I have read through summaries online, but I cannot for the life of me understand what any of it has to do with Marx as I know him. Nothing even mentions the words class struggle or economics or capital. Can someone who knows more than me give me a ELI8 explanation?
Cultural Marxism is a nazi conspiracy theory. Cultural Bolshevism 2.0.
Western Marxist is mainly leveled at people who refuse to support movements outside of the imperial core because of “reasons”. Though it can also be used to excuse bigotry, by saying ideas like LGBT rights are a capitalist construct or bourgeois decadence.
I would go so far as to say that the most mainstream version of it tries to explicitly avoid reveling in antisemitism, a relatively old world fixation that doesn’t have universal traction with contemporary western fascists, and instead subs in gender identity and sexuality among other groups. There is little difference outside of this substitution.
Not that Cultural bolshevism wasn’t also incredibly homophobic and transphobic and Romaphobic (if there’s a better word for that, I’d love to know it), but the antisemitism was a large focal point for it.
(if there’s a better word for that, I’d love to know it)
I think the term is antiziganism?
Western Marxist is mainly leveled at people who refuse to support movements outside of the imperial core because of “reasons”. Though it can also be used to excuse bigotry, by saying ideas like LGBT rights are a capitalist construct or bourgeois decadence.
like tankie, class reductionist, etc. it’s been completely defanged by over/misuse and basically means nothing anymore
Cultural Marxism is the incorrect fashy conspiracy theory that from the 60’s onward, Marxist academics dropped class analysis and rather solely focused on “culture”*. This then boils down to “the reds in university are trying to bring down western civilisation”. It’s reminiscent of the Nazi idea of’cultural Bolshevism’.
‘Western Marxist’ is a pejorative against idealist, chauvinist Marxists from the west. They don’t support communists from the global south, despite not having ever seen a successful revolution themselves. It’s not about Marxists in the west in general (Marx was born in Trier after all)
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*this is why the phrase “post-modernist neo-marxists” makes sense to Peterson. In his mind, neo-marxists have nothing to do with materialism.
he still needed literal years to answer Zizek’s request to name some of the PostModern NeoMarxists he constantly blathers about. And then, that list exclusively consisted of people who were either postmodernists OR marxists. which is hardly surprising, as postmodernism and marxism are fundamentally incompatible
Apparently “The term “Cultural Marxism” refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Western Marxism is the basis of continuing academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western culture.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism
:shrug-outta-hecks:
Cultural Marxism was too dense for the pea brained reactionaries to comprehend so they shortened it to “woke”. It’s basically anything they don’t like.
Cultural Marxism, to supplement the other explanations, is rooted in the association between Jews and socialism that goes back at least to the Nazis. It’s a slightly more specific version of the “subversive Jews who control elite institutions to corrode white society” that reactionary hacks often fall back on.
