Meaning of cultural Marxism | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Marxist analysis applied to culture and cultural phenomena.
   Marxism, uncountable
2. A form of Marxism perceived as subsumed by capitalism and thus as unauthentic by its critics (usually other Marxists).
   Marxism, uncountable
3. Umbrella term for the idea, in right-wing conspiracy theories, of a Marxism that controls modern progressive politics, mass media, and academia, typically with the purported goal of deconstructing Western civilization.
   uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Both cultural Marxism and symbolic anthropology can, in retrospect, be seen to be part of a general movement towards the 'linguistic turn' within the humanities, with its focus upon the semiotic dimensions of human culture (the subject of the next chapter).”

“Nothing illustrates Orwell's ambivalence towards cultural Marxism more powerfully than his writings on literature.”

“A student of youth subcultures, Hall crossbred the increasingly influential cultural Marxism, exemplified by E. P. Thompson, with the French structuralism of the anthropologist Claude LéviStrauss, which burst onto the intellectual scene in the 1960s and soon enjoyed international prestige.”

“These people have certainly done their homework when it comes to cultural Marxism—how the left has learned to dominate culture and how the right now needs to copy their techniques. If I’d had to drink a shot every time some speaker cited Herbert Marcuse or Antonio Gramsci, I’d be dead of alcohol poisoning.”

“She said: “We are engaging in many battles right now. As Conservatives we are engaged in a battle against cultural Marxism, where banning things is becoming de rigueur, where freedom of speech is becoming a taboo, where our universities – quintessential institutions of liberalism – are being shrouded in censorship and a culture of no-platforming.””

“A Conservative MP has claimed the UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.”

CEFR level