Political Correctness / Cultural Marxism / Critical Theory

"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" [source].

"Political Correctness is really socialism by the back door (Marxism without the gun). It is also the EU by the back door. Much of this PC nonsense begins life in the unelected and unaccountable and corrupt EU commission. This body resembles the old communist Soviet Union with its centralising of power, loss of individual freedom and plain old lies and corruption. Why on earth would anyone consider being part of a system which has already failed so dramatically?  The British people certainly wouldn't if the whole story was put before them. Instead if is all being done piecemeal and by stealth" [source].

"The Frankfurt School believed that as long as an individual had the belief - or even the hope of belief - that his divine gift of reason could solve the problems facing society, then that society would never reach the state of hopelessness and alienation that they considered necessary to provoke socialist revolution. Their task, therefore, was as swiftly as possible to undermine the Judaeo-Christian legacy. To do this they called for the most negative destructive criticism possible of every sphere of life which would be designed to de-stabilize society and bring down what they saw as the 'oppressive' order. Their policies, they hoped, would spread like a virus - 'continuing the work of Western Marxists by other means' as one of their members noted" [source].

"To further the advance of their 'quiet' cultural revolution ... the [Frankfurt] School recommended (among other things): (1) the creation of racism offences, (2) continual change to create confusion, (3) the teaching of sex and homosexuality to children, (4) the undermining of schools' and teachers' authority, (5) huge immigration to destroy identity, (6) the promotion of excessive drinking, (7) emptying of churches, (8) an unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime, (9) dependency on the state or state benefits, (10) control and dumbing down of media, (11) encouraging the breakdown of the family" [source].

"One of the main ideas of the Frankfurt School was to exploit Freud's idea of 'pansexualism' - the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women. To further their aims they would: (a) attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children, (b) abolish differences in the education of boys and girls, (c) abolish all forms of male dominance - hence the presence of women in the armed forces, (d) declare women to be an 'oppressed class' and men as 'oppressors'" [source].

“[Western nations are] now dominated by an alien system of beliefs, attitudes and values that has become known as “political correctness.” It seeks to impose a uniformity in thought and behaviour among all [Westerners] and is therefore totalitarian in nature. It has its roots in the ideology of Marxism, which requires a radical inversion of the prevailing traditional culture by cultural Marxism in order to achieve a social revolution.  ...  In 1924, as a result of a meeting the year before attended by Georg Lukacs and other Marxist intellectuals associated with the Communist Party of Germany, there came to be founded the Institute of Social Research at Frankfurt University in Frankfurt, Germany. This Institute became known as the Frankfurt School. Its model was the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow. The members of this Institute prepared numerous studies on the beliefs, attitudes and values they assumed led to the rise of German national socialism. These were critical studies that combined Marxist analysis with Freudian psychoanalysis. The sum of these critical studies became known as Frankfurt School “Critical Theory.”  Frankfurt School Critical Theory was essentially destructive criticism of the main elements of Western culture such as Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalties, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention and conservatism. These criticisms are reflected in such works of the Frankfurt School as “Studies on Authority and the Family,” Eric Fromm’s “Escape From Freedom” and his “The Dogma of Christ,” Wilhelm Reich’s “The Mass Psychology of Fascism” and Theodor Adorno’s “The Authoritarian Personality” published in 1950.  Frankfurt School Critical Theory encompasses a group of specific sub-theories such as matriarchal theory, androgyny theory, personality theory, prejudice theory, authority theory, family theory, sexuality theory, racial theory, legal theory and literary theory. These various sub-theories are used to induce an inversion of the prevailing belief system so the Marxist revolutionaries can engineer a non-violent social revolution” [Elliot Lake News and Views, 28 November 2006].

"In the topsy-turvy politically correct world, truth comes in two forms: the politically correct, and the factually correct. The politically correct truth is publicly proclaimed correct by politicians, celebrities and the BBC even if it is wrong, while the factually correct truth is publicly condemned as wrong even when it is right. Factually correct truths suffer the disadvantage that they don't have to be shown to b wrong, merely stated that they are politically incorrect. To the politically correct, truth is no defence; to the politically incorrect, truth is the ultimate defence. To the politically correct, the 'truth' is no longer 'something that exists in objective reality' but 'something that supports my pre-held beliefs'. This selective definition of truth makes PC arguments almost impossible to refute" [Anthony Browne, The Retreat of Reason, pp. 7-8].

