cultural Marxism
C O N T E N T S
Intro
Short Version
Contemporary Debate Over Whether or Not it is Racist to Talk About Cultural Marxism
History of the Term Cultural Marxism
Conspiracy Theory That Cultural Marxism is a Conspiracy Theory
Let’s Be Adults & Stop Bullshitting Ourselves & Eachother About Cultural Marxism
Conclusion
Examples of Contemporary Use of the Term Cultural Marxism
Sources
last updated: January 8, 2025Intro
Western political correctness (‘wokeness’) has displaced class struggle
according to philosophy professor, political philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek.
Short Version
Cultural marxism is a newer form of marxism (neo-marxism1) in which struggle between classes is replaced by struggle between identity groups.2 To this end it is closely linked with and overlaps critical theory, critical legal studies, critical race theory, wokeism and more.
Contemporary Debate Over Whether or Not it is Racist to Talk About Cultural Marxism
Recently some have claimed the term cultural marxism comes from an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory positing a secret elite group of jewish people who use this form of neo-marxism to sabotage Western culture in order to open the way for zionism or marxism or marxist zionism or whatnot. For some years now, there has been a tendency on the left from street level protesters all the way up to the largest propaganda outlets to stereotype anyone who uses the term cultural marxism in a manner that is critical of the left as a right wing anti-semite.3
As we’ll see, the facts show that cultural marxism emerged on the left in the middle of the last century, both as a movement and as a term for their movement. We will also see that it has nothing to do with a zionist plot orchestrated in secret by an elite jewish cabal,4 but rather that it is a means to undermine the foundations of Western capitalist culture and civilization through deception, division and hostility between identity groups, encouraging them pursue self-serving and conflicting agendas that only further the overarching agenda - marxism/communism/socialism.
It seems that the media-generated outrage (or spectacle of outrage) over the supposedly anti-Semitic term cultural marxism is intended (however consciously) to divert attention from the actual matter. What actually matters is the strategy itself.
Questions regarding whether such terms come from the left or the right and whether or not they are racist side-step what the terms reference. As Tarl Warwick writes,5
If someone claims that we cannot describe a machine, but we then proceed to detail how it works in minutiae- for example, its gears, switches, valves, we can study its operation, and see its actual operation in real time, then we can describe the machine whether or not we give it a proper name. The name is effectively irrelevant, standing only to describe the function and why the machine exists. It has a specific mode of operation and a specific outcome to the same. I thus deduce the actual function of wokeness based on what it seeks to oppose. It opposes equality, merit, individual liberty, deregulated economics, and any form of cultural appreciation. It upholds collectivism, statism, and corporate power. So the final deduction is based on answering one question; what are all of these things, which wokeness opposes hallmarks of?
The answer is simple. These are hallmarks of enlightened Western civilization itself.
Wokeness is nothing more than an elaborate Marxist and arguably neofascist canard designed to weaken the fabric of civilization itself in order to usher in authoritarianism in every manner; legal, social, intellectual, and behavioral.
Obviously, the point Warwick made applies generally. But it just so happens that what he wrote above specifically about wokeness applies to cultural marxism as well. However with cultural marxism, these things are mere tactical concerns and matter only insofar as they serve the agenda of replacing capitalism with socialism whereas with wokeness, many people and groups have other central concerns such as issues concerning race, sex, gender (as if they are two different things), sexual orientation and the like.
History of the Term Cultural Marxism
The oldest use of the term I am aware of was from 1938. According to the Oxford English Dictionary,6 a speech given at the British Union of Fascists on July 14 of that year included the passage,
The minds of the prospective victims must be..perverted and poisoned to the necessary degree of receptivity. Herein lies the task of cultural Marxism, the preliminary bolshevisation of the mind, facilitated by the indiscriminate toleration-psychosis of liberalism, inherent in Social-Democracy, and leading to its final inevitable collapse.
The next use of the term, according to the Oxford English Dictionary,7 was in 1949 in the Modern Quarterly, 1949, Autumn 381/2 which they quote thusly,
The League itself unites the progressive writers of Germany and is the main organ of cultural Marxism.
