Who's Afraid of "Cultural Marxism"?
“Cultural Marxism,” that neat conspiracy theory that aims to ridicule anyone who isn’t convinced today’s “World Economy” is an organic and beautiful expression of human nature.
Leia em português (BR) aqui.
The Red Scare is back, at least in Trump fueled Brazil. Earlier this month, G&R published its first book in Brazilian Portuguese and the responses reveal what our President has already made clear: there is widespread rage and terror about communism. In this piece, I’ll discuss how anti-capitalism has been reduced to a fury-inducing thoughtless trend, and no, it won’t consist of “ok, boomer” jokes (just this one).
There are widespread misconceptions about how Marxism exists in people’s lives. I don’t mean delusion about what the ideology stands for, but about the role it plays in the lives of people who identify as Marxist, or have a vague interest in the topic. This brings us to “Cultural Marxism,” that neat conspiracy theory that aims to ridicule anyone who isn’t convinced today’s “World Economy” is an organic and beautiful expression of human nature. On the other hand, this also brings us to communist dogma, which can’t imagine class consciousness being expressed outside a Stalinist or Maoist model. While one side blames the poor for society’s ills, the other blames Pagans, alongside black liberation and LGBTQ movements, for using “identity politics” to divide the working class (with the financial help of the Ford Foundation).
In the comment section of the post for our Pagan Marxist book, both of the groups mentioned above made a passionate encounter. Or as the book’s translator Thiago Sá pointed out: “Look! Bolsonarism and Orthodox Marxism have met and made out.”
The Red-scared believe one simple thing: communism = socialism = leftism. All three are one ideology, while Capitalism is not one at all. “Free market” is nothing more than a natural structure that honestly and consistently rewards hard work. Ideology, on the other hand, was forced into people’s brains and spreads like a virus. Someone said that it’s Satanic, but less funny versions of it come up claiming those “infected” should be exiled, tortured, assaulted, or exterminated. The rage is intrinsically connected to the terror, a rage against that which will take away what we are most terrified of losing: our safe and comfortable lives.
No one lives completely safe and comfortable lives, not even the rich. They are still people, who occasionally struggle with the overwhelming weight of existence. Most importantly, the wealthy need to cope with the misery their hoard of wealth creates. Their advantage is having an immense amount of resources to help with that. Is this what we are trying to protect? The elaborate ways in which we cope with the alienation and misery that surround us?
What is seen as the thoughtlessness behind anti-capitalism is the rejection of all the wonderful things Capitalism gives us. We must be brainwashed because we clearly aren’t conscious of what a world without Capitalism actually looks like, and how much we would hate it. Those who think that are right, I haven’t experienced a Capitalism-free environment. Even in the middle of the forest, I get there wearing industrially-made shoes which probably caused pollution and exploitation. That’s part of the problem. Are they conscious of how hateful the current system is? And even so, are we expected to accept not having a choice?
“[W]ho’s afraid of the big bad wolf . . . who’s afraid of living life without false illusions”
-Edward Albee, writer of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
The classically-Red are also angry and scared. Anyone who doesn’t identify exclusively as working class infuriates them. They are a threat to the centralized State power that orthodox communists “need” in order to be successful against Capitalist States. That is, the centralized power they’ve seen work before in Russia, China and Cuba. Just as Capitalism isn’t an ideology while Communism is, ‘proletariat’ isn’t an identity while ‘black,’ ‘queer,’ ‘indigenous,’ ‘female,’ and ‘Pagan’ certainly are. And these identities “serve no purpose other than to confuse the youth” for capitalist purposes.
To orthodox communists, Pagan ‘identity’ is particularly infuriating, because it’s fundamentally incompatible with the notoriously atheist person named Karl Marx. However, even Marx acknowledged the potential spirituality had as a tool for anti-capitalist resistance; he didn’t see it as a tool used against workers, but as a tool of endurance that came from them. Let’s also consider that in the 19th century, ‘religion’ meant the Church and anything else was barely considered human. It was Stalin and Mao who demanded atheism as communist State policy, while enslaved Africans were being ‘granted’ ‘freedom’ only out of convenience. It’s great that we’ve been inspired by Hegel’s ideas on how to overcome the master-slave dialectic, but if we were to be fundamentalists about Hegel’s texts the way some are about Marx’s, we would still be discussing Africans’ right to history and Freedom (which, by the way, was not something Marx made a point to critique about ‘the old man’).
Olavo de Carvalho and Steve Bannon.
Many Soviet monuments exist in the form of political parties and movements, and our community isn’t one of those. Today, Brazil’s president represents the modern version of the CIA financed dictatorship in the 60s, which is also a monument of this period (but a living one from the side that won). Olavo de Carvalho, the “Brazilian Steve Bannon,” has a massive following as the leading intellectual responsible for restoring integrity to the far-right dictatorship-deniers. We couldn’t be further away from that as well.
If we don’t want to be a part of this dichotomy, what do we want?
We want to be able to have lives that respect our relationship with the Earth and the Wild. In the Westernized societies we live in, Capitalism and Christianity are responsible for yanking out human existence from Nature. We have burned, paved and sterilized our way to self-destruction. The reconstruction depends on the destruction of Capitalism, and this can’t happen without profound spiritual and emotional shifts in all of us. Spiritual and emotional shifts are personal; they can’t be distributed or consumed, and they certainly can’t be deposited in a voting booth. Each person has their own needs and wants, and their own way to reconnect with them. We are a platform where people can share their processes, and connect to an international solidarity network.
Mirna Wabi-Sabi
is a writer, political theorist, teacher and translator. She is an editor at Gods&Radicals, founder of the Enemy of the Queen megazine and of the Plataforma 9 media collective. Her work orbits around Capitalism, White Supremacy and Patriarchy, and the proposals involve resistance to Eurocentrism and Western Imperialism.