"'Cultural Marxism' at the U.S. Naval Academy,"

Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson ^ | Copyright 1 August 1999 | Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson CDR USN (Ret.)

[SteveMcKing]

"It had occurred to me several years ago that Ross Perot and Jimmy Carter were Naval Academy grads and I wondered how they could have the Anti-American attitudes they did with that background. Perhaps now I know."

Wes Clark is another. Today, I see two ways for a man to corrupt himself: one is to be so trained by malicious institutional programs, the other is poor judgement. As it happens, the undermining of our patriarchal fabric by our enemies (internal enemies, mostly) represents the former method in itself, and is specifically tailored to promote the latter. Carter and Clark may be pseudo-communists, but they made that choice under the seductive power of the carefully crafted morals within our new debauched culture -- the fulcrum of which are "good intentions".

One cannot discount cluelessness as a factor, too... the "idiot" portion of those considered useful.

"Your attitude illustrates well the fact that America still has a vast reserve of manliness, duty and honor to draw upon."

And for that, we use the new tools of networking. Some call it 'new media', but the point is to pool those "vast reserves of manliness" you describe, exponentially compared to any historical convention.

One must also take comfort in the reality that self-serving punks and apathetic slackers have always plagued us, only the names were once rogues and scallywags. Given the restoration of shame and pride as meaningful values, this very group of outcasts may transform into virtuous human beings.

And if they won't, well they never mattered anyway...

"I'm getting to the age where some men just don't give a hoot anymore and just go about their personal business. I'm certainly not spent, but its a struggle sometimes..."

Relax. I am sure you have earned your time to be lazy!

[hosepipe]

[ Absolutely. I am beginning to think that the USA and USSR simply traded their two systems! ]

Exactly.. We LOST the cold war.. and worse sedition and treason are de-facto legal.. the bar is too high to indite for them, let alone convict, is unattainable..

[CheyennePress]

I always look back to the 1950s, to my grandparents and their generation, and just wonder what the heck went wrong with our country. I listen to their values, their loyalties, their beliefs, and their understanding of what we should be aobut, and I find myself drawn more and more to that path. Not that my parents didn't follow that path (thankfully), but there is a certainty in the voices of my grandparents that has all but been forbidden in our universities.

I should know: they got me. I knew what I needed to do to get As, and being praised for turning out multiculutural gibberish, well, it affects the way you think. It's imprinting a way of thinking. I don't want to write my own essay on this, but I just remember how the whole college system was set up to undermine the foundations of Western faith, patriotism, and our way of life.

Thanks for posting this, as it's going to give me a bit to think about. Again, I look to the 1950s and just stand aghast at what has happened. Not as much in my native south as it has elsewhere (see Montreal), but all the same, it's there.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Survival of the fittest. War of civilizations. With nukes. God help us.

If the Communist take over this country the Islamist will learn that PC, tolerance and diversity were just ruses. For them it will be mass executions and slave labor camps, right along with some of us.

[nathanbedford]

Captain Atkinson's post military service crusade is breathtaking in its hypothesis: The cultural war being waged by the left is not a series of skirmishes spontaneous and diffuse in origin but the calculated campaign of a core conspiracy.

The core conspiracy was originally founded in 1923 by a Soros- like multimillionaire who funded a group of Jewish Communist intellectuals by creating the School for Social Research. Cultural Marxism metastasized to Spain, Great Britain, and the United States as these Jews were disbursed in a kind of Communist diaspora. Able, even gifted, these intellectuals insinuated themselves into America's important institutions including academia, journalism, and the OSS where they gained astonishing influence as they waged their war on the institutions of America. The original charter of the Frankfurt School was to undermine those institutions which in their view had succeeded in preventing the expected communist revolution from spreading to Germany from Russia. These institutions included, first, the family, which constitutes the nuclear building block of society. If one can destroy the family one has nearly succeeded in undermining the whole of traditional society. Hence the scorn heaped on the "leave it to beaver" family of the 1950s. Such a structure is anathema to the left.