Note that the Oxford English Dictionary makes a distinction between the term in the sense of how it was used by the British Union of Fascists and the term in the sense of how it was used in the quote above by the Modern Quarterly which is, according to the OED,
The theory that the oppression of the working class is effected through social and cultural means. The theory of cultural Marxism was originally developed by the Frankfurt School of social theorists as an elaboration and critique of the economic theories posited by classical Marxism.
The Modern Quarterly apparently was
founded in 1938 and was the first academic journal in Britain dedicated to Marxism.
Also, according to Wikipedia, for what it is worth, the Modern Quarterly was
closely associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain
and
was continuously published until 1953 when it became the Marxist Quarterly
It seems that the British Union of Fascists combined the words ‘cultural’ and ‘marxism’ to make a depreciative reference to what they saw as the
indiscriminate toleration-psychosis of liberalism, inherent in Social-Democracy, and leading to its final inevitable collapse
and that later marxists (or neo-marxists used those two words together appreciatively to reference a sort of marxist cultural study or, to quote the OED,
The theory that the oppression of the working class is effected through social and cultural means
In Critique of Domination: The Origins and Development of Critical Theory (copyright 1973), Trent Schroyer also uses the term “cultural Marxism”8 in an appreciative manner and refers to “Frankfurt School”9 figures “Lukacs, Marcuse, Habermas, et al.” as “cultural Marxists”.10 Schroyer characterizes11 cultural marxism as
contemporary neo-Marxism
and, according to him,12 cultural marxism is a term used by
the cultural Marxists (Lukacs, Marcuse, Habermas, et al.)
to describe
the new interpretations
of marxism that are
based on the general belief that the economic and the sociopolitical have fused and are no longer conceptualizable within Marx’s substructure-superstructure model. The cultural Marxists have accepted the convergence thesis to the extent to which they see the common sociocultural crisis that is moved forward by economically rationalizing capitalist and socialist systems.
The use of “conceptualizable” was not a typo on our part. That is how it appears in print. By the way, one critic wrote of Schroyer’s book,
This book is hilarious albeit unintentionally. If you are the kind of person who find's Sokal's "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" to be funny, you will find this book to be even more amusing. If brevity is the soul of wit, Schroyer's book is the exact opposite of wit. But it will make witty people laugh. Schoyer seems to be trying very hard to convince the reader that he is intelligent by trying to convey every thought in the most difficult and riddled language he can muster. It seems that he thinks that he is trying to make the reader think, "I don't understand this. The author must be incredibly smart. I guess he's right."
Schroyer wrote furthermore,13
We will attempt to show here that the crisis theory Marx developed for early capitalism can be supplemented and a deeper structural and sociocultural crisis reconceptualized. In this sense, our analysis tries to show the correlation of Marx’s crisis theory with that of the contemporary “cultural” Marxists (Lukacs, Marcuse, Habermas, Lefebvre, etc.). But the cultural Marxist theory with must be linked to the unique dynamics of late capitalist development. Whereas we are concerned here with American capitalism, it is also necessary to ground the cultural crisis theory in the macrodynamics of late industrial societies, the cultural Marxist critique is abstract and incomplete. And yet it points the way toward a new critical theory that could conceptualize the socially unnecessary domination of all modern societies.
Schroyer titled the 6th chapter of his book14
Cultural-Marxism: The Contradictions of Industrial “Rationality”
In that chapter, he wrote15 of cultural marxism that,
In the twentieth century a new form of crisis theory was gradually developed that could be extended to both capitalist and “socialist” industrial societies. Suggested by George Lukacs and developed by the Frankfurt School, this theory forecast both a unique crisis of advanced industrial development and the danger to human subjectivity which this implied: As advanced industrial societies developed, the individual was more integrated into and dependent upon the collectivity and yet less able to utilize society for active self-expression. Although in Lukacs’ early work the focus remained upon capitalist development, the Frankfurt School members later conceptualized the tendencies of all industrialized systems as shaping a crisis of human subjectivity. Since historical studies of the Frankfurt School and libertarian communist tradition have recently appeared16 it is not necessary to repeat them here. What is important are the main ideas of this tradition which may form a new foundation for critical theory.
