marxism. What that stupid blog you quoted “describes as cultural marxism” is neither here nor elsewhere. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cultural-marxism-affect-europe-more-than-economic-marxism/584295.md?page=7)