This is a longish piece but well worth the read for those interested in the history of ideas or just want insight into how we have arrived to where we are today.
"Where does all this stuff that you’ve heard about this morning – the victim feminism, the gay rights movement, the invented statistics, the rewritten history, the lies, the demands, all the rest of it – where does it come from? For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic."
One of the more ironic aspects of this, in a very sad way, is that the United States provided shelter and safety from Hitler to the Marxists figures who brought us what became political correctness. They repaid us by doing all they could to undermine our culture and hence our government and very way of life.
Mr Lind writes a great deal about Herbert Marcuse and his influence on the New Left of the 60s-70s (the SDS types). In fact, one of the slogans of the New Left during this period was, "Marx as prophet, Marcuse as his interpreter, and Mao as the sword."
One final note: the Frankfurt school not only impacted the way we think but also in how we express ourselves artistically. If you have ever heard of Bauhaus or the Bauhaus School, that , too, was associated with the Frankfurt Marxists; and had a tremendous impact on our art and especially our architecture. Did you know for example that the modern skyscraper, referred to as "concrete boxes", lack pitched roofs because pitched roofs imply a crown or hands in prayer while flat roofs imply egalitarianism? A fascinating book on this issue, "From Bauhaus to Our House" by Tom Wolfe, is well worth a read.
I will now shut up.
202 years ago this week, First Lady Dolly Madison saved the famous portrait of George Washington from the White House during the War of 1812. If it happened today, Obama would probably save his golf clubs!~~FB comment
ZitatIf we look at it analytically, if we look at it historically, we quickly find out exactly what it is. Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. It is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I. If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious.
ZitatWe call it “Political Correctness.” The name originated as something of a joke, literally in a comic strip, and we tend still to think of it as only half-serious. In fact, it’s deadly serious. It is the great disease of our century, the disease that has left tens of millions of people dead in Europe, in Russia, in China, indeed around the world. It is the disease of ideology. PC is not funny. PC is deadly serious.
ZitatAntonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary. Gramsci said the workers will never see their true class interests, as defined by Marxism, until they are freed from Western culture, and particularly from the Christian religion – that they are blinded by culture and religion to their true class interests.
Cultural Marxism has been an extraordinarily successful strategy, a form of soft brainwashing that over decades has replaced our traditional culture based on Jude-Christian ethics, a work ethic, and natural law. We have become so immersed in Political Correctness that at times it is difficult to recognize it, especially when it is coached in terms of fairness, justice, compassion, charity.
ZitatWe call it “Political Correctness.” The name originated as something of a joke, literally in a comic strip, and we tend still to think of it as only half-serious. In fact, it’s deadly serious. It is the great disease of our century, the disease that has left tens of millions of people dead in Europe, in Russia, in China, indeed around the world. It is the disease of ideology. PC is not funny. PC is deadly serious.
ZitatAntonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary. Gramsci said the workers will never see their true class interests, as defined by Marxism, until they are freed from Western culture, and particularly from the Christian religion – that they are blinded by culture and religion to their true class interests.
Cultural Marxism has been an extraordinarily successful strategy, a form of soft brainwashing that over decades has replaced our traditional culture based on Jude-Christian ethics, a work ethic, and natural law. We have become so immersed in Political Correctness that at times it is difficult to recognize it, especially when it is coached in terms of fairness, justice, compassion, charity.
The brainwashing has worked so well that most people stumble around thinking that they are being "polite" or "enlightened" while they are practicing cultural suicide.