Connor O'Keeffe on pro-Palestinian student protests and cultural Marxism

The strategic ineptitude of these students can seem almost astounding until you remember what they are being taught at these schools.  Universities like Columbia have gone all in on identity politics and social justice.  A more accurate name would be trait-based collectivized justice.  The dominant historical narrative that permeates almost every department and class curriculum considers the world to mostly have been in balance until white, western Europeans decided to get rich by stealing and expropriating resources from the rest of the world.  Putting aside how economically and historically delusional that is, by framing history as a series of injustices committed by an entire identity group on other identity groups in their entirety, adherents conclude that justice can only be attained on a collective, group level. 

And so, when students see the horrific images and videos coming out of Gaza of mostly brown, mostly Muslim people being blown up, crushed, and starved by white-looking descendants of European immigrants, it seems to fit neatly into their learned worldview.  So even though, in this case, it leads most of them to the correct general conclusion, it shouldn’t be a surprise that an imprecise, historically flawed narrative leads to imprecise, strategically flawed activism.

~ Connor O'Keeffe, "What Campus Protesters and Their Critics Get Right and Wrong," Mises Wire, May 1, 2024

CNN on China's rejection of "Western values"

Since taking office in late 2012, Xi has repeatedly warned against the "infiltration" of Western values such as democracy, press freedom and judicial independence. He has clamped down on foreign NGOs, churches, as well as Western textbooks — all seen as vehicles for undue foreign influence. 

That has fueled a growing strand of narrow-minded nationalism, which casts suspicion on any foreign ties and views feminism, the LGBTQ movement, and even environmentalism as stooges of Western influence designed to undermine China.

~ Nectar Gan, "Xi's China is closing to the world. And it isn't just about borders," CNN, November 14, 2021

Kevin Duffy on the willingness of the young to abandon time-tested institutions

Capitalism lifted man out of the Malthusian trap circa 1800 and created the hockey stick of human prosperity, yet many – especially the young – are ready to risk it all for a new form of economic organization based upon fuzzy concepts like “fairness” and “equality.”  (This is technically an old idea which has failed countless times, but we should never allow details to get in the way of progress!) 

While we’re at it, the family originated between 100,000 and two million years ago.  Time for a replacement, say the cultural Marxists.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Neomania Revisited," The Coffee Can Portfolio, April 26, 2021

Noah Pollak on systemic racism

"Systemic racism" is such a perfect Marxist formulation.  It delegitimizes an entire society without blaming anyone in particular, so it generates little opposition.  It signifies everything and nothing simultaneously.  It can't be proven or disproven.  It's genius propaganda.

~ Noah Pollak, tweet, April 21, 2021

(Pollak tweeted reacting to President Biden's comments following the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict in the George Floyd murder trial.)

Ed Bugos and the end days for American empire

Locally we have the Cultural Marxists pushing to erase the conservative cultures of the West and institute progressive programs similar to what Mao did in China for his 5 year plan, and internationally we have the globalists pushing for a new world order.  Both are effectively exploiting the end days for empire and the demise of the current financial/monetary system.

~ Ed Bugos, private note, December 10, 2020

Kevin Duffy on what Joe Biden's "build back better" slogan stands for

Destroy all institutions of Western civilization: the free market, family, religion, laying the groundwork for the inevitable upward march of human progress into a socialist utopia for people of color. Slavery for people of non-color. 

The irony of course is that rich white people are leading this movement.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, November 25, 2020

Paul Gottfried on the modern Left

After the collapse of Soviet Communism a more extreme left emerged, the consequences of which we are now enduring. Today’s left is far more radical than the one it replaced, and in its Western heartland it has become far more socially destructive than Marxism or communism. If Communists had to infiltrate Western governments during and after World War II, now the intersectional left virtually owns Western societies and governments. 

