Part II: Bill Ayers, the ‘Critical Pedagogy’ Movement and ‘Cultural Marxism’

Geoffrey on December 16, 2009 at 11:15 am

[You can read part I of this article here.)

Cultural Marxism is the primary strategy of the American Left.

Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci posited that what holds a society together are the pillars of its culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion, as they provide the social cohesion necessary to a healthy functional society. Transform the principles that these embody and you can destroy the society they have shaped.

His seminal thinking was taken up by Sixties radicals, many of whom are, of course, the generation that holds power in the West today. Bill Ayers is most certainly an agent of Gramsi’s agenda and there is a high likelihood that Barack Obama is a covert advocate of Cultural Marxism as well. He cannot, as President, act directly in pursuit of its agenda but viewed in the light of advocacy, many of his actions make perfect sense. That so many of his ‘Czar’ appointments are radicals certainly supports that assertion.

Gramsci believed that a society could be overthrown, if the values underpinning it could be turned into their antithesis: if its core principles were replaced by those of groups who were considered to be outsiders or who actively transgressed the moral codes of that society.

So he advocated a ‘long march through the institutions’ to capture the citadels of the culture and turn them into a collective fifth column, undermining from within and turning all the core values of society upside-down and inside-out.

This strategy is being carried out to the letter.

The nuclear family has been widely shattered. Illegitimacy was transformed from a stigma into a ‘right’. The tragic disadvantage of fatherless ‘families’ was redefined as a neutrally viewed ‘lifestyle choice’. So much so that many now assert the belief that, children do not need either a mother or a father, only the loving support of a ‘caring’ adult.

Education was wrecked, with its core tenet of transmitting a culture to successive generations, replaced by the idea that what children already knew was of superior value to anything the adult world might value.

The outcome of this ‘child-centered’ approach has been widespread illiteracy and ignorance and an eroded capacity for independent thought.

The ‘rights’ agenda, commonly known as ‘political correctness’ turned morality inside out, by excusing any misdeeds by self-designated ‘victim’ groups on the grounds that ‘victims’ can’t be held responsible for what they do. Law and order were similarly undermined, with criminals deemed to be beyond punishment since they also were ‘victims’ of what was asserted to be an inherently ‘unjust’ society.

Radical feminists, anti-racism and gay ‘rights’ thus turned men, white people and especially Christians (as the foremost advocates of foundational western values) into the enemies of decency. An offensive strategy of neutralization designed to keep western society’s advocates on the defensive by essentially categorizing them as “guilty until proven innocent”.

This ‘Through The Looking Glass’ mindset rests on the belief that the world is divided into the powerful (who are responsible for all bad things) and the oppressed (who are responsible for none of them).

This is pure Marxist doctrine.

That doctrine inevitably forms a totalitarian mindset that abhors dissent. Thus, the ‘science’ supporting ‘Global Warming’ is ‘settled”. Opposition to Obama’s policies is declared to be motivated by inherent racism and resistance to ‘Obamacare’ is equated to prior generations resistance to ending slavery. Intolerance toward Christians opposed to gay ‘marriage’ and the vilification as ‘racists’ of any opposed to illegal immigration is rationalized, justified and condoned.

This leftist mindset has led to the belief that a sense of nationhood is the cause of much of the world ills. So transnational institutions such as the EU, the UN and, doctrines supporting International and ‘Human Rights’ laws are increasingly overriding national laws and values.

These organizations are committed to moral and cultural relativism, which sets group against group and guarantees supreme and antidemocratic power to the bureaucrats setting the rules of ‘diversity’ and outlawing all dissent from permitted attitudes.

The doctrine of the “oppressed and the oppressor” is the big lie that many leftist elites use to justify supporting an illogical rationale divorced from reality and human nature itself. Ultimately, the acquisition of power is at the core of leftist’s beliefs with its ‘foot soldiers’ being the ‘true believers’ Stalin referred to as the ‘useful idiots’.

“By their fruits shall you know them” is still a worthwhile maxim and the ‘fruit’ of Cultural Marxism is active opposition to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Americans still have the right to believe what they choose, part of that choice is whether they stand with Jefferson and Lincoln… or with Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. It shall be one or the other, for we cannot profess loyalty to two opposed ideologies. You will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both Liberty and Cultural Marxism.

Lest we despair, Lincoln also said, “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”

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