“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.]
Leum, one thing you left off there was that nationalism was primarily a successor to regionalism. It wasn’t one giant hugbox, but lots of little communities that didn’t much care for each other.
That attitude couldn’t stand in an era of rail and, car, and canal, and capitalism and trade and moving to get a job.
Nationalism started creating national identities, because local identities didn’t work anymore. And those national identities didn’t much care for those who fell outside the norm.
maistrechat, i love this random word grouping from that chart:
“computers, internet, satellites, moon, global hegemony”
Yes, those are all… nouns
How can you believe that both Lenin and Trotsky are perfect and impervious to criticism?
I believe it’s why my teachers called the Trinitarian mystery.
katz: I’m assuming it’s the same sort of thinking that lets some Christians insist that the Bible is inerrant and internally consistent. Given any two lines that seem to contradict one another, you ‘properly interpret’ one or both (coincidentally, of course, in the manner that perfectly matches your own belief system).
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe!
Dammit, katz, now I wanna filk the rest of the song but can’t think of anything that rhymes with Marxist.
Oh great, now instead of working I’m going to spend the day rewriting We Didn’t Start the Fire with communist history
Hey! I resemble that remark.
An older issue, but one that probably didn’t help: in the Middle Ages, moneylending at interest (“usury”) was considered a sin (these days usury usually means *excessive* interest rates). However, moneylending is still a useful thing,,, and Jewish folks didn’t consider moneylending with interest to Gentiles a sin. Being prohibited from many other trades also made moneylending one of the most viable careers for Jewish people.
This lead to the banking business being strongly associated with Jews, which created all sorts of fun conspiracy theories in itself– and, let’s face it, if you’re in financial straits, you won’t be inclined to think well of the lender who’s asking for his money back already…
Every one forgets is a minority 13 million globaly, Druze and Yazardies even smaller. But who gives a stuff about the numbers…. They are (da-da,da-da) everywhere… Looks over shoulder, god there’s one right now. Oh its me in a mirror
“Political correctness is something you learn not something your [sic] born with”
Yes, and so is grammatical correctness, good spelling and proper punctuation.
I’m also quite baffled/disgusted at the disproportionate hatred towards such small and usually absent minority (not that any hatred is ‘proportionate’)
And jews being usually very poor weren’t even lending their own money but others’. So ironically the real usurer was often the church, and jews just doing the dirty work got all the bad press.
I’ve noticed the far-right 13% of voters over here in Sweden have bought into this meme as well, translated as kulturmarxism. I see it mentioned in the comment section of every online news article these days. Racists really are just the same all over the globe, aren’t they?
Sarah: While trying to verify my assertions, I found out about an interesting historical thing, the “Court Jew”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_Jew
“Divide and concur” made me laugh out loud.
@Nequam and Leum:that actually really clears things up. It’s still horrifying, but clear!
@kirbywarp
The mistake you’re making is in thinking that the children have anything to do with it. The proposed level of horribleness has nothing to do with whom it harms; it’s about how gross they think the act is, and thus how deviant the perpetrator. Hence, puppies and corpses are more disgusting than children, which are a little bit worse than *gasp* homosexuality,and I suspect they’d honestly be hard put to decide whether a child molester abusing a victim of the opposite sex was worse than a consensual relationship between two adults of the same gender. And since “pedophile” tends to mean “Oh God don’t let teh gayz into the Scouts” they probably haven’t ever considered the question.
But don’t tell them about child marriage being most prevalent in the most misogynistic societies, including, historically, Western ones.
And what’s with the “oppressor class” at the BOTTOM of that ugly pyramid?
These people not only cannot read or write, they also cannot chart.
The Tsars used Jewish folk as tax collectors in Ukraine and their other possessions, apparently.
And, from the Wikipedia entry above:
This is Jack’s complete lack of surprise.
It’s supposed to be ironic. The people whom the evil Jews accuse of being oppressors are actually the most oppressed. cf reverse racism, heterophobia, cisphobia, misandry
@dhag85
Yeah, in the Netherlands the Freedom Party shits stuff like this out on the regular; they also like to call any expression of culture an “elitist hobby”. Seriously, fuck those guys.
@Nequam
Medieval kings were often very reliant upon the Jewish communities in their kingdoms to lend them money. It doesn’t surprise me that they would appoint at least one Jew to their courts. Let’s also not forget that if said kings were unable to repay their debts, they often found it simpler to resort to mass deportations, inquisitions and incitement of antisemitic riots instead of honoring their lawfully binding obligations.
They also can’t irony, I see.
Cultural Marxism was what Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik referenced continuously in his manifesto as being the chief evil in the world. Judging from the images, it’s also a favorite target for BUGSers. That is, the “white genocide”-obsessed members of the white supremacist forum “Bob’s Underground Graduate Seminar.” They post something called “the Mantra” everywhere they can online and even on billboards. You know, “Asia for the Asians, Africa for the Africans, White countries for…everyone?” That clueless pro-segregation B.S.
Oh and my favorite picture in that Google search didn’t even make the cut:
:large