Cultural Nonsense

The best lies are covered by half truths, like the one about "Cultural Marxism". Hitler was the head of the National Socialist Party, so he must have been a socialist... Even if he explicitly renounced Marxism and communism in his infamous Mein Kampf, went on a privatization spree never before witnessed in Europe.

Before I continue, I'd like to make clear that I'm aware of the fact that comparisons to Nazi Germany are often met with objections, and often these objections are legit. But when very influential public figures, and even popular bloggers and vloggers, display such fundamental misunderstanding of history and ideological labels like communism, Marxism and socialism, and in extension Cultural Marxism, social justice and identity politics, something has to be said. This is in response to, among others, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Dave Cullen and a slew of others who aim their arrows at the "extreme left", accusing it of trying to destroy western civilization as we know it by promoting mass-immigration, social justice, and other means by which the traditional western cultural values are undermined.

Sometimes they label this Cultural Marxism as "post-modernism", something Jordan Peterson especially likes to do. The idea behind this popular new conspiracy theory is that the communists, after having lost the big war of world-ideologies against the capitalists, realized they had to reach their goals through other means than inciting the proletariat to stand up against the bourgeoisie. This new "red scare" was supposedly spearheaded by prominent socialists from the "Frankfurt school", and centered around the idea that the fight between the classes had to be re-branded. Thus they came up with the idea, supposedly, to substitute the fight for equality between working class and owner class, with the fight for equality between a slew of newly formed identity-groups. This is why we now have such blatant identity politics invading not only the political and economical spaces, but western culture as as a whole.

I started with mentioning Nazi Germany, "Nazi" being a contraction of the words "national" and "socialist", and how this period and place in time is wrongfully being used as as an example of what socialism or "leftist politics" results in. Nazi Germany was in fact an example of what happens when you fight against socialism and Marxism, as that is exactly what Hitler did. He despised Marxism, or Bolshevism as it was called back then. In Hitler's mind, the Bolshevist were mainly Jews, so his anti Marxist stance was inextricably tied to his irrational hatred of the Jewish people. This man, this anti Marxist, anti communist, anti Jew sociopath was a shining example of how easily identity politics can be used to marginalize parts of the population. Here's a fragment taken from a typical Hitler speech:

"Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

From Mein Kampf:

"The doctrine of Marxism repudiates the aristocratic principle of Nature and substitutes for it the eternal privilege of force and energy, numerical mass and its dead weight. Thus it denies the individual worth of the human personality, impugns the teaching that nationhood and race have a primary significance, and by doing this it takes away the very foundations of human existence and human civilization. If the Marxist teaching were to be accepted as the foundation of the life of the universe, it will lead to the disappearance of all order that is conceivable to the human mind. And thus the adoption of such a law would provoke chaos in the structure of the greatest organism that we know, with the result that the inhabitants of this earthly planet would finally disappear."

So when I hear Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and their many followers speak about the extreme identity politics, which are an observable phenomenon in modern politics and their paid for mainstream media, as an evil communist or socialist conspiracy to overthrow western culture, I can do nothing but grimace at their blatant distortions of historical facts. Peterson in particular is almost comical when he acts completely surprised by the fact that so much of his following is from the extreme alt-right, the neo-Nazis. Peterson and the others I mentioned all claim to be warriors for free speech, as well as aspire to convey some social and philosophical wisdom to their considerable audience, yet all they do is continue the fight against socialism in the way the biggest alt-right figure in modern history has done in the 1930s and 1940s.

It should come as no surprise to Jordan Peterson and his ideological peers to find a lot of alt-right individuals among their followers, even if they claim to not be alt-right themselves. I can believe that, because I much sooner like to think that their misrepresentation of Marxism, socialism or "leftist politics" stem from genuine misunderstanding, rather then from malicious intent. They are however treading on dangerous ground, as the extreme right reaction against the fantastical extreme left with their "Cultural Marxism", results in more polarization and even racism. In that regard their reaction to identity politics is as dangerous as the thing they try to combat.

Again, I'm not calling anyone a Nazi here or anything like that. But in their fight against "political correctness" they seem to forget that it is especially politically correct to blame all human mishaps on Marxism and socialism; in that regard they are extremely politically correct themselves, as they do nothing to upset the status quo, but instead support the plutocracy with their fight against an imaginary Marxist cabal behind the scenes. Especially when you further confuse and mystify the subject by throwing in terms like "post-modernism" and "nihilism" which are actually rooted in extreme individualism as promoted by the free market ideology you are defending against a non-existent Red Scare.

Hitler misinterpreted Marx, and our modern free speech warriors have copied this misinterpretation to use in their fight against an imagined extreme left, hidden within the political and economical apparatus of their nation. The fight between proletariat and bourgeoisie has never ended, my friends, it's alive and kicking in fact. Your real opponent still is, as it has always been, the contemporary bourgeoisie who have painted before your eyes the phantasm of a new "red scare".

The above is an edited and revised version of a post I published in 2018

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