“Cultural Marxism” – the alleged conspiracy of alleged secret Marxists allegedly trying to destroy Western Civilization through Political Correctness and feminism and racial equality – is a favorite boogeyman of the far right.
That includes, of course, large sections of the “Red Pill” world. Roosh V’s Return of Kings site publishes reactionary diatribes with titles like Cultural Marxism Produces Matriarchy and Tactics For The War Against Cultural Marxism In 2015; Heartiste rails against the alleged evils of “cultural Marxism, feminism, equalism, and … racial self-annihilationism.”
Though Cultural Marxism does not, you know, exist, the far-right obsession with it has made inroads amongst Men’s Rights Activists and #GamerGaters as well.
The Spearhead wrote about “the Menace of Cultural Marxism” as far back as 2009; more recently, British MRA Angry Harry has blamed it for what he sees as a cultural assault on “white heterosexual men.” A Voice for Men’s “Resident Historian” Robert St. Estephe, meanwhile, warns that “Cultural Marxism (“Feminism”) is About Destruction,” and that its insidious strategy “absolutely requires the destruction of the family and the emergence of authoritarian indoctrination of children.” And the MRA-adjacent right-wing videoblogger Bernard Chapin can’t shut up about it.
Among #GamerGaters the Cultural Marxist conspiracy theory is if anything even more prevalent. The bumbling would-be documentarian duo behind The Sarkeesian Effect are making Anita S’s alleged Cultural Marxism a big part of their story. (It’s a longtime obsession of the Anton LaVey-looking Davis Aurini; his shaggy collaborator Jordan Owen is still reading up on it.)
And on Twitter, #GamerGate footsoldiers warn anyone who will listen about the (cultural) red menace.
https://twitter.com/GibberAUS/status/559114680204275713
https://twitter.com/RearAdmiralGate/status/557926692636086272
@RearAdmiralGate Cult Marxists are driving policy & helping to write legislation,enshiring Cultural Marxism into law #GamerGate
— EscapeVelocity (@EscapeVelo) January 20, 2015
@crecenteb All of them. I don't care to play video games or read reviews that seek to indoctrinate me using Cultural Marxism.
— GamerGate TRUTH (@GamerGate_TRUTH) January 20, 2015
I should probably mention that the Cultural Marxist conspiracy theory is virulently anti-Semitic, with side orders of misogyny, white supremacy, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia and assorted other more specialized bigotries. For many of those on the far right, including numerous Manospherians, these are features, not bugs; they’re always happy for more excuses to rail against the Jews.
But not all #GamerGaters and Men’s Rights Activists are literally Nazis; indeed, many of them, including some who have embraced the Cultural Marxist conspiracy theory, like to think of themselves as liberals or even leftists. Some even profess great love for people of color, gay and trans folk, and many of the other groups that the far right loves to vilify – #NotYourShield and all.
If you know one of these people, you might want to point them in the direction of Bill Berkowitz’ still-relevant 2003 history of the CM conspiracy theory in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report, making clear how thoroughly anti-Semitic it’s been from the start.
But there’s an even easier way to reveal just how horrible most of those obsessed with the alleged dangers of cultural commies destroying the world really are: do a Google image search for “cultural marxism.”
Your results will be filled with some of the most vile propaganda this side of posters actually put out by the Nazis during their time in power. You will also see posters actually put out by the Nazis during their time in power, posted online by people who think that the Nazis had some pretty good ideas, if you think about it.
But don’t take my word for it. Here are some of the pics that came up in my results. I didn’t have to sift through pages of results to find examples this bad; these images are actually rather typical, and I’ve left out some of the worst. (You may recognize the “Happy Merchant,” #GamerGate’s favorite anti-Semitic caricature, in several of the pics below.)
#GamerGaters and MRAs: when you embrace the CM conspiracy theory, you’re getting into bed with the people who made these pictures.
[CONTENT WARNING: Every kind of bigotry you can think of.]
Well, you see, while we’re all getting gay-married and having goatsecs (because that’s what we’ve been told to do) the Jews will be making off with ALL THE MONEY behind the scenes. Remain vigilant!
“You look like a Marxist
Walk like a Marxist
Talk like a Marxist
But I got wise…”
(By the way, just in case the name didn’t already give it away and anyone misinterprets Steve Greenberg’s involvement in that first one, here’s the original: http://greenberg-art.com/.Toons/.Toons,%20social/GayMarriage.html He’s a political cartoonist for liberal and Jewish publications.)
@WithAZ
It’s more exact to say that the jewish communities in Europe were the piggy banks of the Middle Age and Early Modern period – kings and lesser nobles smashed them whenever they were pressed for cash they could not procure otherwise. Credit itself wasn’t much of an issue, as many kings had the right to seize old and issue new coinage, which could then so be devaluated at their leisure. Economic theory held it, that money was something kings produce and validate via their charisma/their magical powers first and foremost after all.
