DOI: 10.1111/rec3.

12258

ARTICLE

Cultural Marxism: A survey

Jérôme Jamin

Universite de Liège
Abstract
Correspondence
Jamin Jérôme, Universite de Liège, Political This paper examines Cultural Marxism as a regular theory in social
Science, Quartier Agora place des Orateurs 3, sciences with its own history, and as a global conspiracy theory. It
Liège 4000, Belgium. tries to locate and identify the exact moment the theory changed
Email: jerome.jamin@uliege.be
itself from a regular and well‐known knowledge in the field of cul-
tural studies towards a key element used in multiple books and arti-
cles to explain the so‐called destruction of Western traditions and
values. This paper also scrutinizes various usages of this conspiracy
theory in politics, which is found more commonly within radical
groups' speeches, rather than in mainstream conservative rhetoric's.

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N

Cultural Marxism and the Frankfurt School have been studied in multiple ways by academics for decades. This paper
suggests that a specific interpretation of Cultural Marxism opens today a new area of research for those who study
conspiracy theories. In concrete terms, next to the history of Cultural Marxism as a well‐documented theory, devel-
oped by Marxist scholars and thinkers within cultural studies from the 1930s, another theory has emerged during
the 1990s, and is particularly influential on radical forms of right wing politics. It claims that the main goal of Cultural
Marxism was much less honorable than merely academic research trying to understand the cultural dynamics of cap-
italism, and to many, it is seen as a dangerous ideology that has sought “to destroy Western traditions and values.1”
Since the 1990s, this particular interpretation has been promoted through a literature mixing conspiracy theories, aca-
demic sources, and conservative political stances. This literature has had its own life in some specific circles, reviews,
and websites, moving beyond individual nations and languages, and is now quite independent of Cultural Marxism as a
well‐known theory linked to the Frankfurt School.
To better understand the dynamics of this conspiratorial discourse on Cultural Marxism, it is worth highlighting
that there are two kinds of attitudes that can be taken towards conspiracies. On the one hand, some developments
in history can indeed sometimes be driven via hidden plots and even conspiracies. Recognizing this does not mean
scholars, independent analysts, or journalists working on them believe in all conspiracy theories. But on the other
hand, there are those who believe in conspiracy theories as general explanations that gives history its “tempo,” and
so are used to explain all major developments. From this standpoint, conspiracy theories become a credible and effi-
cient ways to understand the world as a whole, and their promoters claim they should be a priority in mind when try-
ing to understand all social and political phenomenon.
Many different levels exist between these two positions. It is not easy to say, and it is not the goal of this paper to
say, where and when some authors cross the border even if within this dynamic, there is a real competition between
scholars who study conspiracy theories and claim to produce a legitimate knowledge, and authors of conspiracy

Religion Compass. 2018;12:e12258. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/rec3 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1 of 12
https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12258
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theories who do not trust the academic literature or believe it is necessary to go beyond. Next to this competition
between Groups 1 and 2, since conspiracies exist, we will consider there is a continuity between both sides: the more
one feels at ease with Group 1, one's analysis relies on facts and demonstrations to take into account some specific
plots in some specific contexts; the more one veers towards Group 2, one's analysis relies on interpretation and sus-
picion, and will take into account perceived national or even global conspiracies.
In its book, A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, Michael Barkun offers a tool to
break down how people travel between these two poles, while also recognizing areas of continuity. He breaks down
into a table (below) four types of actors behind conspiracy theories, a model that helps understand the specificity of
Cultural Marxism as a conspiracy theory. As it can be seen, the more conspiracy theories move from Box A to D, the
more they become about interpretation, and less about disagreement on facts.

Hidden activity Non‐hidden activity

Hidden actor A B
Non‐hidden actor C D

In Box A, for example, one can put the Illuminati to illustrate a secret group with a secret plan to organize a secret
activity. The “Order of the Illuminati” was an Enlightenment‐age secret society that has been founded by a university
professor, Adam Weishaupt, in Bavaria, Germany, during the year 1776. It was banned in 1784 (McConnachie &
Tudge, 2008, pp. 93–94). Through secret meetings, their members arose from Masonic Lodges and were advocates
of free thought, republicanism, secularism, liberalism, and gender equality. Today, the Illuminati are considered as
the architects of the French Revolution in numerous conspiracy theories. With this example, one can see a clear dis-
cordance between conspiracy theorists' works and the literature on the French Revolution produced by scholars and
historians. The first study the French Revolution mainly through history as a permanent plot, and the Illuminati as a
very powerful secret order; the second study it by handling multiple facts and sources in order to create a hierarchy
between different interpretations.
In Box B, meanwhile, “Hidden actor” with a “Non‐hidden activity,” one can identify lobbies, think tanks, NGOs,
and associations with a legal existence and an official activity who are suspected to be led by hidden people with a
hidden agenda. Among other groups, here, there are anti‐fascist and human rights associations that can be accused
of being controlled by Jewish groups to discredit far right speech and nationalist agendas more generally. For example,
former French Front National leader Jean‐Marie Le Pen used to see the hands of the “masonic lobby” and the “Jewish
community” behind human rights activism (Jamin, 2013, pp. 258–259). In Box B, the activity and the name of the actor
behind it are not hidden, but the true instigators are not the official one.
In Box C, “Non‐hidden actor” with a “Hidden activity,” there are national or international groups with an
official and legal existence, a webpage, and sometimes a list of members. The hidden activity is suspected by
conspiracy theorists in relation with the opacity behind the official goals and the official reports released by
these actors in their public relations. Among others in this category, there are international groups like The Tri-
lateral Commission and Bilderberg Meetings, or public actors such as the CIA, the NSA in the United States. All
of these groups develop a lot of energy to appear transparent through newsletters, publications, and media
strategies, but conspiracy theorists suggest, at the same time, this extreme visibility is used to hide something
else. Freemasonry also fits Box C, as it has a legal existence with legal status. Obediences and sometimes
Lodges have their own websites, and it is easy to find an abundant literature in libraries, bookstores, or on
the Internet. But at the same time, multiple conspiracy theories try to demonstrate that what is happening in
the Temple is not exactly what is said in the official communication. Among others, it is important to mention
a famous conspiracy theory that argues Lodges are under the control of Jews and Freemasons are not even
aware of this influence (Goldschläger & Lemaire, 2005).
Finally, Cultural Marxism, as explained below, should be put in Box D, gathering non‐hidden actors having a non‐
hidden activity. In many ways, there are no major disagreements on the Frankfurt School between academic scholars
JAMIN 3 of 12

