Comment by superfist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by superfist | Hacker News Reader

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Basically International Relations Theory ignores something you can call "Theory of Civilisations". There is a lot of such theories but most of them are one sided. We can quickly distinguish few groups:

Biological theories - in such theories biology is key factor. For example: scientific racism (Arthur de Gobineau), Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer), or theories where you treat civilisations like a living organism that always have to go through 3 phases: youth/development, adulthood/prosperity, senility/decline (for example Oswald Spengler theory).

Economical theories - economy as key factor. For example: Liberalism, Marxism, etc. Right now those theories are very popular, a lot of people assume that there is actually one big human civilisation and differences are just in economic level of each country/region/group.

Ideological theories - ideology/religion as key factor. Examples: Christianity, Islam, Freemasonry, Cultural Marxism, etc.

There were also attempts to merge all of those aspects: Toynbee, Koneczny (someone mention his work in one of the comments), Huntington (personally I think he ineptly copied Koneczny work).

Because of Pax Americana after WWII most people start belive that liberal democracy and capitalism was finall destination of all civilisations (Fukuyama famous book: "End of history"). But right now with rise of China and their model of state/economy/politics people start looking for much broader theories.

> Cultural Marxism

For what it's worth, unlike Christianity, Islam, Freemasonry, etc. there is no such thing as 'cultural marxism'. The modern usage seems to be as a catch-all term used by (literal) fascists and fascist-associated groups for literally any progressive or postmodern viewpoint, but in addition usually has the connotations of 'cultural perversion' and 'conspiracy'. Prior usage seems to be to describe an anti-semitic conspiracy theory (that is in part related to modern usage), and the term as a whole dates back to when it was coined by the German Nazi Party ("Cultural Bolshevism" - Kulturbolschewismus) to describe modernist art movements that they thought were 'degenerative'.

Rational Wiki's second description is incredibly descriptive:

""""Cultural Marxism" (both uppercase) is a common snarl word used to paint anyone with progressive tendencies as a secret Communist. The term alludes to a conspiracy theory in which sinister left-wingers have infiltrated media, academia, and science and are engaged in a decades-long plot to undermine Western culture. Some variants of the conspiracy allege that basically all of modern social liberalism is, in fact, a Communist front group."""

See:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marx...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Bolshevism

Okay, so the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" wasn't Marxist? And what about the many, many scholars who tried to understand culture using a Marxist, historically-materialist analysis, e.g. in Britain? Just because "Cultural Marxism" was picked up as a label by conspiracy theorists, doesn't mean that nothing like it exists in the real world.

The people understanding culture using Marxist theory, would be using Marxist Dialectic, not "Cultural Marxism".

I just gave you list of example theories without any value function, conspiracy theories are also theories smartie. Using 'conspiracy' in front of it mean that you already judge them.

You fatally misunderstood my comment, and continue to misunderstand my responses. I know someone who would consider this in and of itself, a hostile act. I however, do not.

My point wasn't that Marxism as a whole does not exist, as you seem to have replied. My point was that "Cultural Marxism" specifically does not exist, and is literally neo-nazi propaganda.

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