VGPolyglot said:
TheWPCTraveler said:
Read up on Antonio Gramsci, and come back to me. In fact, how about you pick a bunch of colleges and universities at random, and look at their curricula in the humanities and the arts.
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Has the American government been overthrown? No. Has capitalism been dismantled and replaced with socialism? No. Are we heading towards a stateless society? No. Communism has not taken over the United States.
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binary solo said:
TheWPCTraveler said:
Read up on Antonio Gramsci, and come back to me. In fact, how about you pick a bunch of colleges and universities at random, and look at their curricula in the humanities and the arts.
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Lol.
Weaponised marxism is such a nonsense term, even discounting the fact that the US political and economic system bears no relation to what could conceivably fit within a definition of weaponised Marxism.
How about you come back to me when the US federal govt announces a policy of nationalising all manufacturing and agricultural production. Then we can talk about a Marxist take over.
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I have to explain what I meant since I wasn't talking about "weaponised Marxism," which actually encompasses quite a lot more than what I mean.
What I really mean is something that tends to be referred to as "Cultural Marxism," which is also a misleading term given that Marx didn't really have anything to do with it. However, if Marx lived to see the conclusion of World War I and the Polish-Soviet War, he too would agree with the basic premise.
edit: I found a proper encompassing term for this, and it's "Critical Theory." Now that I think about it, it does fit and is still widely recognised, go figure. Post continues below...
"Cultural Marxism" may be referred to as an implicit admission by some Marxists (this is normally associated with an insititution called the Frankfurt School) that Western Civilisation contains within it institutions (the church, for instance), as well as symbols and such (how do you think were Austria-Hungary the Ottoman Empire still alive by 1914, much less 1917?) that serve to hinder (what was perceived as) the inevitable march of the proletariat to wage revolution by lines of class and perform an overthrow (like that achieved in The Russian Empire). As always, they thought that these were utilised by the Capitalists to maintain hegemony over the general populace.
To follow up on this logic, if communism (the end goal) is to be attained, then these insitutions and symbols and cultural constructs have to be either taken over or undermined. Thus, the weakening of the role of (Christian) religion by any means necessary; the weakening of social mores and kindred ties to those of his own ethnicity, and so on.
This is why I pointed to Antonio Gramsci in particular, and if you haven't read (and understood) his Prison Notebooks in particular, I dare say that you are unenlightened in terms of the Modern Left* movement. This (in part) is why Modern Leftists tend to be as focused on race, religion, sexual identity, etc. as the plight of the working (debt-laden) classes; though, in retrospect, this is also partially due to the fact that the Upper Middle-Class tends to be drawn like in thanks to the fact that the Left is nigh-unassailable on University/College campuses virtually everywhere...
*note - I don't know of a proper enough term for this, so I'd appreciate if someone tells me of one
One last word of note: It thoroughly astounds me to see that Gramsci, despite being one of the most influential Marxist thinkers (at least with respect to how the movement is going in modern times), is practically unheard of. I don't think I've seen his name uttered once before I brought it up, in the past few weeks. Huh.
One more one more note: He said "weaponised form of Marxism," not necessarily "weaponised Marxism." Last time I checked, Form of X != X itself.