Cultural Marxism?

The term "cultural Marxism" is frequently used in discussions regarding culture, politics, ethics, and current affairs. As is often the case, no easily understood definition of the nomenclature is readily available. In our opinion, the following quote taken from REASON IN THE BALANCE, The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education by law professor--Phillip E. Johnson, does the excellent job of explaining the parallel between a failed economic theory and this increasingly popular paradigm for social relationships.

Other examples of modernist natural law involve the many versions of Marxism. What is common to all varieties of Marxist thought is the proposition that the fundamental moral fact about the human condition is that a class of victims is dominated by a class of oppressors. It follows that the cure for oppression is liberation, whether through violent revolution or by cultural transformation. In classical [economic-oriented] Marxism the oppressor class was the bourgeoisie or capitalists, while the revolutionary class was the proletariat or industrial wage-laborers. The specific cure was for the workers to seize control of the factories and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, to be followed by the utopia of communism.

Contemporary versions of this exciting drama flourish in universities, with a new cast of characters. Now the oppressor is the heterosexual white male; the new proletariat consists of racial minorities, women, gays and lesbians; and the struggle is for control of the terms of discourse*. Great victories are won, as when newspaper editorialists and judges accepted the term homophobia as a fair descriptive term for the state of mind that leads people to oppose gay-rights ordinances. Institutions once thought to be obviously healthy, such as motherhood and the family, become reinterpreted as means of oppression--just as the original Marxists reinterpreted employment as "wage slavery." (Page 145)

* The phrase "terms of discourse" means the rules for speech and discussion. It answers the questions of who, what, when, where, and how regarding expression of viewpoints.

Cultural Marxism?

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