This now-triumphant left happily plays race, gender, and hate-the-West cards, depending on which is the most useful tool for it to wreak havoc or increase its own power, and these two goals often go together. The question then becomes how to stop this pervasive force from further corrupting our institutions, particularly when so little pushback is in evidence. One precondition may be to recognize the modern left’s uniqueness and to stop equating it with “socialism” or “communism.” This archaic labeling may understate the danger.

~ Paul Gottfried, "The Modern Left Is Not Marxist, It's Worse," Chronicles, November 2020

Tom DiLorenzo on Leftist indoctrination and the complacency of American parents

While American parents slept, university Leftists have turned millions of their children into uneducated, empty-headed, slogan-chanting useful idiots for the most despicable political tyrants and would-be dictators on the planet. Way to go, American parents.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "Your Marxist Revolutionary Sons and Daughters," LewRockwell.com, October 16, 2020

Tom DiLorenzo compares cultural Marxism to past Marxist revolutions

The whole history of Marxist revolutions is that the older civilization, which may have evolved over centuries, is in fact destroyed and then replaced with nothing but totalitarian thuggery, corruption, violence, and mass killing.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "Your Marxist Revolutionary Sons and Daughters," LewRockwell.com, October 16, 2020

Kevin Duffy on the 1960s roots of cultural Marxism

The current radical shift left has its roots in the social activism of the 1960s.  Marxism was intellectually dead after a series of failed experiments with nothing but poverty and stacks of dead bodies to show for it.  The Left needed a new marketing campaign.  Influenced by people like Antonio Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse, socialists gave up on violent overthrow of the existing order (which wouldn’t work in America anyway) to focus on changing the culture and pitting groups against each other (oppressors vs. victims).  This was to be a long, slow process, like boiling a frog.

~ Kevin Duffy, The Coffee Can Portfolio, August 11, 2020

Vasko Kohlmayer on the violent nature of the woke generation

Most woke snowflakes are not some gentle caring beings they pretend to be. This is only a mask. This kind of deception and pretense is pervasive among Leftists and has, in fact, been the Left’s modus operandi since the French Revolution. Underneath their posture of fragility, the snowflakes are ruthless hooligans who through various forms of activism and online thuggery have destroyed the reputations and lives of many good and innocent people. Cancel-happy, politically correct, intolerant in their attitudes and merciless when dealing with dissenters, today’s snowflakes are the scions of tyrants.

~ Vasko Kohlmayer, "Ideological Kin: The Progressive Left Hold The Same Values As Tyrants and Oppressors," LewRockwell.com, September 5, 2020

Paul Kengor on progressivism and the bigotry of Karl Marx

I recently wrote an article asking why our wondrous progressives in the cancel culture haven’t canceled Karl Marx.  He was a bigot, a racist, an anti-Semite, and a sexist.  Why does Marx get a pass?  Answer: because the left likes him.

~ Paul Kengor, "Atheist, racist, bigot, sexist: The truth about the demonic Karl Marx," Catholic World Report, September 2, 2020

Vasko Kohlmayer on admiration for non-western cultures

It is truly paradoxical that those who charge the West with being oppressive often in the same breath express admiration for non-western cultures, almost all of which grossly violate human rights of their people and often subject them to procedures that can only be rightfully described as barbaric. This glaring contradiction betrays the critics’ true motives and shows that their attack on the West – which is the only civilization willing and capable of producing free and non-oppressive societies – is completely disingenuous. Rather than seeking justice for all people, their criticism is motivated by ideological reasons that has little to do with the reality of the situation on the ground.

~ Vasko Kohlmayer, "The Truth About the West: The Only Non-Oppressive Civilization," LewRockwell.com, August 3, 2020

Daniel Ajamian on the recent events and the cultural Marxism strategy

What I hear of college, and it also is true in business and government, are stories of various cultural indoctrinations – made ever-more intense given the pretext for these recent riots. Politically correct speech to include even compelled speech, cancel culture, self-flagellation, a fight for the gold medal in the oppression olympics. If you disagree with any of this, you are a fascist. To further cement this indoctrination, a requirement to take classes that tear down Western Civilization – even saying those two words in anything other than a scornful tone could be costly.