The lower end of the social strata generally procured credits via pawnbrokers, a business Jews did enter in some numbers when they were allowed to and were driven from regularily as part of the piggy-bank stratageme.
The so-called Hofjuden are interesting insofar as they apparently replaced the older systems of procuring technology and international contacts via your feudal liege. Their main business was apparently acquiring exotic goods and specialized technological knowledge, mainly concerning the production of gunpowder and weaponry. The connection between the production of gunpowder and Court Jews became so stereotypical that Christians even all of a sudden discovered jewish black powder weapons in the Old Testament.
Of course, come the 18th century, Jews were all of a sudden considered too dumb for the manly sciences again. One reason given was that they supposedly had menses.
“If anything is certain, it is that I, myself, am not a Marxist.”
-Karl Marx
Taking everything Marx ever said as gospel is ludicrous. I happen to think that nobody ever did a better job of explaining capitalism and exploitation, but Marx also wrote some puzzling, even nonsensical things. That said, the best of his analysis is remarkably useful to this day.
The hysteria that conservatives are able to whip up just by invoking his name is amazing to me. At the end of the day, he’s just a philosopher. I mean, it’s not like those of us on the left side of the spectrum go on and on about “cultural Burkeism” or something equally ludicrous.
I have never been bothered by being called a cultural Marxist, as it is always from people who talk out of their arse. I am certainly left leaning, and am not hostile to cultural Marxism. I am also not bothered when the same sort of people call me cat lady, or bitter lonely old spinster, or feminazi – sticks and stones mate, some of those terms aren’t even insulting!
I saw Angry Harry mentioned in the middle of all that. You will not find it now, but a few years ago Angry Harry’s blog was ( it can only be described as) preoccupied with posts and discussions about sex with under age girls. There was even a vote on what age appealed to them the most, and sadly Angry harry’s reader were as likely to be attracted to a girl under 13 as a woman over 28. So it is kind of ironic that PIE (paedophile information exchange) is mentioned under ‘cultural Marxism’. I guess it is only paedophilia when the paedophiles are attracted to boys.
Does le happy merchant count as racist if you’re using it ironically? Sometimes I like to pretend to really hate elves,(As in, the fictional people with pointy ears who live in forests) so I’ve got some repurposed nazi crap on my harddrive.
I imagine the meme wouldn’t make too much sense without its original background in anti-semitism.
It’s so steeped in anti-semitism, I wouldn’t make any reference to it, myself, but that’s just me.
@sheehank:
Hipster racism is still racism. I’ll bet you can find better ways of imagi-hating elves than borrowing from Nazi propaganda.
@AltoFronto
It’s worth mentioning that I’m Australian, but I have had similar issues with student Marxist groups to what you describe. The ones who were more intelligent and honest admitted they didn’t have good answers, that a revolution with sufficient audacity to not be violent would require conditions of incredible immiseration that they could not advocate for (unlike some absolute scum who oppose any welfare because it might prevent the “working class” from being sufficiently miserable to revolt).
As far as the economics goes I meant they are stuck up their own butts like the Chicago/Microfoundations people because their economists are obsessed with solving problems created by their own conceptual frameworks (the problem of “objective value” in Marxism or “Irrationality” in Microfoundations).
Like class perspective is useful for criticism in economics, but it’s a more difficult framework to make it stand on it’s own and align with reality.
Also, I just noted but the one pyramid image misspelled the word rich as “ritch”.
“divide and concur”
Meaning you separate both sides and then pretend that you agree with both of them behind the other’s back?
I love these kinds of screw-ups :))
Don’t forget that it was also easy for nobles dissatisfied with their king to attack him by proxy by going after “his” Jews. Also, don’t forget that Jews were very useful as bureaucrats because pretty much Jewish boys were so thoroughly educated in their scriptures and religion. Christian families typically thoroughly educated only one son, which meant that there were many more Jews who could occupy bureaucratic positions. (Incidentally, a bureaucracy that was totally loyal to the king could help reduce the power of the nobility, giving them yet another reason to incite violence against the Jews.) Therefore, Christian literati had a vested interest in using Jewish “otherness” to eliminate their academic and bureaucratic competition.
*presses de-lurk button*
Yeh, right? But no one says anything unless you look “mixed”, in other words, not like anything that easily fits into a box and/or what that person is expecting. Speaking as someone who is of European decent, but doesn’t look it(1/4 English, 1/4 German, 1/2 no idea but has moderate built-in sunscreen 😉 ), I refuse to let any idiot label me. I’ve been assumed to be Hispanic, Black, Pakistani, Indian(both types), every sodding thing except Asian. If I was to choose an ethnicity it would be Nerd. On forms I always check “other” if I can.
