Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- Eugène Sue's The Mysteries of Paris inspired Karl Marx's only text concerning literature. It was published as part of the polemical The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism (1845). Marx’s views of the book were not favourable - "it is to be noted incidentally that Eugène Sue motivates the career of the Countess just as stupidly as that of most of his characters". Marx's negative views of the Mysteries of Paris are a poignant example of cultural elitism, because in reality the publication of the Mysteries helped create a climate which allowed the 1848 revolution to occur. [May 2006]
Cultural Marxism is a form of Marxism that adds an analysis of the role of the media, art, theatre, film and other cultural institutions in a society, often with an added emphasis on race and gender in addition to class. The term "Cultural Bolshevism" or in German "Kulturbolschewismus" has been used in a similar meaning. As a form of political analysis, Cultural Marxism gained strength in the 1920s, and was the model used by a group of intellectuals in Germany known as the Frankfurt School; and later by another group of intellectuals at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham, England. The fields of Cultural Studies and Critical theory are rooted in (and remain influenced by) Cultural Marxism.
Conservatives, especially paleoconservatives, have long been critical of Cultural Marxism, claiming it was formulated as a way to subvert western civilization using methods other than direct political action. Further to the political right, William S. Lind, Patrick J. Buchanan and others state that Cultural Marxists seek to control society by manipulating language, the media, and academia by way of political correctness by employing the Frankfurt School's "Critical theory." Cultural Marxists scoff at these charges.[1] The term "Cultural Marxism" was also used by the left to describe a particular critique of culture (especially fascist culture). In this sense, "Cultural Marxism" does not refer to the culture itself, but to the criticism of that culture.
See also
Related: alienation - culture conflict theory - cultural Marxism - culture industry - cultural hegemony - British Cultural Studies - cultural Marxism - false consciousness - commodity fetishism - economic exploitation - Frankfurt School - Freudo-Marxism - Birmingham School of Cultural Studies - left - Marxist film theory - working class
Theodor Adorno - Louis Althusser - Mikhail Bakhtin - Walter Benjamin - Guy Debord - Terry Eagleton - Antonio Gramsci - Michael Hardt - Fredric Jameson - Karl Marx