Talk:Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory

Image of Anders Breivik

@Thismess: Anders Breivik is clearly the most notable example of a terrorist directly inspired by this conspiracy theory. Per our image use policy:

The purpose of an image is to increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter, usually by directly depicting people, things, activities, and concepts described in the article. The relevant aspect of the image should be clear and central.

I see no reason why this image, an illustration of the most notable example of the political violence connected with this conspiracy theory, should be removed from the article; please explain. TucanHolmes (talk) 17:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

We are talking about the picture in the "Political violence" section, right? If so, I think it is on-topic and perfectly reasonable to include it. The linked article, 2011 Norway attacks, makes the relevance clear for anybody who does not find it obvious. The fact that the image is the fake ID card used in the actual violence makes it particularly relevant for this section. It is no more questionable than any of the other images of individuals in the article. What is the actual objection here? That this image doesn't show the actual violence being perpetrated? I don't think it would be any better if it did. Unless there is an even better picture that could be used instead, I think we should retain it. DanielRigal (talk) 19:23, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Seeing the back and forth on the article page, I was a bit doubtful that the image added much, but the above comments convinced me that the image belongs. It rather drives home the point that this conspiracy theory has a body count. CAVincent (talk) 20:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I never said anything about Breivik, it's the fake police ID I find to be very out of place and out of topic. As a particular item, I don't see its relevance to the topic of Cultural Marxism at all. If there has to be an image associated with Breivik, perhaps the image of the smoke from the explosion at the top of the 2011 Norway attacks article would be more suitable, since it's the attack that is in question and not an article about (fake) police IDs. Thismess (talk) 11:14, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The text under the picture reads "The counterfeit police identity card used by Breivik to commit the 2011 Norway attacks, which he said were a defense against Cultural Marxism" - which states how the picture is related to the attack, and how the attack is related to the topic of the page. 203.214.56.152 (talk) 11:32, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

A thing about Breivik is he didn't seem to see this as a Jewish conspiracy, but instead a Muslim conspiracy? (if a conspiracy at all?) more here. (I mean, he was otherwise anti-semitic and identarian, I'm just saying.) I wonder if it would be worth talking about that in that section. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:29, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure how relevant that is, since the supposed conspiracy in this conspiracy theory is still attributed to a dark and ominous/nebulous force of 'Cultural Marxism'. This still reeks of antisemitism, and I'd argue that, even in the frame of this theory, Muslims are the object, not the subject of the conspiracy, just as much a piece on the board as everything else. Conspiracy theorists are rarely coherent, since their conspiratorial beliefs are irrational, a venue to express something emotional. TucanHolmes (talk) 20:58, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

"If a conspiracy at all"? Huh? Excuse me? No. It doesn't stop being a conspiracy theory just because you remove parts of it. You would have to remove all the false parts of it that claim a conspiracy in order for it to be a regular theory.

Breivik directly transcribes William S. Lind's writings as if they're his own extensively in "his" manifesto, and the page already covers that Lind's theory was debuted at a Holocaust denial conference, and that the think tank he was working for (The Free Congress Foundation) used an actual Nazi collaborator (the Arrow Cross party member, Laszlo Pasztor [1]) in promoting the conspiracy theory.

There's nothing in your linked source [2] to suggest that Cultural Marxism is somehow no longer a conspiracy theory because you replace "Jews" with "Muslims". 02:42, 23 April 2024 (UTC) 203.214.56.152 (talk) 02:42, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

That said it may be useful to mention this on the page, that whilst antisemitism is a large part of the history and usage of the conspiracy theory, there are non-antisemitic variants targeted at other groups, such as trans people and Muslims. 203.214.56.152 (talk) 02:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Editorialization and adding more varied sources

This topic is tricky, it's a bit like the "Criticism of Wikipedia" article but for academia. The result is 94 citations from various academic pieces, but a singular POV. And lets be real, a true encyclopedic description of this topic would need to include the history of this page itself, making this intractably self-referential.

The subject matter is real, but despite numerous citations, there's too little viewpoint diversity. I may add some more sources, but wanted to first post here to hear others' thoughts before submitting any changes. My goal is just to include something to indicate that this is a live issue, and

NPOV: This page conflates the general phrase "cultural marxism" with the specific topic, the "Cultural Marxist conspiracy theory", in a way that editorializes in violation of NPOV. Eg, starting with "'Cultural Marxism' refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory that misrepresents the Frankfurt School..." immediately conflates the two. We can't just assert "Cultural Marxism is this particular esoteric conspiracy theory", and the cited sources don't even claim that. I'd propose something like "The term 'Cultural Marxism' is associated with a far-right antisemitic conspiracy..."

Weakness of sourced literature: This page glaringly omits the actual coinage of the term. It might be Richard Weiner's Cultural Marxism and Political Sociology (1981), but this book is not mentioned anywhere within this article, despite its whopping 94 citations. Wiki articles frequently include etymology, it's informative and helps establish a neutral starting point. But this is glossed over to jump to the 90's conspiratorial usage of the term.

At first I took this as proof of this page's bias and went to fix it. But unfortunately, the academic literature also glosses over Weiner's work entirely. So it'd be original research if I added a section saying "The term may have been coined in 1981...", since no one has chosen to note this fact anywhere. Frustrating. I'll put Weiner's work aside, but hopefully this is convincing that we should be careful about taking the underlying literature too literally, when it's obviously incomplete.