Oddly, the more tolerant culture has progressed, the ignorance of the casual observer has increased. When I was younger, non racist adults might ask, “May I ask what your ancestry is?” This never sounded insulting or threatening, and it’s understandable why they were curious. [ I wasn’t exposed to non-paleface communities until I was 12.] Now 50/50 a clueless hipster at a faire thick with fellow SJWs might blurt, “Are you Mulatto?”
Things don’t go well after that.
Short version: technically who my ancestors are are none of anyone’s business. Only polite, respectful questions are ever entertained, and then only after a minimum of civil socializing.
To see these people carry on about “race” mixing is deranged and delusional. Some else said it:
These people have nothing else going for them expect their privilege to get skin cancer faster than everyone else. Also implicit is they have no problem dumping this garbage on children: whether it’s children socializing with un-color-coordinated playmates, or children who don’t obviously resemble their parents. If both ‘rents are blondes, and their kid is brunette or ginger, are they going to bleach the kids hair?
This shite is far reaching. I once had a job at a hippy grocery where my manager of all people asserted, “Well, I think everyone is a little racist.”
Now considering the above–being of European decent, ie, 99% of my friends and associates are “white”— I thought, “So you’re saying no one will ever really see me as a human being unless I color-coordinate my social life?”
My next thought was, “Fuck you”.
Mind, she was not a bad person. I would not call her “racist”. Just blitheringly ignorant about what she was saying.
My hats off to Mr. Futrelle. I’ve been lurking mainly to understand the whole Gamergate fiasco. You’re writing has helped unravel much of the madness.
Carry on with the good work, sir.
I doubt that av medieval monarch would have much use for somebody trained in jewish scripture and law who’s writing all of his notes in Hebrew when all the international correspondence is meant to be held in Latin and at least a third of the laws are germanic. I think Jews only ever made some headway into bureaucracy after some of the barriers concerning them entering universities were lowered – before that, you’d usually get the lower clergy to do the writing.
Early modern bureaucracy also was kind of wierd, in the sense that they weren’t totally dependant on the king. In fact, the king basically only invested them with the right to fulfill a certain function and maybe a minimal stipendium, which would barely cover the necessities. Everything else they required to make a living they were supposed to get from the people requiring their services. That applied to all bureaucractic functions, down to the door guard that would bar people from entering if they weren’t renumerated by them with a few coins. Town bureaucracies were financed along those lines as well.
This habit is the reason why commoners sometimes appear in images of royal french gardens – they paid the guards, the guards let them in.
Kakanian,
They were not merely trained in Hebrew and in Jewish law. They lived in a Christian society, had to work with the Christian courts (which they typically did very well in, as medieval legal scholars have shown), and were very familiar with Christian religious practices as well (as records of debates between Christians and Jews over the which religion was superior shows). The common assumption used to be that the medieval Jews of Ashkenaz were very insular and self-segregating, but more recent scholarship (i.e. within the last twenty years), starting with Ivan Marcus, has challenged and virtually smashed that assumption.
As for the usefulness of Jewish education…it did not merely make them familiar with their own language and with their own scriptures. It also developed their skills at memorization, analysis, and understanding of how law works.
As for your doubts that Jews would have held bureaucratic positions…R.I. Moore’s book Formation of a Persecuting Society goes into the Jewish role in Christian governments and in the Christian literati’s interest in persecuting Jews in pretty great depth.
“#GamerGaters and MRAs: when you embrace the CM conspiracy theory, you’re getting into bed with the people who made these pictures.”
No really, aggrieved entitlement opens the doors to fascist thinking? Tell me it ain’t so!
Reblogged this on Zarathustra the Serpent and commented:
“#GamerGaters and MRAs: when you embrace the CM conspiracy theory, you’re getting into bed with the people who made these pictures.”
No really, aggrieved entitlement opens the doors to fascist thinking? Tell me it ain’t so!
A general point missed by the modern reader is that in the middle-ages( post Roman Empire to just before Renaissance) the average person in European countries was illiterate. Degree varied by region, but, contrary to that one scene in the musical Camelot, it’s very unlikely any peasant doing field work could read a king’s proclamation.
So imagine this group of “funny people”, with funny ways, on top of all that, wrote things down in books and these books, which were not Christian scripts guarded by monks, cuz that’s different, had some sort of influence over the lord/baron/king/ only guy not covered with shit.
It’s hard for modern people to see how strange and mysterious that looks. Now add a history of Christ-killer propaganda. It looks down right demonic. Frankly its surprising that Jews didn’t suffer more persecution than they did.
“Hey, it’s GamerGate’s imaginary girlfriend!”
Oddly my reaction was, “Hey, she’s not scowling for once!”
Sweet god will you ever use grammar?
…I find bigotry nazi-ating…
* flings bad pun and ducks *
I LOVE puns and Nazi lols!
I’m so happy right now.