In general, the central thesis of the new theory is that industrial production, guided by the motive of economic growth, can generate a new type of crisis - to mediate its internal contradiction and stimulate continued expansion. in this way the nature of production, the direction of social and personal development, all become dependent upon the “needs” of economic development. Thus, the qualitative dimensions of Marx’s theory of the structural tendencies of capitalist growth is manifested as coerced economic development, on the one hand, and increasing indirect controls upon life styles, on the other.
Contemporary neo-Marxism seems to have gradually converged on this thesis of a new level and mode of domination. Theorists such as lukacs, Marcuse, Habermas, Lefebvre, and others, have all emphasized the combination of enforced dependence, cultural manipulation and growing political powerless that derives from the dynamics of late industrial society. By reconstructing the main points of these contemporary critiques it may be possible to show the community of their conception and to demonstrate the continuity of this critique with Marx’s Crisis theory.
There is a branch of cultural marxism in known as “British cultural Marxism” which is characterized by Duke University Press as “one of the most influential bodies of contemporary thought” in a review of the book Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain by Dennis Dworkin (published April, 1997). Duke University Press wrote furthermore,
Tracing its development from beginnings in postwar Britain, through its various transformations in the 1960s and 1970s…
…this book comprehensively views British cultural Marxism…
They also wrote of British cultural marxism in terms of
its relationship to the new left and feminist movements.
After much else, they add,
Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain captures the excitement and commitment that more than one generation of historians, literary critics, art historians, philosophers, and cultural theorists have felt about an unorthodox and critical tradition of Marxist theory.
Duke University Press also provides the following review,
“Dennis Dworkin provides a careful and relatively comprehensive assessment of cultural Marxism’s emergence as a postwar British intellectual and political project, which developed around both history-writing and what came to be called cultural studies.” — Dan Schiller, Left History
Chris Waters writes for American Historical Review that cultural marxism was
a major strand of thought in postwar Britain.
Waters also wrote of the author of Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain,
although an ardent enthusiast for the work of the cultural Marxists, Dworkin is not afraid to be critical of that work.
Lawrence Grossberg of University of North Carolina, who presumes to speak,
particularly as a representative for scholars in cultural studies
writes glowingly of the book as does Geoff Eley of the University of Michigan. The International Journal of Cultural Studies raves that Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain
is impressive in its scholarship, thorough in giving recognition to the different tributaries of British cultural studies from the 1930s until the late 1970s and judicious in selecting from the material it takes into consideration. The book deserves to become a standard work of reference to the major intellectual developments relevant to cultural studies during this period.
The reviews quoted above are all compiled here by Duke University Press regarding Dworkin’s book on cultural marxism in Britain.
The term cultural marxism was also used appreciatively, according to OED in 1979;
G. Baum Social Imperative 196 The cultural Marxism of Western political thinkers—for instance the Frankfurt School..—..greatly emphasized subjectivity and the role of personal freedom in the revolutionary movement.
It is likely that the term was used in many other instances over the decades both appreciatively and depreciatively.
Conspiracy Theory That Cultural Marxism is a Conspiracy Theory
Considering the political leanings and ages of the works cited above, it seems rather clear that the term cultural Marxism is not a recent, far-right or anti-Semitic invention, nor is the concept a conspiracy theory.
In fact, by definition it is an actual conspiracy. A conspiracy is a plan shared by a few involving deception of others. As we have seen, cultural Marxism was designed to employ deception to achieve its goals, the goals devised by and known only to a few; an elite association of (neo) Marxist theorists.
SPLC
Yet, in 2003, the Southern Poverty Law Center writes17 that
'Cultural Marxism,' a conspiracy theory with an anti-Semitic twist, is being pushed by much of the American right.
They write furthermore…
Right-wing ideologues, racists and other extremists have jazzed up political correctness and repackaged it — in its most virulent form, as an anti-Semitic theory that identifies Jews in general and several Jewish intellectuals in particular as nefarious, communistic destroyers. These supposed originators of "cultural Marxism" are seen as conspiratorial plotters intent on making Americans feel guilty and thus subverting their Christian culture.
