Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Sandwichman — Deep Structures of the Cultural Marxism Myth

Jeet Heer has posted a timely and excellent essay at New Republic titled "Trump's Racism and the Cultural Marxism Myth." In his essay, Heer recounts much of the background to the Higgins memo that I have documented here, here and here. Heer credits William S. Lind as the major popularizer of the myth, as have I in my blog posts. What I'm posting here extends the analysis and reveals significant background about personnel and timelines to the story....
There is a subtext to this that one needs to know and many American that were born later than 1980 and most non-Americans probably don't know much about it. A key element of the history is the influence of Herbert Marcuse on the countercultural revolution of the Sixties and Seventies that carried dynamcially by the antiwar movement against the Vietnam War. The participants in this were characterized by the opposition as "dirty fucking hippies" (acronym DFHs).

I am only too well aware this since I was one of the DFHs. After I left active duty in the US Naval Reserve as an officer serving in the Western Pacific (yes, I am therefore a Vietnam vet) I joined the antiwar movement based on what I had learned from my experience, as did John Kerry and other Vietnam vets. We were the butt of a great deal of vituperation from people that did not serve and sought deferments to keep from serving.

The DFHs became the enemy along with totalitarian communism. The right characterized the DFHs as at least pink if not red, indicating an overlap between antiwar Americans and the commies. Jane Fonda was the poster child. We adopted the term "DFH" proudly for ourselves to counter the insult, but actually called ourselves "freaks" since our task as countercultural revolutionaries was to freak out the squares. We dressed and acted accordingly, as in "sex, drugs and rock and roll." Good times.

When the US lost the Vietnam War by withdrawing rather ignomineously, the narrative on the right was that the antiwar left had "stabbed America in the back." This was reminiscent of Hitler and the Nazis scapegoating "the Jews" for stabbing Germany in the back, purported resulting Germany's loss in WWI. I don't want to overemphasize this parallel, but it is there, and it should not be ignored, especially in light of present politics.

Since that time, US politics has been characterized by the attempt of the more extreme right to characterize the left as a whole in this light in its narrative. This is the origin of the term "cultural Marxism."
At last we have a doctrine, a vanguard organization, and a timeline. But most importantly, courtesy of the Larouche cult, we now have a suitably unitary devil-function. The "basic Nazi trick," as Kenneth Burke labeled "the 'curative' unification by a fictitious devil-function, gradually made convincing by the sloganizing repetitiousness of standard advertising technique." Helpfully, in a 1988 address to the Heritage Foundation,William F. Campbell explained why conservatives need such a devil-function: 
But as first and second generation conservatives have always known, and had to live with as an unpleasant skeleton in the family closet, there is sharp tension, if not contradiction, between the traditionalist and the libertarian wings of the conservative movement. They have been held together primarily because of their common enemies, modern egalitarianism and totalitarian collectivism, which they both abhor.
In 1988, when Campbell made those remarks, the Soviet Union still existed and could serve the primary role of common enemy, symbolizing the alien totalitarian destiny of domestic egalitarianism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a new enemy had to be conjured. The Higgins memo is testament to the contortions that must be endured to conjure that devil.
BTW, I was sitting that the center of the left at the time as a grad student in philosophy. I can say from experience that Herbert Marcuse's influence on the antiwar movement and DFHs was marginal. So most of the cultural Marxism myth based on his supposed influence is simply nonsense. This may have been true, to some degree at least, in the youth movements in France and Germany at the time. But Americans are not much interested in philosophy and tend to be action-oriented. They don't need elaborate justifications for action.

EconoSpeak
Deep Structures of the Cultural Marxism Myth
Sandwichman

8 comments:

Matt Franko said...

"But Americans are not much interested in philosophy and tend to be action-oriented"

The jurisdiction of the US is a magnet for people that are oriented this way ... material systems oriented...

Dan Lynch said...

Good background story, Tom.

During the late 70's I lived in a small rural town that only had one radio station, and the station carried the Alan Stang program. Stang, as you may know, was a John Bircher. Since it was the only station I could pick up, I learned to endure Stang's rants and get a laugh out of them.

Stang's general theme was that there was a communist behind every bush, mixed with half truths about how the elites wanted a "new world order." At the time Zbig was our defacto President and really did want a "new world order." The half truths would seem to give Stang some legitimacy to offset the nuttiness of his "communist behind every bush" conspiracy theories.

I got the same vibes from Higgins -- half truths about a deep state opposing Trump mixed with batshit crazy theories about "cultural Islamic Marxists behind every bush."

Tom Hickey said...

Conspiracy theory runs from the batshit crazy to the well-woven narrative with enough truth to get assent while weaving in the hype to create a biased if not false narrative.

hog said...

in actuality, riding on the back of cultural liberal values, DFHs fostered anarcho libertarian ideas that brought back economic liberalism.

Tom Hickey said...

In my experience thoughtful DFHs were left libertarians but not Marxists. They were anti-statists and anti-corporate in that they identified prevailing social, political and economic conditions with corporate statism. They were also fiercely anti-traditionalist and therefore anti-conservative. Their emphasis was on achieving a harmony among personal liberty, egality, and community.

This trend is now reflected in US progressivism. Bernie is an old DFH, of sorts. There are a lot of variation on the theme. He was an activist more in the Old Left tradition than the New Left. That was decidedly a minority at the time in the countercultural movement.

Before Sanders was a U.S. senator, before he was a congressman, before he was mayor of Burlington — before he won one shocking election, then 13 more — he was a radical and an agitator in the ferment of 1960s and '70s Vermont, a tireless campaigner and champion of laborers who didn’t collect his first steady paycheck until he was an elected official pushing 40 years old.

Most of the countercultural revolutionaries were just antiwar and against the stultifying culture of the 40s and 50s. When the war ended and sex, drugs and rock and rock were the order of the day, they felt that the goal had been accomplished and most moved on with lives. Some joined the mainstream but a lot didn't and the result was the alternative movement that went on to become an economic force in the US economy.

Sociologically and anthropologically these are very interesting times with big changes occurring rapidly. The rapidity has freaked traditionalists and conservatives out, and a lot of latté liberals distance themselves, too.



Tom Hickey said...

Oops. Forgot the link to the above quote. Here it is.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-119927

.fadE said...

http://canisa.org/blog/dialectic-of-counter-enlightenment-the-frankfurt-school-as-scapegoat-of-the-lunatic-fringe

Tom Hickey said...

@ .fadE

Good find. Thanks for sharing.

This article explains the background of scapegoating the Frankfurt School.

It's good to be aware of this in the present context of fast flying BS. Below is a clickable link to the above.

Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment: The Frankfurt School as Scapegoat of the Lunatic Fringe by Martin Jay, Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley