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Comment by etplayer | Hacker News Reader

>Classical communism was also aimed at replacing the existing structure.

No it wasn't (and no it isn't), it's aimed at abolishing the class structure.

>There are people who don't like the current structure and aim to replace it. How is this a conspiracy?

GP is referring to "cultural Marxism" being a conspiracy, and it is, not that Communists want to replace the class structure. The "cultural Marxism" conspiracy theory posits that there is a group of people who want to destroy Western society. This is false. It relies on the idea that at some point Marxists changed to thinking in terms of gender or race rather than class - this is also false and lacking in evidence as GP also noted. The Wikipedia section really is a good overview of it.

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> No it wasn't (and no it isn't), it's aimed at abolishing the class structure.

So it was aimed at replacing the existing structure...

> The "cultural Marxism" conspiracy theory posits that there is a group of people who want to destroy Western society.

How is this a conspiracy theory? There are people on the fringe left (and fringe right) who want to do exactly that. They wouldn't necessarily phrase it that way, but what they advocate for would accomplish that as a side effect. If the conspiracy theory is that these people are everywhere, then sure, but that such people exist is in no way a conspiracy theory.

> It relies on the idea that at some point Marxists changed to thinking in terms of gender or race rather than class - this is also false and lacking in evidence as GP also noted.

That is precisely what intersectional feminism is about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality#Marxist-femi...

>So it was aimed at replacing the existing structure...

If I told you that I'd be replacing your broken windshield, would you understand that I'd be simply removing your windshield and not putting anything in its place?

>There are people on the fringe left (and fringe right) who want to do exactly that.

I should have been more specific; the group which is accused of being "cultural Marxists" includes the Frankfurt School which did nothing you describe nor expounded any intention to. Of course they exist, but the people accused of being those people who exist are not those people.

>That is precisely what intersectional feminism is about.

That's true, though it does little to hold for Peterson's argument that "Marxists" in general have moved to such a position, or have mutated class theory rather than simply adding to it. Marxists, orthodox and otherwise, still think in terms of class.

> If I told you that I'd be replacing your broken windshield, would you understand that I'd be simply removing your windshield and not putting anything in its place?

That's not how societies work. You cannot have no social structure anymore than a person can have "no age". You can try to create a flat social structure, but that's still a social structure (and not a stable one, obviously).

> That's true, though it does little to hold for Peterson's argument that "Marxists" in general have moved to such a position, or have mutated class theory rather than simply adding to it. Marxists, orthodox and otherwise, still think in terms of class.

Intersectional feminism certainly seems to be by the most popular strand today. Of course some old school Marxists still exist.

>You cannot have no social structure anymore than a person can have "no age"

Class is not equal to social structure; when Marxists talk about classes they refer to economic power relations, as in, there is no group of people with majority or exclusive control over the main social means of production. This is in contrast to today in which the social means of production are owned almost entirely by the bourgeoisie, as in, the capitalist class, which employs wage labour.

In higher stage Communism, there is free association of people and the method that may be chosen would likely be decentralised direct-democratic councils with random or rotating delegates.

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