In a nutshell, the theory posits that a tiny group of Jewish philosophers who fled Germany in the 1930s and set up shop at Columbia University in New York City devised an unorthodox form of "Marxism" that took aim at American society's culture, rather than its economic system.
The theory holds that these self-interested Jews — the so-called "Frankfurt School" of philosophers — planned to try to convince mainstream Americans that white ethnic pride is bad, that sexual liberation is good, and that supposedly traditional American values — Christianity, "family values," and so on — are reactionary and bigoted. With their core values thus subverted, the theory goes, Americans would be quick to sign on to the ideas of the far left.
The very term, "cultural Marxism," is clearly intended to conjure up xenophobic anxieties.
In this disinfo piece, the SPLC claims the offspring gave birth to the parent,
The idea of political correctness — the predecessor of the more highly charged concept of cultural Marxism — was popularized by the mass media in the early 1990s, highlighted by a 1991 speech by the first President Bush in which he warned that "free speech [is] under assault throughout the United States."
They go on to give alleged examples of the far right characterizing cultural Marxism as a Jewish conspiracy against gentiles and so on. Just because they have been entangled in accusations of racism at the highest level18 and however accurate their specific claims may or may not be, they are surely correct, at least, that there are people and groups on the right that claim that cultural Marxism is a Jewish conspiracy and perhaps not only on the right. There are, for example, people who consider themselves left wing and defenders of Palestinians to the point of blatant anti-semitism. At any rate, there will always be people who blame any and all problems on “the” Jews (or whites, blacks, men, the left, the right and so on).
This point is important but beside the main point which is that cultural marxism, named as such, has a documented history of being a left wing neo-marxist strategy in reality. Despite this documented fact, the SPLC wrote,
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.
One may wonder if they are lying or just incompetent.
New York Times
The New York Times at least admitted (November 13, 2018) that cultural Marxism is not a new invention. But they claim that it is an old invention of the alt-right (which seems to be a contradiction since the alt-right is supposed to be a relatively new thing). They write,19
Originally an American contribution to the phantasmagoria of the alt-right, the fear of “cultural Marxism” has been percolating for years through global sewers of hatred.
They ask,
What is “cultural Marxism”?
and answer
Nothing of the kind actually exists. But it is increasingly popular to indict cultural Marxism’s baleful effects on society
Also,
The legend of cultural Marxism recycles old anti-Semitic tropes to give those who feel threatened a scapegoat.
A number of the conspiracy theorists tracing the origins of “cultural Marxism” assign outsize significance to the Frankfurt School, an interwar German — and mostly Jewish — intellectual collective of left-wing social theorists and philosophers. Many members of the Frankfurt School fled Nazism and came to the United States, which is where they supposedly uploaded the virus of cultural Marxism to America. These zany stories of the Frankfurt School’s role in fomenting political correctness would be entertaining, except that they echo the baseless allegations of tiny cabals ruling the world that fed the right’s paranoid imagination in prior eras.
Yet, on my shelf, sits that book we looked at earlier, a book older than I written by an established figure on the left, Trent Schroyer’s Critique of Domination and in that book, as we have seen, he uses the term cultural marxim to refer to a neo-marxist strategy wherein the struggle between classes is replaced by the struggle between identity groups. We have seen that other left wing works wrote of cultural marxism as a real branch of marxism. There is no doubt that cultural marxism is not a right wing invention. Yet the New York Times wrote,
“cultural Marxism” is a crude slander, referring to something that does not exist
It is easy for the average person to do a quick search and see that the New York Times is wrong. Is this sincere incompetence or cynical deception?
Guardian
In 2023, the Guardian, a UK source, characterized cultural marxism as a far right conspiracy theory and furthermore wrote20
What is cultural Marxism? The term, which emerged in the 1990s in the US with clear antisemitic origins, imagines that an anti-western ideology was concocted by Jewish intellectuals after the second world war. The conspiracy taps into confected panics about political correctness and wokeness that first started in the US. Only in more recent years has it captured the minds of Conservatives in Britain as well.
