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The fall of Soviet communism established the tenets of cultural Marxism, as the means to gain political power in the West. These series of revamped Marxist theoretical premises and strategies began in the 1920s, had a revival in the 1960s, and were formally consecrated by the world’s radical left in 1989. Florida, under the leadership of Gov. Ron DeSantis, has led the resistance to roll back this Neo-Marxist assault.
For clarity, cultural Marxism (or Neo-Marxism) is the revised adaptation of Marxist thought and praxis outside the Soviet Union following the falsification of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ predications after World War I, by an important group of Marxist intellectuals. The need to rescue “Marxism”, as Engels coined their version of “scientific socialism”, was because the key elements that underpinned this ideology were disproved by events. Among those that attempted to salvage Marxism, were the Hungarian, György Lukács, the Italian, Antonio Gramsci, and the Germans, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse. The German group is known as the Frankfurt School.
The common denominator among all these thinkers and activists was the element of impacting “culture” as the principal mode of societal transformation. Each focused on specific angles yet retained cultural determinism as the true driving force of change, as opposed to economic relations, as Marx/Engels originally claimed. Some in the left are irked by the description of “cultural” Marxism and have emotionally challenged its rigor. The overarching weight of culture, however, as the seminal factor in Marxism’s conflict theory, which is the basis of all these relevant Marxist proponents, eviscerates any opposition to this classification. Leftism’s objection to this technical understanding becomes a petty rant or a strategic maneuver to confine to stealth appearance.
Gender Ideology (GI) is a comprehensive belief system that surges from the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory (CT) ideological workshop. It argues against one’s sex determined biologically. GI proposes that “gender” is culturally constricted. This delirious, unscientific worldview would delegate a person’s sex, to the realm of one’s perception. In other words, what would be whatever sex a person “feels” or “imagines” that they are. Postmodernism, the current predominating intellectual framework that took root as of the1950s, was stacked with influential adherents of Marxism. Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault, the French Marxists who stewarded postmodernism, were adamant disciples of cultural Marxism, particularly the German communist’s Critical Theory rationalizations.
Thus, it was only a matter of time before GI took hold of the primary schooling educational system. College and university level institutions have since the 1970s been inundated with CT-driven grievance studies courses. Within the last decade and a half, a strenuous campaign to undermine the nuclear family has utilized the primary public school system to promote cultural Marxist dogmas. GI and Critical Race Theory, another CT branch that concentrates is conflict premise on race relations, have been the main indoctrinating agents in America’s elementary, middle and high schools.
Florida scored a big win for parents, civil society, and freedom by signing into law the Parental Rights in Education on March 28, 2022. Said legislation would prohibit the promotion of GI toxicity to children in grades K-3 on gender identity and sexual orientation. Florida’s law achieves some basic objectives. It stops the sexualization of minors. Parents are recognized as having primacy over the sexual education of their children and not teachers’ unions or school boards, which have become hotbeds of leftist activism. This establishes a fundamental precedent for the U.S.
In 1919, György Lukács, whom some consider the father of cultural Marxism, was Minister of Culture in the short-spanned Hungarian Soviet Republic (March-August). The Hungarian communist codified sexual education and quasi-GI curriculum material for primary school children. Lukács idea, just as today’s proponents of cultural Marxist indoctrination in America’s schools, was to destroy the family, Christian morals, and institutions that challenge radical social engineering.
The architects of this subversive scheme disguise their formula as that of promoting “equality” for certain fringe sectors of society. Yet, existing civil rights legislation, as well as the Constitution, already safeguard their freedoms. This is not about liberty or equality. It is a power grab. Florida, as we have become accustomed to, is spearheading America’s revival.
Julio M Shiling, political scientist, writer, director of Patria de Martí and The Cuban American Voice, lecturer and media commentator. A native of Cuba, he currently lives in the United States. Twitter: @JulioMShiling // Julio es politólogo, escritor, director de Patria de Martí y The Cuban American Voice. Conferenciante y comentarista en los medios. Natural de Cuba, vive actualmente en EE UU.