. . . by using seven mountain mapping, to enable reformational, godly prophetic, intellectual, cultural and -- yes -- policy leadership. Oh, yes, let us continue our open letter (and, Google censors, this includes you):
Dear Caribbean and wider Intelligentsia,
There is a "shade" that for nearly a century now, haunts our world: Frankfurt School derived "critical theories" that ever since the 1970's have become increasingly dominant in the academy and so too in ideologically shaping policy through its built-in crooked yardstick thinking. Yes, it is ripe for deconstruction:
A philosophical [ --> so, by 7M analysis, worldview, cultural and policy agenda-shaping] movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth [--> truth is the enemy, so we are clearly dealing with the father of lies here, so then we need exorcism!]; asserts that words can only refer to other words [--> Kant's self-referential, self-defeating ugly gulch between our inner thought world and things in themselves also lurks*]; and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text [--> which includes Government policies, laws and press releases etc, not to mention Kantian texts about ugly gulches* . . . ] subvert their own meanings. [AmHD, 5th Edn, at Wordnik]
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* Words, manifestly, can refer to people, things, actions, attributes, abstract entities [the number 2], etc, as is an abundant fact of our experience. Yes, we use other words to represent these things, but even day to day experience tells us that imposing an ugly gulch is questionable. And, following F H Bradley, to claim to know there is an ugly gulch is to claim to know something about things in themselves.
Yes, too, here our ongoing betrayal of our civilisation exposes itself. Kantians and deconstructionists, self-referentiality haunts philosophical, ideological, cultural and practical/policy thinking: if ANY text is self-defeating, does not this include your own? Can it even be OBJECTIVELY TRUE AND WARRANTED that "words can only refer to other words"?
Is this not all, blatant, crooked yardstick self-defeating fallacious thinking and confusion?
And, duly exorcised, can we not start afresh?
Now, this situation is so toxic, that I need to address censorship before taking up Lord Voldemort, issues that must not be named (at least by those branded with the scarlet F: "fascist.")
And yes, the F-for-fascist scale "authoritarian personality" test was actually set up by Theodor W Adorno, one of the early critical theory practitioners.
I must note this, as, already, Google has subjected me to censorship, refusing to give a clear explanation of just what was allegedly so offensive or misleading that, without warning, they vanished a major post, Unit 2 of a systematic theology course that addressed worldviews issues. Thankfully, I had it open in another browser and with reformatting and some updates, it is now a Samizdat Book, available on request. In censoring me, the anonymous censors at Google left menacing threats for future action, creating a chilling effect. I now defy it, exposing the real censoring authoritarians. (Even as Victor Hugo's letter invited prosecution for defamation: he was of course convicted and stripped of honours, sentenced to gaol: he fled to England. In the end, he was vindicated, and Dreyfuss was released ; even after his second trial predictably found him "guilty" again. Instead, it was the military and civil authorities who were manifestly guilty, guilty, guilty.)
So, now, let me introduce Exhibit A, a right- of- fair- comment and right- of- reply markup and comment on three inadvertently telling, cat- out- of- the- bag Wikipedia articles:
1: On the "Cultural Marxism" alleged conspiracy theory
2: On the tellingly parallel article on "Western Marxism"
3: On "Critical Theory" and its roots, with as a cross-light
4: A brief excerpt on Critical Theory from Enc Brit.
This is in effect, the mother lode I intend to mine, so kindly clip it, expand and peruse it:
The road to deconstruction lies open:
1: By using question-begging, loaded language right from opening words, Wikipedia exposes how part of the critical theory approach can easily become divide and rule: those who question, object or challenge are too often perceived as evil, not just coming from another viewpoint; so, they are to be branded, stereotyped, scapegoated and pushed to the "far right" fringes of nazism. (Notice, Adorno's F Scale, F for fascism. Similarly, Stalin saw himself as the political centre and viewed anyone to his right as some sort of "fascist.")
2: By contrast, once the preferred term "Western Marxism," is put on the table, and once we see that the Frankfurt School originated "critical theory," it is admitted that the roots are indeed Marxist, and in the post WW1 context. However, the point that the Marxist expectation that that catastrophe would be the harbinger of the collapse of Capitalism failed is downplayed. This failure of theory, led to a crisis of Marxist thought and to attempts to find, what blocked the crisis, latching on to key cultural factors, institutions (e.g. the churches, education systems, the media, arts & culture) and linked values (e.g. gospel-based ethics, natural law thinking). Thus, the Frankfurt School.
3: Now, orthodox Marxism projected that Capitalism would see a cluster of crises (in industrialised societies with a proletariat), ultimately leading to collapse and the rise of socialism leading onward to the golden era of communism. It is thus inherently plausible that they would expect a great war like those of the Napoleonic era, to trigger a final crisis; and we should note, how the major power monarchies of Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary and Imperial Germany all collapsed. However, at the start of the war, the working classes flocked to the colours to defend their nations against traditional, threatening enemies leading to mass mutual slaughter of millions. The German Kaiser was pleasantly surprised to see Social Democrat MP's voting for war credits. A leading socialist, Benito Mussolini, broke away from Internationalist Socialism, to fight for Italy; the roots of fascism. Where there were radical socialist uprisings, they by and large failed. For instance, the Spartacists were ruthlessly put down in Germany. When a Hungarian radical government was established, its cultural-moral radicalism and sexual looseness alienated the working classes and when Romania invaded, the government collapsed.