Conversation
In 2020, Conversation, an Australian source wrote21 about cultural marxism that
It seems first to have been used by writer Michael Minnicino in his 1992 essay The New Dark Age, published by the Schiller Institute, a group associated with the fringe right wing figure Lyndon LaRouche.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia currently states
The term "Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which misrepresents the Frankfurt School as being responsible for modern progressive movements, identity politics, and political correctness.
OK, but that’s Wikipedia. Almost anyone can put almost anything on Wikipedia.
Let’s Be Adults & Stop Bullshitting Ourselves & Eachother About Cultural Marxism
By now it is clear that, for the most part, the term cultural marxism is used in two different ways.
Firstly, the term cultural marxism has long been used by cultural marxists and critics of them to indicate the strategy of substituting struggle between classes with struggle between identity groups.
Below we can see an example of a struggle between those who identify as muslim and those who identify as being progressive.
https://twitter.com/FordFischer/status/1666193308912164864
Secondly, the term cultural marxism has been used by anti-semites and critics of them to refer to a hypothetical plot by a hypothetical cabal of zionist jews to ruin capitalist civilization. This second sense of the term has been widely used to obfuscate as we have seen with the New York Times, the Guardian, the SPLC and others.
Of course, both senses of the term are used in attempt to describe the same thing. The first sense is accurate and the second sense is not. The second sense replaces neo-marxists with zionist jews but fail to justify this with valid evidence.
Conclusion
Despite lies and propaganda from both sides…
Cultural Marxism does indeed exist.
It is indeed a strategy to replace capitalist civilization.
It is not a Jewish conspiracy.
UPDATE:
We recommend the following video:
“The Basics of Cultural Marxism” by New Discourses for Youtube (October 29, 2024)
Examples of Contemporary Use of the Term Cultural Marxism
On June 3, 2023, from the Hill comes,
The Hill writes,
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) defined “woke” as a “form of Cultural Marxism” when asked to define the word in response to former President Trump’s remark that he does not like to define the word because “half the people can’t even define it.”
When asked by NBC correspondent Dasha Burns to define the term during his campaign stop in Iowa on Saturday, DeSantis responded that it is “basically a war on the truth.”
“Look, we know what woke is, it’s a form of cultural Marxism,” DeSantis said. “It’s about putting merit and achievement behind identity politics, and it’s basically a war on the truth. And as that has infected institutions, and it has corrupted institutions. So, you’ve got to be willing to fight the woke, we’ve done that in Florida, and we proudly consider ourselves the state where woke goes to die.”
One reply to the above was. . .
#culturalmarxism is a form of neo-Marxim in which class struggle is replaced by struggle among identity groups with their own interests. See 'Critique of Domination: The Origins and Development of Critical Theory' by Schroyer (1973). culturewarencyclopedia.substack.com/p/culture-marxism
An other was,
Cultural Marxism is a term used by the left for many decades to describe the “new interpretations” of Marxism by “the cultural Marxists (Lukacs, Marcuse, Habermas, et al.) as per neo-Marxist therist Trent Schroyer (1973). culturewarencyclopedia.substack.com/p/culture-marxism
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters also expounded upon this in “Cultural Marxism:” Anti Semitic Conspiracy?.