"In Britain, [Political Correctness has] allowed (1) the creation of alienated Muslim ghettoes which produce young men who commit mass murder against their fellow citizens. (2) By promoting the rights of criminals over their victims, it hinders law enforcement and leads to escalating crime. (3) By challenging the authority of teachers, it fuels poor discipline in schools, and by promoting equality over excellence, it degrades the standard of education and inflates exam grades until they become almost meaningless. ... (4) The poor sick have ended up having worse healthcare in Britain than they would in mainland Europe because PC for long closed down debate on fundamental NHS reform. (5) Women's employment opportunities can be harmed by giving them ever more rights that are not given to men. (6) Victims are taught to blame others for their vulnerability, discouraging them from taking responsibility for improving their lives if their problems are self-inflicted - [for example]: a) Black communities are encouraged to blame racist teachers for the failure of their boys at school, rather than re-examine their own culture and attitudes to education that may be the prime reason, b) the unemployed are encouraged to languish on benefits blaming others for their fate, and c) poor Africans are condemned to live in poverty so long as they and their governments are encouraged to blame the West for all their problems, rather than confronting the real causes of poor governance, corruption and poor education" [Anthony Browne, The Retreat of Reason, pp. xiii-xiv].

"The rise of political correctness represents an assault on both reason and liberal democracy. It is an assault on reason, because the measuring stick of the acceptability of a belief is no longer its objective, empirically established truth, but how well it fits in with the received wisdom of political correctness. It is an assault on liberal democracy, because the pervasiveness of political correctness is closing down freedom of speech and open debate" [Anthony Browne, The Retreat of Reason, p. 5].

"One of the most powerful psychological foundations of political correctness is liberal guilt. Many in the West from middle-class backgrounds suffer a usually unspoken guilt about their unearned privilege, which in turn can lead to an under-current of self-loathing in their views. Men often feel guilty about being men, and whites often feel guilty about being white, even though these are innate characteristics they can do little about. ... When the former BBC director general Greg Dyke described the BBC as 'hideously white', what explains the word 'hideous' apart from liberal guilt? Asians are now over-represented in law schools and medical colleges, but no-one, let alone another Asian, would dream of calling law-schools and medical colleges 'hideously Asian'. No Afro-Caribbean would call Brixton 'hideously black'." [Anthony Browne, The Retreat of Reason, p. 19].

"Political correctness is the straitjacket that denies free speech and open debate. 'Alternative' comedians were its stormtroopers in the early 80s. New Labour then enshrined it in law. It has been enforced since through just about every public body you can name, including (Labour) government funded charities. Result? A perpetual socialist state, even when Labour aren't in power" [comment at: source].

"Having grown up in the 60's and 70's, I remember very well the kind of Marxist revolutionary principles which many of my contemporaries wholeheartedly supported. I also remember that the ones who wanted to work at all, were determined to become social workers, journalists, teachers and civil servants. If they could not foster an outright revolution, they wanted to destroy a British culture that they detested from the inside. It appears they have in a large part succeeded and they now infest much of the civil service, media, local authorities and most quangos. From this position of power, they recruit like minded people. I thought they were dangerous loonies then and sadly, time has proved me right. Political correctness has turned out to be much more effective weapon than molotov cocktails and barricades in the streets. We must root out the social cancer of PC and purge the far-left vandals bent on destroying our culture" [comment at: source].

"My chief concern is the kind of prejudice rooted in the fear of being though illiberal. Such attitudes are dangerous and intellectually dishonest. But then, political correctness is by definition dishonest and is, I believe, the most insidious doctrine to plague the Western world since those abominable soul mates communism and fascism with which it has more in common than its dupes seem to realise. It cannot face truth; it rejects what is, simply because what is does not suit what the politically correct thinking ought to be" [George MacDonald Fraser, 'The Bug of Senachie', quoted in Mail on Sunday, 06 April 2014].