There is a purpose behind this, a strategy. Events that we have been living through recently are not spontaneous or random. This is not accidental. These events are the result of a political strategy designed to strip us of our liberty. It is an insidious strategy. It is also very effective.

~ Daniel Ajamian, "The Greatest Political Strategist in History," talk delivered at 2020 Mises University, July 18, 2020

Daniel Ajamian on Antonio Gramsci and cultural Marxism

Gramsci is, perhaps, the foundational theorist for what we now call Cultural Marxism.

~ Daniel Ajamian, "The Greatest Political Strategist in History," talk delivered at the 2020 Mises University

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on how egalitarianism and cultural relativism threaten the family and private property

[A] community always faces the double and related threat of egalitarianism and cultural relativism.  Egalitarianism, in every shape and form, is incompatible with the idea of private property.  Private property implies exclusivity, inequality, and difference.  And cultural relativism is incompatible with the fundamental - indeed foundational - fact of families and intergenerational kinship relations.  Families and kinship relations imply cultural absolutism.  As a matter of socio-phychological fact, both egalitarian and relativistic sentiments find steady support among newer generations of adolescents... Adolescence is marked by regular (and for this stage normal) outbreaks of rebellion by the young against the discipline imposed on them by family life and parental authority.  Cultural relativism and multiculturalism provide the ideological instrument of emancipating oneself from these constraints.  And egalitarianism - based on the infantile view that property is "given" (and thus distributed arbitrarily) rather than individually appropriated and produced (and hence, distributed justly, i.e., in accordance with personal productivity) - provides the intellectual means by which the rebellious youths can lay claim to the economic resources necessary for a life free of and outside the disciplinary framework of families.

[...]

[S]o long as the threat of moral relativism and egalitarianism is restricted to a small proportion of juveniles and young adults for only a brief period in life (until they settle back into family-constrained adulthood), it may well be sufficient to do nothing at all.  The proponents of cultural relativism and egalitarianism would represent little more than temporary embarassments or irritations...  A small dose of ridicule and contempt may be all that is needed to contain the... threat.  The situation is very different, however, and rather more drastic measures might be required, once the spirit of moral relativism and egalitarianism has taken hold among adult members of society: among mothers, fathers, and heads of households and firms.

As soon as mature members of society habitually express acceptance or even advocate egalitarian sentiments, whether in the form of democracy (majority rule) or of communism, it becomes essential that other members, and in particular the natural social elites, be prepared to act decisively and, in the case of nonconformity, exclude and ultimately expel these members from society.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy - The God That Failed, pp. 217-218

Jordan Peterson on egalitarianism vs. biological essentialism

The whole idea that people are a blank slate and that everyone's equal at birth and that everything that makes people different is a consequence of socialization - that bloody idea has been dead among anybody who is reasonably educated as a scientist - it's been dead, I would say since the mid '60s.  Dead!  No one even talks about it.  But among these postmodernist types, man, they don't give a damn for facts.  In fact, facts for them are merely whatever the current power hierarchy uses to justify their acquisition of power.

~ Jordan Peterson, "Postmodernism and Cultural Marxism," 17:45 mark, YouTube, July 7, 2017

Tom DiLorenzo on the p.c. brainwashing of students entering college

I've been teaching at the university level a long time.  (I got my Ph.D. in 1979 when I was 24.)  Probably the biggest difference I've seen in the students who come in to the university is today they're already thoroughly brainwashed in cultural Marxism and socialism and political correctness.  Whereas 15 or 20 years ago that was not true, at least in my experience.  There'd be some percentage of them that would be sort of corralled by the leftists on the campus who would pretty much waste their education years and turn them into muddleheaded babblers, basically.  But today I've noticed that they're all very well programmed right when they get there.  And that's the success of 25 or 30 years of K-12 and beyond propagandizing by what we'd call the cultural Marxists.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "Political Correctness as Misesian Destructionism" (1:00 mark), September 29, 2018