The next institution which they seek to destroy is the church, both Catholic and evangelical, for this is the institution which consecrates the family and justifies it. Hence the relentless war waged by Hollywood against figures of these churches like preachers and priests.

Their eschatology is as breathtaking as the scope of the conspiracy, that is, they have sent out to change the way man sees his world. This is the "deconstructive" aspect of the conspiracy. It undertakes, first, to tear down and tear apart every value and every tradition upon which we rely. As both a tool and an end goal Freudianism has been wielded like a battle ax to bludgeon the modern psyche. It's evil twin, relativism, makes the seduction of the modern mind complete. With one foot in Freudianism and the other stuck in the relativism, modern man, without faith in God, is sinking in quicksand and is virtually defenseless to every new siren.

When one reads Atkinson's series of essays on this subject is clear that he believes that this state of affairs is the product of nothing less than a conspiracy. It is this part of his thesis which I find fascinating. Is there such a conspiracy? How big is it? Who are the generals and who are the foot soldiers, who share the conspiracy and who are merely willing dupes, the useful idiots of the Frankfurt School?

I am quite aware that when one utters the "C" Word one practically begs at best to be blackguarded as a McCarthyite, or, at worst, crowned with a tinfoil hat. Nevertheless, I believe as a conservative that it is imperative that we understand the nature of the opposition. Are we fighting a virus whose DNA lurks somewhere deep in the spinal column, or are all the battles in the cultural war unrelated "whack a mole" eruptions which can be resisted ad hoc?

Whether conspiracy or not, it is clear that every tactic in the cultural war waged by the left at least coincidentally advances the strategy of Marxism and that point should be made plain to every American citizen who exercises his franchise.

[samtheman]

We can still win.

That's what I was thinking when I read this piece. Pessimism on our side is worse than Marxism on theirs. We can still win, and we all believe that or we wouldn't be here in this forum keeping an eye on events and considering our options.

[Captainpaintball]

BTTT

[Emmett McCarthy]

Thank you for your well-thought out observations.

[Ranxerox]

Bump to read later

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Any movement as widespread as Communism has multiple roots, actors, and causes. The same with Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. All compete in their own way for the mind of man in varying degrees on a scale from passive to aggressive. The primary difference is the object of affection.

With Communism it is the Party, using the state as enforcer, and the belief, or at least the pretend-belief, in the perfectibility of man.

With Islam it is Allah through Mohammad, the anti-Christ. It is their way or the highway (of death or servitude).

With Judaism it is God. Judaism and Islam have a lot in common with the key divergence being the nature and goals of their prophets.

Christianity is the continuation of Judaism with a new mandate which gives man a personal conduit to God through Jesus. Christianity is also distinct in that it puts emphasis on the individual rather than a group. That is one reason it is so compatible with our form of government.

Both Communism and Islamism are anti-Christ, anti-Jew, and anti-individual freedom. That is why they work so well together in subduing others. Unfortunately for them, in the end, neither will be tolerant of the other.

All of this is the classic battle between good and evil. One need only to look at which sides rely on deceit and force and who depends of love and sharing to know which side to be on for long term happiness and success.

As has always been the case, it is evils role to disguise itself as good and confuse its victims. We are only discussing methods here.

[Gritty]

You make some excellent points.

[Cicero]

You don't have to be paranoid to believe in conspiracies, and your comparison to Soros is a good one. The thing about conspiracies, however, is that eventually they tend to self-destruct. Not everyone is in on the real purpose of the conspiracy. Everyone involved tends to have divided motivations and loyalties, to the cause and to their own careers.

But it is certainly the case that certain ideologies have dominated in academia and that someone seems to be pushing them ahead. Thus I have observed that in cases I have watched the higher reaches of the administration at various universities seem to have directed money toward hiring these sorts of people, stuffing departments with them, and finding large amounts of money to fund new chairs and institutes.

This happened at Duke under Stanley Fish. It happened at Columbia with Edward Said and others. It happened at NYU first with Comparative Literature, the Institute for American Studies, and presently with English and the recently established Institute for Sex and Gender. It happened at Harvard when Stephen Greenblatt was brought in from Berkeley to supervise the wrecking of the English department there, under the pretence of rehabilitating it. It happened at Princeton when money was found for a special chair for Peter Singer and others only a little less well known.