"W.H. Auden once wrote that the first duty of an English poet was to defend his culture. Auden would be perplexed and infuriated today because he would have to search hard to find any recognized poet who defends anything... except confusion, cultural suicide, and depravity. The Marxist ideologues who came into power by stealth under Commissar Harold Wilson have wormed their way into every stratum of British society, with the ultimate aim of destroying it. Their new religion of political correctness is perverse, for it forbids freedom of thought, and speech. It has become the grey eminence of the British psyche, a demon that threatens the individual with social condemnation, ostracism, and ruin if not kowtowed to.  The Marxists destroy mainly through the imposition of false guilt, brainwashing our school children with the falsehood that the British Empire was evil, and did nothing but subjugate and subvert indigenous peoples. Nothing is said about the building of hospitals, schools, universities, industries... the very bedrock of all social progress.  Nothing is taught about the love and respect great leaders like Ghandi had for Great Britain, for it might open minds to the truth that the British were worthy of respect, gratitude... and love.  As Ghandi wrote of the British: 'We have come a long way with the British, and we must part as friends.'  He and Nehru, Prasad, Menon, and many others, had an abiding fondness for a nation which could oppose them, and yet liberate them.  The Marxists, however paint our history in one colour... black!  They literally overwhelm young minds with their Big Lie, and the ultimate goal, of course, is complete submission to their deranged and evil ideology.  They made, however, a fatal mistake... They underestimated the power of love... The love we British have for the truth, for the courage and nobility of our ancestors, for the brilliance of our thinkers, for the victories of our fighting men and women... for our poets, chief among whom was William Shakespeare.  This love for who we are can never be broken, however satanic the foe we face, however devious and treacherous. The love we have for this hallowed, many-sceptered realm will see our Marxist enemies, and their Islamic henchmen, into their graves. Rule Britannia... lest others rule us!" [source].

"The former dissident Soviet, Vladimir Bukovsky [2009] points out that the Soviet demise coincides in date with the almost as sudden emergence in the 'West' of the notion of 'political correctness', in a transferred resurgence of essentially the same ideology. ... Bukovsky warns that just as the ideological progenitor of (what he terms) 'political correctness' imprisoned him as a Soviet dissident simply for not being an active supporter, so it will be in the 'West'; the ideology building unstoppably from excess to ever greater excess as adherents to the ideology refuse ever to admit they are wrong" [source].

Identity Politics

Extracts from the article: The Origin of 'Identity Politics' & 'Political Correctness'

"[I]n the late 1920s, it was already becoming apparent that Marxist 'theory' did not work in practice, as evidenced by the absence of revolutionary overthrow of regimes in Europe according to Marxian prediction and prescription, even though just such a revolution had occurred in Russia a generation previously. The cognitive dissonance this must have produced within the mindset of 'Western'-culture intelligentsia could only persist and grow with the continued complete failure of a political-Left ethos anywhere to effect real change in its own terms. ... To try to salve their cognitive-dissonance, adherents to an ideology can try to save face by admitting neither their own gullibility nor the falsity of the ideology and instead blame others. In this way the failure of the ideology can be regarded and misrepresented as merely temporary, and the final reckoning postponed apparently indefinitely. In this case, those blamed - the fall guys, as it were - were those perceived to have 'let the side down': 'the workers'. Collectively intended to benefit from the predicted Marxist 'revolution' (or, at least, the furthering of 'the progressive project'), 'the workers' had been designated the 'agents of social change'; but they did not respond actively in this regard"

The [white, male] worker:

"Identity politics (sometimes dubbed 'political correctness') is the result of a political-Left major backlash against the mass of ordinary people (in Europe an 'the West'), beginning in the 1920s/30s, in the wake of the persistent failure of Marxist theory to be realised in European 'revolution' or any real change through democracy. In shifting the blame away from Marxist theory and those gullible enough to adhere to it, and on to those the theory had prescribed and predicted would have been the beneficiaries, if only they had responded accordingly ('the [white, male] workers'); then the cognitive-dissonance within the political-left mindset caused by this crisis to an extent was salved"

Replaced by women:

"The intellectual rationalisation was first by invoking Freud's, now comprehensively discredited, notion of 'repression' to attempt to explain a supposed impact on 'the workers' of 'capitalism' acting within the context of the family. With most workers (the group considered the principle 'agents of social change' in a 'revolution') being male, then the theoreticians had in mind the male as 'head' of the family. It was a simple extension in political-Left imagination for 'the worker' to change from being the putative conduit of the impact of 'capitalism' to its embodiment, leaving women to be deemed a replacement supposed 'oppressed' and 'disadvantaged' 'group'"