Addition: I'll look at adding Yascha Mounk to the Analysis section. He criticizes the term "Cultural Marxism", but put forward the term "Identity Synthesis," and published a well-researched book that would help give a broader perspective. Eg, he gives a straightforward description of non-conspiratorial usage of the term: "The idea of cultural Marxism, basically, is that you take the classic Marxist side of ideas, you take out categories like social class, you put in identity categories like race and gender and sexual orientation, and boom."

Btw, I think he describes the post-2016 situation well:

"It's really remarkable that there have been barely any academics who have tried to tell the story of the origin of these ideas. I think it’s part of the way in which serious consideration of these ideas and criticism of these ideas has become taboo in the academy. It’s very strange to me, because our whole universe of intellectualist historians who somehow have not thought that this obviously quite major change in how the left thinks about the world, is worthy of that kind of study. And so, the kinds of people who have stepped into that space are political activists like Chris Rufo." — Preceding comment posted at the request of ParanoidAltoid (talk · contribs) actually added by Ohnoitsjamie (talk · contribs)

Anyone thinking of following up on this needs to read the history of this Talk page and the discussions cited there from elsewhere (e.g, the original AfD discussion and the subsequent split from Frankfurt School and renaming discussions). I will try to summarize the majority view:

• There is essentially no "real Cultural Marxism" before the term was coined by the conspiracy theory. There was a cultural turn within Marxist scholarship in the 1960s, which overlapped with Marxist Humanism and Critical Theory, but the main label used for people writing in this tradition was never "Cultural Marxist" and the key claims made by the conspiracy theorists and culture warriors about "Cultural Marxists" were never true about the participants in the cultural turn.
• There is no distinction between the conspiracy version of "Cultural Marxism" and some other usage of that term on the "conservative" side of the culture wars. Writers my or may not be aware of or deliberately deploying the antisemitic tropes and cold war narratives that are part of the development of the term by conspiracy theorists, but that is the term they are using and the narrative they are building is still this construction of an imaginary progressive conspiracy to undermine Western values. There simply isn't some "mainstream conservative view" on this that differs from the the conspiracy theory documented in scholarship on this topic.
• Attempts by some editors to pursue their personal vision of NPOV on this topic have very frequently lacked a basis in reliable sources and so, when pushed for sourcing, there editors have typically (i) attempted idiosyncratic and readings or WP:SYNTH based on actual reliable sources, (ii) attempted to cite WP:RSOPINION sources for facts, or (iii) attempted to include reliable sources on other topics as though they were in scope for the topic of this article. None of these options is acceptable by enwiki policy to derived article content.

TL;DR: Without a strong basis in reliable sources that say that "Cultural Marxism" is a real political project, as well as a conspiracy theory, there is no pretext to revisit the foundational questions about the scope of this article that were settled through a long series of RfCs and other community-wide discussions. Newimpartial (talk) 13:35, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

You might want to check any sources you raise against the second AfD that got rid of the Cultural Marxism page. It's long because it was well attended, although there was some accusation that it was brigaded by Gamer Gate. You can check your sources against what's said there. In the case of Richard Weiner's Cultural Marxism and Political Sociology (1981) for instance it's pointed out that it's about culturally oriented Marxism - rather than any set ideology titled "Cultural Marxism" and also includes theorists that "fall ideologically outside the cultural Marxism movement". There's no indication the book is about some set ideology going by the title Cultural Marxism, other than it appears in the title. The phrase 'cultural Marxism' within the 1970s discourse appears to just reference vague cultural ideas about Marxism, or when Marxists talk about culture. Other times it might be a vague illusion to The Frankfurt School, but it doesn't appear to be a topic within its self. So it doesn't have a Wikipedia page. In line with this, the closes thing we have is Marxist cultural analysis.

the academic literature also glosses over Weiner's work entirely you'll find a lot of this, as beyond being a vague illusion to The Frankfurt School, the two words cultural and Marxism when put next to each other - particularly where the first is lower case, and the second is upper case (eg. the only proper noun in the pairing), "Cultural Marxism" isn't really a thing. The Frankfurt School never used the term, and in academia it's usually "cultural Marxism" two words next to each other, rather than a well defined singular concept. It's appeared in the titles of some books (so is capitalized because of that).

The idea of cultural Marxism, basically, is that you take the classic Marxist side of ideas, you take out categories like social class, you put in identity categories like race and gender and sexual orientation, and boom. black civil rights, progressive politics, feminism, gay rights, and trans rights, were all pre-existing movements well before The Frankfurt School even formed. Progressive politics and identity politics don't actually require any Marxist beliefs and have been an organic progression. No one is manipulating ideology as you're suggesting. It's simply that the rightwing has fairly successfully constructed a simplistic narrative that this has been a type of replacement of economic Marxism. It wasn't and it hasn't been. Economic Marxists still exist... and things like Women's Rights actually predate the birth of Karl Marx himself.

What's really going on is an attempt to claim progressive, identity, and liberal politics are all "secretly Marxism", when they're actually separate ideological movements. 14.2.34.45 (talk) 13:57, 13 May 2024 (UTC)