It's understandable that cultural marxists hire more cultural marxists into their own departments, but what's curious is how much money seems to pour in from the top to finance these endeavors and spread them to new places.

One comforting note, as I said, is that these efforts tend to be self-destructive. Nothing could be more boring for students than a steady diet of pessimism and suspicion. You can teach them to hate themselves and their country and everything that is good, but at some point the whole exercise becomes hollowed out and pointless, and new generations of students revolt against it. But no question the damage has been terrible, and in good Gramscian fashion these people continue to hold on to the "levers of power" as long as they can.

In many cases, they will bring down their institutions with them. The institutions will prove to be unsalvageable, and new ones will have to grow up and take their places. You can see that process working in the Catholic Church, where some ancient religious orders are dying in dissent, while new, loyal orders are growing up to take their place. Father Benedict Groeschel has written an excellent article to that effect, and if you look back you can see that the same thing has happened often in the distant past.

[Gritty]

All of this is the classic battle between good and evil... As has always been the case, it is evils role to disguise itself as good and confuse its victims

Just so. This is the Biblical view. And that view is "right on" at all levels.

In the end we know who wins. In the interim, the situation remains murky for us as individuals and as a culture - which is rapidly being driven post-Christian, just like the Europeans.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

In the end we know who wins. In the interim, the situation remains murky for us as individuals and as a culture - which is rapidly being driven post-Christian, just like the Europeans.

We know who wins in the end and it may be after many trials and tribulations here. Christians and Jews have suffered years of subjugation in the past and may again. At least we know the enemy and how he operates so it is up to us to defeat him.

[Cicero]

The cultural leadership is being driven secular, and they ruthlessly exclude anyone whom they perceive as dangerously religious.

But the leadership remains out of touch with the broad masses of ordinary people. It's well known that America is a religious country, and if anything it has been getting more religious over the past few decades. At some point, something will have to give, because the leaders and the money people are determined to drive everything one way, but the people instinctively resist.

It's symbolically noticeable in someone like Jean Kerry and his wife. They are both effectively Communists, but they are also rich elitists, effete snobs of the worst kind. How long will it be until people sit up and notice that it's not the Republicans who are the elite, moneyed snobs, but the "revolutionary" Democrats? The rich, the privileged, the leadership cadres, all pretending to be on the side of the "people."

[Cicero]

Oh, yes, a lot of people who are old-line, card-carrying Communists still try to carry on with the official Communism of the past and hate these new, bastard forms. But Marxist-Leninist Communism of the old school is moribund. Marxism is still vitally alive, however, in various metamorphosed forms: feminism, race and gender studies, New Historicism, Postcolonial Studies, Black Studies, and so forth.

Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche are indeed the fathers of the Hermeneutics of Suspicion, to which I would add Darwin as an enabling uncle. But Nietzsche was rehabilitated as an icon of the left, whereas earlier he was scorned as a patron of the Nazis. There has been a confluence of different lines of thought: Nietzsche, ancient nominalism running back to William of Occam, Margaret Meade and the social anthropologists, Heiddeger, Derrida, Foucauld, the whole Frankfort School.

Then you have people like my friend Harold Bloom, who seem to be split in support and opposition to these currents, which is at least a welcome change from lemming-like adherance. Paul de Man was a Nazi during the war, but was readily adopted by the leftists, just going to show that there's not that big a difference between "socialism" and "national socialism." I got to know Derrida somewhat; a very unpleasant man, IMHO. I found it almost impossible to talk to him, but it was not necessary because he was always surrounded by worshippers. I never met de Man but know some of his disciples.

[shield]

That group/generation has/had great values. But forget NOT they're the ones that have allowed this to enter into our culture and colleges/universities. It started long ago...why did they not fight to stop it? Now we're working 24/7 to reverse it. It's so embedded. Raising our kids with proper values/foundation will continue to carry the torch to reverse this BS. And fear not it will be reversed...we're seeing it the gradual beginning today.