To be joined by non-whites:

"This implausible and unfalsifiable non-scientific nonsense mainly festered within academia until the co-option after 1968 by the political-Left of a movement which appeared to be akin to the revolutionary activity predicted by Marxism: the US 'civil rights' movement. This added to the 'new oppressed' the category 'non-white', which like that of women could be envisaged as an inversion of a retrospective stereotype of 'the worker'"

Then homosexuals:

"In the wake of the similarly seeming revolutionary Stonewall riots of 1969, the 'gay [sic] rights' lobby was also co-opted to further add to the abstract demonised aspects of 'the worker', thereafter retrospectively stereotyped as male plus 'white' plus heterosexual"

From then on:

"The strands of the 'new oppressed' combined in a new (neo-Marxist) conceptualisation to account for these political shifts after the fact, which came to be termed 'identity politics' (or more pejoratively but accurately, 'cultural Marxism' ...)"

"The several abstracted faux groups, in entering political centre stage displaced 'class', because with 'the workers' now considered collectively persona non grata, then being 'working class' was no longer recognised as a disadvantage. Class distinction was jettisoned from the neo-Marxist 'progressive project'"

"[A]nyone 'belonging' to a 'group' according to any of the inversions of one or more of the now supposed hallmarks of 'the worker' as male / 'white' / heterosexual, was deemed automatically to belong to the newly identified 'vanguard' of 'agents of social change', and deserving of automatic protection and definition as 'disadvantaged' and 'oppressed'. These three abstracted generic groupings of 'women', 'ethnic-minority' and 'homosexual', naturally were considered additive in conferring 'victim' status, so that a permutation of two out of the three - or, best of all, the full house - was a trump card in what has been dubbed 'intersectionality'"

"The deemed 'groups' replacing 'the workers' ... are abstractions rather than groups per se, and in any case far too heterogeneous to be in reality 'oppressed' or 'disadvantaged'; ... the identities in 'identity politics' do not arise within the groups themselves but are conferred according to what can be posited in opposition to 'the workers'. Thus are ignored actually 'oppressed' and 'disadvantaged' categories wholly or mainly comprising males, whilst included are those not in reality comprising the 'oppressed' and 'disadvantaged'; and inasmuch as 'groups' in any way are, as they purport, indeed 'oppressed' and 'disadvantaged', this is overturned either through being stretched in their inclusiveness beyond credulity (as with 'ethnic minority') or narrowed to the point of absurdity (as with the minuscule minority that is trans-sexual). ...  The upshot is that 'identity politics' is a 'gravy train' for the already privileged. Worse, it is an instrument of oppression against the very 'group' perennially disadvantaged and the victim of prejudice, which formerly had been identified as worthy of the liberation Marxism promised: the vast majority of (necessarily lower-status) men"

"Notions of 'repression' and 'false consciousness' were enough of a dressing-up of a volte-face from eulogising to blaming/demonising 'the workers' to prevent it appearing too transparently to be holding 'the workers' directly culpable, and it was also sufficient a departure from orthodox Marxism that its origin in Marxism was hidden, thereby aiding its acceptance. This would have been important in the USA crucible of these politics when in the aftermath of McCarthyism the political-Left was obliged to present itself differently. With purging of 'communists' having proved resoundingly popular with the American working-classes, a far sharper sense of an 'us' and 'them' vis-á-vis 'the workers' was experienced by the US political-Left, reinforcing its antipathy. Here we have the core of what became 'identity politics', but it was not known as such until the early 1970s"

Its current Politically-Correct manifestations:

"'Identity politics' all too apparently has grown to be accepted and predominant everywhere - not least among conservative politicians ... police forces, judiciaries, and entire government administrations - such that it is now a totalitarian quasi-religion. ... 'Political correctness' has often and popularly been the ideology's tag, ... but this is rather to confuse the ideology itself with what perhaps is better understood as its surface manifestation, mode of enforcement and expression of its fervency: the seemingly absurd 'speech codes' and blanket gratuitous charges of 'sexism', 'racism' and homophobia (sic) ubiquitous in the media, politics and the workplace"

Egalitarianism and the Left's striving for elitist-separatism:

"Bidding for social pre-eminence is a combination of trying to acquire rank within society and also to be part of a pre-eminent in-group - one that is almost as separate from society as it is at its apex: elitist-separatism. Implicitly, ... this is what the political-Left foundationally, if unwittingly, is concerned with achieving. Through the ideological conceptualising of society in terms of cooperation, with any competition considered aberrational, those with a political-Left ethos are left peculiarly blind to their own competitiveness. Indeed, their ideology is very much a displaced expression of it, and explains the peculiarly vehement bigotry of its adherents, and why supposed 'proletarian' revolution invariably produced a tyranny, and one that is actually directed towards the 'proletariat', not by it"

"The politics espoused of egalitarianism is a competitive-altruistic feint to assist the otherwise standard status-grab. Functioning to deny the legitimacy of any rival elitist-separatists and their ethos, it dupes not only others aspiring though as yet failing to be part of an elite, but precludes even self-awareness of their own elitist-separatist aspirations by political-Left adherents themselves. It is in respect of this, ultimately, that are deployed the intense and protracted attempts to salve cognitive-dissonance so prominent a part of political-Left experience"

A supreme irony:

[T]he very charge made against 'the workers' of a psychological dysfunctionality in supposedly not being able to see what is in their own best interests, boomerangs back on political-Left adherents as actually their myopia in respect of the psychology of their own ethos. It is not that Neo-Marxism / 'identity politics' / 'political correctness' / postmodernism' is an altruism that is in fact disguised self-interest: it's nothing of the sort. In the service of its own ends, the political-Left ethos adopted a deception designed to fail to identify the actually 'disadvantaged' / 'oppressed', expressly so as to make their condition still worse, as a form of revenge on those regarded as ungrateful for past efforts on their behalf ... It is hard to think of a political fraud as great, (as deep, wide, successful and sustained) as this in history, or even to devise one in mischievous imagination"

Its over-reaching and eventual demise:

"[The] distinct absences of internal consistency in the 'theory' are the direct consequence of its origination and development as an attempt to hide uncomfortable truths within academic political-Left politics; not to address issues in the real world. That it is hopelessly contradictory, in the end is beside the point to the ideologues, ... but the lack even of internal (let alone external) consistency is a confirmation of the non-sustainability of 'identity politics' 'theory', contributing to what inevitably, as for any and every ideology, is its eventual demise"

"Yet there is the distinct possibility that this may not arrive until after 'identity politics' (or however else it is tagged, and whatever else to which it morphs) has grown unstoppably to become yet another recapitulation of 'the terror'. It's now well on the way, with the totalitarianism continuing to ratchet upwards. 'Identity politics' is now so entrenched across 'Western' society that it has a life of its own well beyond the latter-day now quite intense critique of it from within the academia that spawned it. Such critique does not, however, extend to uncovering the actual origin and function of the ideology, indicating that this is just another phase in the endless attempted face-saving by the political-Left intelligentsia."

[End]

The Frankfurt School

"The Frankfurt School believed that as long as an individual had the belief - or even the hope of belief - that his divine gift of reason could solve the problems facing society, then that society would never reach the state of hopelessness and alienation that they considered necessary to provoke socialist revolution.

Their task, therefore, was as swiftly as possible to undermine the Judaeo-Christian legacy. To do this they called for the most negative destructive criticism possible of every sphere of life which would be designed to de-stabilize society and bring down what they saw as the 'oppressive' order. Their policies, they hoped, would spread like a virus - 'continuing the work of Western Marxists by other means' as one of their members noted.

To further the advance of their 'quiet' cultural revolution ... the [Frankfurt] School recommended (among other things):

(1) the creation of racism offences,
(2) continual change to create confusion,
(3) the teaching of sex and homosexuality to children,
(4) the undermining of schools' and teachers' authority,
(5) huge immigration to destroy identity,
(6) the promotion of excessive drinking,
(7) emptying of churches,
(8) an unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime,
(9) dependency on the state or state benefits,
(10) control and dumbing down of media,
(11) encouraging the breakdown of the family.

One of the main ideas of the Frankfurt School was to exploit Freud's idea of 'pansexualism' - the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women. To further their aims they would:

(a) attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children,
(b) abolish differences in the education of boys and girls,
(c) abolish all forms of male dominance - hence the presence of women in the armed forces,
(d) declare women to be an 'oppressed class' and men as 'oppressors'."

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;
that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"
(Isaiah 5:20-21)

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