4: Further contrary to Marxist expectations that Socialism would rise as a post-capitalist stage of history, it was in least industrially developed Russia that the Bolsheviks prevailed, and for the obvious reason that they overthrew Kerensky's less radical government and prevailed in a civil war. Later, in the 1930's Stalin would have a leading soviet economist, Kondratiev, shot as his long wave research indicated that the Great Depression was not the expected terminal crisis.
5: In China, again a less developed country with a weak government, Mao prevailed by civil war and led a failed industrialisation thrust, The Great Leap Forward; which cost dozens of millions their lives. Then, having been curbed by less radical leaders, his countermove was to lead the 1966 - 76 Cultural Revolution that targeted the four olds, old customs, culture, habits, and ideas.
6: In our region, Castro stood up against an unpopular dictator, Batista and only declared Communist allegiance after seizing power; indeed, from childhood, I recall reading 1950's Reader's Digest articles defending Castro and his revolutionaries from the accusation: communists.
7: All of this makes sense in light of the mapping model, where the issue is a clash between business as usual and alternative movements, with swirling worldviews, cultural and institutional issues and agendas in play. So, as Alexander Zubatov remarks in Tablet (a Jewish Magazine):
There are certain people—likely those who have never read more than a few words of the 20th century Marxist and Marx-inspired thinkers of whom they speak—who have argued there was an intentional, conspiratorial plot by, inter alia, members of what was known as the “Frankfurt School” to subvert and destroy Western high culture, dumb it down and corrupt it from the inside out in order to seed the ground for the coming Communist revolution [--> he specifically agrees that a significant number are antisemites etc] . . . . So what is cultural Marxism? In brief, it is a belief that cultural productions (books, institutions, etc.) and ideas are emanations of underlying power structures, so we must scrutinize and judge all culture and ideas based on their relation to power. Following from this premise, advocates for the persecuted and oppressed must attack forms of culture that reinscribe the values of the ruling class, and disseminate culture and ideas that support “oppressed” groups and “progressive” causes . . . . Building upon Lukács’ ideas [a Hungarian Marxist theorist who pioneered the neo-marxist shift], the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, the key figure in the cultural Marxist canon, developed, in the 1930s, a more elaborate concept he called “hegemony.” For Gramsci, a war of ideas necessarily precedes any actual war against the capitalist ruling class. “Hegemony” is the ruling class’ use of mass culture to dominate the masses. The elites use mass culture as armies use trenches and fortifications to defend their core interests. A revolution, then, can only occur after a long battle of position against these cultural fortifications and ideological defenses. Every revolution, Gramsci argued, is preceded by an intense period of criticism, a culture war. [In, "Just Because Anti-Semites Talk About ‘Cultural Marxism’ Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Real," Nov 29, 2018.]
8: Where, it is clear that from the 1970's on, such culture-form, [neo-]marxian theories, with their associated cultural, institutional and cultural agendas, have executed a successful "Long March through the institutions," leading to gradually becoming the new establishment. Deconstructionism and associated postmodern influences have sharply shifted worldviews, even overriding the earlier impacts of evolutionary materialistic scientism. Intersectionality and its demand for "social justice," has led to sharp cultural and policy changes, as witness homosexualisation, the invention of "same sex marriage," and the current push for transgenderism. The major media have been largely taken over by this thinking. Critical legal theory and its offshoot critical race theory have become powerfully influential on law, government, policy, politics. Diversity, equity, inclusion has been a human resources policy battering ram for many of these pushes. Huge swathes of morality are being rewritten through such processes, not to mention, history. And much more. We clearly have here, the new establishment and the question, where is Business as usual now headed, given the Acts 27 voyage of folly challenge.
9: So, when we see how it is promoted that Critical Theories are theories of liberation that address oppressive institutional and cultural structures, providing an analysis, critique and strategy to dismantle them, we would be well advised to take pause. Yes, the oppressive actions of capitalist societies and their colonisation efforts were and are real, but the orthodox Marxist attempted solution failed, costing 100 millions their lives. Repackaging the Marxist oppressor/oppressed, revolution analysis in cultural terms does not remove that trend, and we would be well advised to recognise that in 1989 - 91, Communism's east bloc collapsed for good reason, giving a new birth of freedom for many millions.
10: Further to such, as fair comment: it would be more responsible for those seeking genuine liberation, that they accept the history of Marxist influences on critical theories and frankly, fully address the further history of Marxist tyrannies and their consequences. Then, they might find it profitable to see that critique of oppression and efforts to find a better way forward are longstanding; we need not put Marx on a pedestal. Indeed, "warts and all" notwithstanding, the most successful such liberation analysis and effort on recent record is the US Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 -- the charter for modern, democratic self government of a free people:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Perhaps, then, it is time for re-thinking and reformation. More on such, next time. END
