Some people, usually on the Left, deny the existence of ‘cultural marxism’, while some critics claim it exists, and some of them claim it exists as a movement.
Looking at what the critics actually discuss when they refer to cultural marxism, then it seems they are pointing towards people who criticise contemporary Western culture and capitalism. Such people definitely exist and always have. There are some major conservative political thinkers who also criticise their contemporary Western culture and capitalism: Coleridge, Burke, Ruskin, and innumerable religious thinkers etc. So there is nothing necessarily Marxist about such criticism, although Marx does criticise aspects of Western culture and obviously criticises and analyses capitalism.
Gathering from what I have read those criticising cultural Marxism tend to object to objections to:
- fixed gender roles and male authority
- the authority of wealthy people and corporations
- the authority of religion
- patriotic violence
- the authority and superiority of ‘white culture’
- compulsory heterosexuality
- being polite to people who are different to yourself
and so on.
To simplify the critics of ‘Cultural Marxism’ object to challenges to forms of authority and customs they approve of. They themselves challenge forms of authority and customs they don’t like, but they don’t call themselves “cultural fascists” or even “cultural capitalists”. So the name would appear to have the rhetorical function of trying to get people to dismiss what is being challenged before any argument is made, rather than any form of clarification. It may rely on an expected automatic negative reaction to the name of Marx, by people in their in-group.
One slightly weird thing, if we were to take the critique seriously, is that many of these critics do not deal with specific thinkers they identify as cultural Marxists. For example after listening and reading quite a lot of Jordan Peterson, it seems to me that he frequently makes sweeping statements, but I have never heard him give any evidence that he has read the people he might name (like Foucault) in any depth, or even have read a book like ‘Foucault for Beginners’. He does not seem to think any real engagement is necessary – and this in university lectures. Ok people may not have the space to do this in blog posts, but in university lectures they should. While I cannot guarantee that he does not have a serious discussion about particular ‘cultural marxists’ somewhere or other, it is not obviously apparent, and suggests that his criticism is not based upon much thought, understanding or work. The critique seems to be politically motivated by a need to defend certain types of authority – for Peterson this seems to be primarily male authority, and occasionally religious authority, although his relation to religion seems complicated or inconsistent.
However, rather than something dreadful I would continue say that the criticism of Western culture, capitalism and other forms of authority has been a long standing and continuing part of the Western tradition involving both Protestantism and enlightenment. We could easily push it back to Heraclitus or Plato, if we wanted to.
Protestantism almost begins with the assertion that the worshipper should not accept the authority of the Catholic Church to tell worshippers the details of the Christian religion. Protestants claimed individuals should have to power and ability to challenge the teachings of the Church based upon their reading of the bible, their direct experience of God and the power of their own mind. The declarations of the pope and the Doctors of the Church were largely irrelevant. Sometimes this went as far as the free spirit antinomians who may have argued that being saved by faith you can commit no sin, and all is permissible.
Protestants in many cases then came to accept the authority of their own Churches and leaders, but they had challenged authority, and they constantly broke apart from each other over differences of doctrine. They often also challenged the authority of aristocracy, and the sins of culture (art theatre etc) especially if they were merchants. They also often broke the socially sanctioned ties between rich and poor, deciding that charity had to involve discipline of those who received charity, or that people who needed charity were sinners and thus should not receive charity. This breaking of demands may have helped the acquisition of capital, and other people attacked that. Whether intended or not, this created a tradition of ‘free thinking’, which allowed attacks on Protestantism itself.
In the enlightenment supposedly irrational forms of authority were also attacked, again primarily focusing on the Church, but also on wealth. The idea took root that people should be able to govern themselves to the extent that was possible. Authority should be acceptable, rational and ideally non-repressive. This is expressed in the American Revolution, the abolition of slavery, further challenge to the aristocracy, the formation of worker’s unions, the growth of science as a middle class activity, the promotion of religious freedom, the acceptance of less orthodox religious people into politics and so on.
The enlightenment both promoted and attacked capitalism. Adam Smith is a good example. He points to the benefits of capitalism, how merchants conspire to defraud the public, how the organisation of labour corrupts people, and how military activity defends merchants interests at the cost of the general taxpayer. John Stuart Mill likewise has a complicated attitude towards capitalism, being heavily aware of how it can further oppress those who have to labour.
Karl Marx uses the labour theory of value to argue that capitalist’s profit is stolen from the workers, that capitalism is incoherent and inevitably self destructive, and that capitalist culture and ideology is all about supporting the ruling class and crushing opposition to that rule. According to Marx, the culture that gets spread is that which the ruling groups promote and help spread and which fits in with social organisation and experience. Famously Marx declares religion to be equivalent to opium, at best a distracting fantasy – not something all Marxists believe – see ‘Liberation Theology’ and the people around the young Paul Tillich….
Later on, Marxists will allege that the workers are not that passive with respect to ruling class culture, they can transform it and use it for their own purposes. People can discard the distortions of reality produced by ruling culture and come to see the truth of their oppression and work towards liberty through revolutionary action. Ultimately, the Marxist position, is that all culture comes out of ‘material’ action or ‘praxis’.
Currently some people recognise further oppressions other than that of the capitalist dominant class, that stem from the irrational oppressions of the past. They ask, why should women be considered as secondary citizens, badly represented in areas of official power, subjugated by male violence, mocked for being female, considered to have less of the right intelligence, and so on. They ask why should homosexual people be threatened or attacked because of their sexual/romantic preferences, condemned to hell, unable to marry and so on. Why should poor people be treated like dirt and ruled by those who can make money or have inherited money. Why are the monied considered to be better human beings and more entitled to rule, when clearly there are things they do not know about most people’s lives. Why should we have to cheer or face exile when our country goes to war with another that has not attacked us, or is so much less powerful than us that we shall be responsible for massive death, and undesired abortions? Why should we not try for something better? Why should capitalists have the force to poison workers or destroy the environment and people’s futures?
All these kinds of questions are part of the Western tradition, and to me much of what is labelled as ‘cultural Marxism’ seems to be part of the search for liberty. Both the liberty from interference and restriction, and the potential liberty to act. Of course, for those who support restriction of the liberty of others, it can seem that their liberty to restrict is being removed, and that therefore they are not being respected as much as they should, or that they are being constrained.
Perhaps we could think that the Cultural Marxists are the defenders of that tradition while their attackers are those who ally with authority and attempt to fossilize that authority, or increase that authority as when they promote the extension of capitalist power, through winding back the checks and balances which have evolved to balance out that power.
At the least, they appear to want to shut discussion down by lumping the critical western tradition along with something they think should be despised.
Tags: Disinformation, ethics, narrative, religion
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