(Read below why Conservatives are not only naive, they're SHTUPID - and mostly LAZY! Take it from a FORMER Conservative. - CL)
This is the most cogent, best-researched lecture I have heard that provides the background to today's "woke culture." It is not Marxist. It is intensely anti-Marxist. It is committed to a total revolution against today's civilization -- not in the name of scientific Marxism, but rather in terms of literally dozens of supposedly oppressed groups. It is overwhelmingly anti-white. It is racist to the core.
Remnant Review
James Lindsay has a Ph.D. in mathematics. He is also an expert on the movement that is often referred to as cultural Marxism. He recognizes what I have been writing about for two decades: there is no such thing as cultural Marxism. Cultural Marxism is anti-Marxist to the core. I have written about this here:
https://www.garynorth.com/public/21093.cfm
Lindsay correctly identifies the self-proclaimed Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci as a theorist who rejected the core premises of Marxism: (1) the mode of production establishes culture; (2) the capitalist mode of production will inevitably produce a revolution by the proletarian masses (exploited workers). By 1920, it was clear to Gramsci that this revolution did not happen as Marx predicted. It was not going to happen. The proletarian masses in the West wanted higher pay and better working conditions, not a Communist revolution. The only successful revolution in the name of Marx had been in the USSR in late 1917. Russia had skipped the capitalist mode of production. This was not what Marx had predicted.
Gramsci wrote a disjointed series of letters and articles from an Italian prison in the 1920's and 1930's on why Marx was wrong. Marx was wrong, he said, because culture is dominant in society, not the mode of production. Therefore, Communists must seek to destroy Western Christian culture as a prelude to the revolution.
The same theme was picked up by the anti-Marxist Frankfurt School of social analysis. They accepted Gramsci's view of revolution as at bottom cultural. This was anti-Marx. Marx was quite clear on historical causation. It did not originate from culture. It originated in the mode of production. He wrote this in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844: "Religion, family, state, law, morality, science, art, etc., are only particular modes of production, and fall under its general law." They are not independent phenomena.
In short, Gramsci and the Frankfurt school abandoned Marx's theory of social change. They sought to toss Marxism into the ashcan of history.
Nevertheless, they and their wokester followers have remained fully committed to one assertion by Marx, which he jotted down in 1845, before he and Engels had worked out the details of their theory of inevitable Communist revolution. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." (Thesis #11 in "Theses on Feurerbach.")
Lindsay discusses this historical and philosophical background. What he presents is not understood by naive conservatives who hear the word "Marxism," and who misunderstand what is going on and what we are facing. "It's the Commies all over again! I knew it! The Commies are coming! The Commies are coming!" While some of the wokesters are no doubt communists, they are not Marxists. Most of them are intellectual lightweights who have read bits and pieces of Frankfurt school propaganda. They have never read Marx's major writings. I have. I wrote a book on this in 1968: Marx's Religion of Revolution. Download it here. The Marxists are not coming. They did not survive the suicide of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991. They are gone. Lose no sleep over their return.
This is the most cogent, best-researched lecture I have heard that provides the background to today's "woke culture." It is not Marxist. It is intensely anti-Marxist. It is committed to a total revolution against today's civilization -- not in the name of scientific Marxism, but rather in terms of literally dozens of supposedly oppressed groups. It is overwhelmingly anti-white. It is racist to the core.
They do not come in the name of science, as Marx did. He proclaimed his system as scientific socialism and therefore the only true socialism. In contrast, the wokesters are anti-scientific. To understand this, watch this lecture. Pay attention to his arguments. He has done his homework. Those well-meaning anti-Communists who keep warning about cultural Marxism have not done their homework. Cultural Marxism is anti-Marx.
These revolutionaries are not going away. Every institutional surrender will produce more demands.
IGNORANT, LAZY, AND PROUD OF IT
At 1:20, he tells a story. He gave a speech. A lady in the audience raised her hand. She said: "I don't want to be smarter. I don't want to read another book. I don't want to understand. I just want to be able to tell these people they're wrong because I know I'm right."
She represents the typical member of the American conservative movement ever since 1948. The vast majority of conservatives -- I would guess 80% -- are just like this woman. They are intellectually lazy. They have no respect for ideas. They have no intention of sacrificing either time or money to become better informed. They just want to feel superior. They spend their spare time ranting to other ill-informed people on the multibillionaire wokesters' social media platforms. In the great conflicts of life, they are bystanders. They do not have the strength of character to be winners. They think ranting is a substitute for thinking. They expect victory to be handed to them on a silver platter.
In contrast, the wokesters work hard to win. Their #1 tactic is guilt manipulation. This is not Marxism. Marxists did not give a rip about feelings of guilt in the hearts of capitalists. They just wanted to destroy them by a revolution. Their preferred tactic in dealing with capitalists was a combination of confiscation of their property by the state, plus 20 years of hard labor in Siberia. Psychological conditioning was not part of the Marxist toolkit of revolution.
To immunize yourself against wokesters, you must feel guilt-free in reducing their influence to zero. You must in no way feel guilty about your success and the free market's success in reducing world poverty.
Leaders in every institution must fight them. To win this fight, they must understand the worldview and motivation of these people: the destruction of Western civilization.
Fortunately, wokesters have no theory of knowledge that can be defended intellectually. They have no systematic theory of the stages of social revolution, unlike Marxists. When pushed intellectually, they are incapable of defending their position.
You must understand their position in order to push back, beginning with self-confidence in your intellectual position and your work. This lecture will help you understand their position.
You had better be willing to follow his arguments. If you aren't, you're going to get played. So is your employer.
Now you know their agenda. Here is their cutting-edge curriculum for California's public schools, K-12. They will train the students to hate whites and Christianity. The details are here.
My guess is that the parents will rebel. The educrats will fail to get this curriculum adopted. But they are trying hard.
Every institution will face comparable pressures.
The key here is the will to resist.
Note: if the state of California does implement this curriculum, some parents will resist by pulling their children out of the public schools. That will be good news for the Ron Paul Curriculum.