Also see:
left-wingers/right-wingers against liberty
Race Consciousness & Racial Separatism in Critical Race Theory
SOURCES
Schroyer, Trent. Critique of Domination: The Origins and Development of Critical Theory (copywrite Trent Schroyer, 1973, published by George Braziller, New York)
'Cultural Marxism' Catching On by by the Southern Poverty Law Center (August 15, 2003)
The Alt-Right’s Favorite Meme Is 100 Years Old by the New York Times (November 13, 2018)
Just Because Anti-Semites Talk About ‘Cultural Marxism’ Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Real by Tablet (November 29, 2018)
Cultural Marxism: Origins, Development and Significance by K. R. Bolton, Academic Member Athens Institute for Education & Research for the Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies (Volume 43, Number 3 & 4, Fall & Winter 2018)
Jordan Peterson's Idea of Cultural Marxism Is Totally Intellectually Empty by the Stranger (May 25, 2019)
Is ‘cultural Marxism’ really taking over universities? I crunched some numbers to find out by the Conversation (September 7, 2020)
Conservative MP embroiled in controversy over use of “cultural Marxism” phrase by Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (May 15, 2023)
Is the term 'Cultural Marxism' really antisemitic? by the Jewish Chronicle (May 17, 2023)
The Tories have form with far right conspiracy theories. This time it’s ‘cultural Marxism’ by the Guardian (May 22, 2023)
Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory - Wikipedia (archived June 6, 2023)
cultural Marxism - Oxford English Dictionary (archived June 7, 2023)
Thanks,
Justin Trouble
Laughter my Shield, Knowledge my Steed
Wit I may Wield, but Question my Rede
Liberty my Right, Truth my Sword
Love my Life, Honor my Reward
This is part of the Culture War Encyclopedia.
Critique of Domination: The Origins and Development of Critical Theory by Trent Schroyer (1973), page 238.
Trent Schroyer in Critique of Domination: The Origins and Development of Critical Theory (copyright Trent Schroyer, 1973, published by George Braziller, New York), especially chapter 6: Cultural-Marxism: The Contradictions of Industrial “Rationality” (pages 199-223). Also, pages 225-228 and page 238.
Examples include…
'Cultural Marxism' Catching On by by the Southern Poverty Law Center (August 15, 2003)
The Alt-Right’s Favorite Meme Is 100 Years Old by the New York Times (November 13, 2018)
Is ‘cultural Marxism’ really taking over universities? I crunched some numbers to find out by the Conversation (September 7, 2020)
How ‘cultural Marxism’ and ‘critical race theory’ became dangerously misunderstood by the Philadelphia Inquirer (June 4, 2022)
Conservative MP embroiled in controversy over use of “cultural Marxism” phrase by Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (May 15, 2023)
Is the term 'Cultural Marxism' really antisemitic? by the Jewish Chronicle (May 17, 2023)
The Tories have form with far right conspiracy theories. This time it’s ‘cultural Marxism’ by the Guardian (May 22, 2023)
Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory - Wikipedia (archived June 6, 2023)
The linguistic pun suggested by the use of the term ‘cabal’ here is not intended. I rather like the Kabbalah myself.
Wokeness is Wrong - A Trend Debunked by Tarl Warwick (2023)
cultural Marxism - Oxford English Dictionary (archived June 7, 2023)
cultural Marxism - Oxford English Dictionary (archived June 7, 2023)
page 225
page 299
page 225
page 238
pages 225-226
pages 227-228
page 199
pages 199-200
The author’s footnote here reads,
See Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination (Little Brown, 1973, for an excellent intellectual history of this school. Also see D. Howard & K. Klare (eds.), The Hidden Dimension (New York: Basic Books, 1972), for studies in European Marxism after Lenin.
'Cultural Marxism' Catching On by by the Southern Poverty Law Center (August 15, 2003)
Examples include,
Southern Poverty Law Center fires co-founder, declines to say what he’s alleged to have done by the Washington Post (March 14, 2019)
Southern Poverty Law Center President Plans Exit Amid Turmoil by the New York Times (March 22, 2019)
Famed SPLC accused of racism and sexism by some staffers by CNN (March 28, 2019)
Famous civil rights group suffers from 'systemic culture of racism and sexism,' staffers say by CNN (March 29, 2019)
The Reckoning of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center by the New Yorker (March 31, 2019)
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate-based scam that nearly caused me to be murdered by USA Today (August 17, 2019)
The Alt-Right’s Favorite Meme Is 100 Years Old by the New York Times (November 13, 2018)
The Tories have form with far right conspiracy theories. This time it’s ‘cultural Marxism’ by the Guardian (May 22, 2023)
Is ‘cultural Marxism’ really taking over universities? I crunched some numbers to find out by Conversation (September 7, 2020)