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I don't see why I should assume this is true.
Well, why don't we argue over the facts of whether or not Cultural Marxism is a myth, and then you can tell me which one of those was correct.
Off the top of my head I can think of Richard R. Weiner, Douglas Kellner, and Emily Hicks, so plural. I remember there were more, but I'd have to start searching.
a) I think the term goes back to WWII or thereabouts, and there's been several books written about it.
b) "Myth" means it didn't happen, not that it was neiche.
The students of the core Frankfurt School thinkers were calling themselves cultural marxist, so this is flatly wrong, unless you want to say that people who studied directly under them don't get to call themselves "Frankfurt School".
Yes. It brought it to it's knees culturally not economically. This is why the "Cultural" part of "Cultural Marxism" is so important, and the deadness of economic leftism is irrelevant.
I don't get why Marxists get so defensive on this. I agree that OG economic Marxism is not responsible for any of this nonsense.
The term certainly appears starting from the 60s, though, it must be said, not incredibly prominently. I don't think this by itself proves very much, though. "Cultural Marxism" in the sense of 2010s-and-20s culture wars just doesn't seem like something that has much to do with a handful of 1960s academics.
Much like the term “Neoreaction”, “Cultural Marxism” is really several strands of Marxist and post Marxist thought that has been woven together to form what is now the dominant group of ideologies on the academic left since the new left moved from the streets to the classroom and beyond.
Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist, is the real jumping off point. Critical theory, third worldism, post colonial theory, orientalism, all these things flow from that particular bend in the road.
It’s a descriptor of a family tree of thought with a common ancestry. Without classical Marxism it certainly wouldn’t exist. It’s certainly a much more accurate and narrower description than “The Successor Ideology” or “Woke”.
I think the reluctance to be named, which has been expounded on both satirically and seriously by better writers than I, is ironically part of the fuel for the whole “conspiracy theory”. There’s no shortage of articles basically saying “Ok, you don’t like term X so what the fuck do we call this clearly aligned school of thought?”. “The ideology who shan’t be named?”
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I recall reading something by Walter Benjamin from just before the war, but back then it boiled down to "Marxists talking about culture".
Why not? What they were saying back then was eerily similar to what would define modern culture wars. I'm half-willing to make a bet that if you trace the influences of people like Ibrahim X. Kendi or Robin Di Angelo you'll run right into those 60's academics.
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