[Gritty]

At some point, something will have to give, because the leaders and the money people are determined to drive everything one way, but the people instinctively resist.

A hopeful - and historically new - tool for combat in this war is the role of readily available mass-level inter-communications and networking, such as represented on this forum. In the past, the rich and powerful controlled this so could control the agenda and drift of battle through their near-monopoly power of information which greatly enhanced their size and influence.

However, they no longer have this monopoly and unless the government or the UN gain control of the Internet are unlikely to regain it. One of the next major battles of this war will be fought in that realm. It has been simmering for years. Totalitarian lies cannot exist with a free flow of information and views.

[NixonsAngryGhost]

Weapons of Mass Cultural and Religious Destruction


There is just too much logical and historical information on the Internet not to pin the tail on this donkey.

I thought your response excellent and parts of it read just like the authors. The Frankfurt School is in fact the locus of what has been described as Cultural Marxism and the very source of the Culture War that is raging today. I have no confidence that it will not ultimately triumph. I suspect that we are in the thick of the battle which we are by no means winning. Make no mistake about it, Christianity and Western Civilization are the enemy an and this is a war with our way of life at stake. The intention, which is a familiar one, is to subvert existing order and to supplant it with an elite group who are the only ones capable of interpreting reality.


What we have in the Frankfurt School is a Manhattan Project like effort by men as intellectually strong in Cultural Critique as Einstein, Oppenheimer and Edward Teller were in Physics. Instead of pondering quantum or nuclear physics, those of the Frankfurt School were constructing cultural weapons to be used in disintegrating Western Civilization, Christianity and Gentile European history. In point of fact and to use Richard Dawkin's Meme Theory , these men were designing "meme complexes" much like a terrorist group would construct biological weapons of mass destruction. Instead of a squash court at the University of Chicago, the Frankfurt School operated out of a little non descript building in Berlin, then Columbia University and Berkeley. Herbert Marcuse was the man who almost singlehandedly mutated the Frankfurt School into the Boomer generation during the Counter Culture Revolution of the 60's ( ref. Eros and Civilization). So with our attention diverted, while we were working to bring down the Soviet Union, Political Correctness aka Cultural Marxism penetrated under the cover of darkness the American psyche and began to take hold in the 80's and 90's.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this always ha been a Conspiracy, especially in its initial stages. It is as much of a conspiracy as the Commintern and events preceding and following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. It has grown beyond the level of a select Elite and has become the conspiracy of the Boomer Elite. What once started amongst a handful of revolutionary and atheistic apostates the New Totalitarianism embraces Gentiles like Hillary Clinton. I am reminded that Hillary had as her mentor, Saul Alinsky. Like 1917, this was Talmudic revenge on a massive and diabolical scale. To Confuse, Disintegrate and then to Exhaust.t

George Soros is an excellent analogy. Soros combines the Messianic and Financier all in one diabolic package. Like Jacob Schiff, Soros is working with his revolutionary and psychologically (and me thinks genetically) like minded apostles like Joan Blades at MoveOn.og. This is all part of numerous parallels going back to Babylonia pre 538 BC.

Since 538BC and the Babylonian Law/Talmud, Jews have been a Nation and Ethnic group apart. Much of history has this very small band of genetically, culturally and educationally different/alien band of human beings at the epicenter of world affairs. Their history of oppression is in large degree a byproduct of a racialist and supremest mindset, not to mention non-assimilation causing "others" to suspect the worse of them. The Jewish Question is largely answered once their religion and their ways are understood from the purely Darwinian perspective of prorogation, cultural and eugenic practices and placing the highest value on "intelligence" , the revolutionaries and financiers in their midst and which pulls the balance of Jewry along with them to either great successes or incredible peril ( Rome 70AD, multiple exiles and the Holocaust). Jews are now and forever have been, world class revolutionaries.

That "Cultural Marxism" was the vengeful invention of a bunch of Dead White European apostate Jews is now a moot point. The Meme has moved into the cultural mainstream and has matastised into the minds of black, white, mezzo men and woman.