such as historians and conspiracy theorists. Nevertheless, the competition between scholars who study conspiracy
theories and claim to produce a legitimate knowledge, and authors of conspiracy theories who do not trust the aca-
demic literature, is not as clear in this specific case than it is with other examples in Box A, B, or C. The discordance
appears at two important levels. First, in the interpretation of the true will of the School's leaders: “Did they really plan
to do what they have done?” Second, on the consequences the School had on Western values in both Europe and the
United States: “Is the destruction of Western values a reality?” Cultural Marxist conspiracy theorists and scholars of
the Frankfurt School diverge in their interpretations of these types of questions.
To help explore this, scholars concerned with facts and conspiracy theorists tend to differ on the size of the
group's influence. Do they group talk about some specific developments in some specific contexts, or do they group
talks about national or even global conspiracies. This distinction matters. It means identifying and focusing on the
ways conspiracy theories reduce complex historical facts to a systematic global plot. American historian Richard
Hofstadter was pioneer on this point. Writing in Hofstadter (1966, p. 6), he stressed “there is a big difference between
the localization of a plot at a specific moment on a specific context, and considering the whole of history is just a con-
spiracy.” More recently, Goldschläger and Lemaire (2005, p. 7) has shared this point of view, writing “Plots exists, ‘the’
plot doesn't exist.2”
This also raises the issue of how “global” a conspiracy theory becomes. Global conspiracy theories gives multiple
answers to frightening questions in a complex world. It is an attempt to formulate a new explanation where previous
ones have failed. With the idea that only a few people are organizing a vast, global conspiracy, according to Raoul
Girardet, “all facts, whatever are their causes, are gathered, in a hard‐and‐fast logic, in a unique causality, as much fun-
damental as all‐powerful.” Girardet also stresses that everything can be seen to happen as if “an interpretative plat-
form was established, in which could be inserted all events of the present, including the most scary and the most
disconcerting events.3” This leads Girardet (1986, pp. 54–55) to conclude that “destiny will become understandable,
and a certain kind of rationality, at least some coherence, will tend to re‐establish itself within the disconcerting evo-
lution of things.” As will be demonstrated below, these qualities can be found in those who talk of Cultural Marxism as
a conspiracy theory.
In the chapter “A Poor Person's cognitive mapping” in Conspiracy Nation edited by Peter Knight, Fran Mason
(2002, pp. 43–44) makes a similar point, stating

Every conspiracy theory provides a narrative to legitimate its account of contemporary society, offering a
view of how things got to be as they are. Conspiracy theory provides archaeology in narrative form,
locating causes and origins of the conspiracy, piecing together events, connecting random occurrences to
organize a chronology or sequence of sorts, and providing revelations and denouements by detailing the
conspiracy's plans for the future. Narrative provides a form of mapping for conspiracy theory, offering
not only an explanatory history but also a map of the future that is to come.

Again, projecting into the future, based on a selective reading of past events, is a quality manifest on Cultural
Marxism conspiracy theories.
With these issues in mind, this paper will now examine the origins and development of Cultural Marxism, and
identify its own vision of how cultural forms are considered “in relation to their production, their imbrications with
society and history, and their impacts and influences on audiences and social life” (Kellner, 2013, p. 1). This section
of the paper will look at Cultural Marxism as a theory that has own its history, its authors, and its academic argu-
ments. Then it will pay attention to Cultural Marxism as a global conspiracy theory, using essentially interpreta-
tions and suspicions according to Barkun, Hofstadter, Goldschläger and Lemaire, Girardet and Mason. It will try
to illustrate with quotations and specific pieces of literature how, from a regular and well‐known knowledge in
the field of cultural studies, Cultural Marxism became a key element used in multiple books and articles to explain
the so‐called “destruction of Western traditions and values.” Finally, it will scrutinize a few recent usages of this
conspiracy theory which is found more commonly within conservative and radical groups' speeches, rather than in
mainstream's rhetoric.
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2 | CULTURAL MARXISM AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Cultural Marxism, and Critical Theory more generally with which it has a close signification, have both a direct link
with the Frankfurt School and its Marxian theorists. Initially called the “Institute for Social Research” during the
1930s, and taking the label the “Frankfurt School” by the 1950s, the designation meant as much an academic environ-
ment as a geographical location. As Christian Bouchindhomme puts it in its entry devoted to “Critical Theory” in
Raynaud and Rials' Dictionnaire de philosophie politique, the Frankfurt School has been more a label than a school, even
if it referred to a real academic environment:

The German University system allows, through the principle of appointment by call (Ruf), teachers and
researchers having affinities to work in a same university in order to arouse a movement—sometimes
short‐lived—called “School” following the example of the neo‐Kantian “Schools” of the nineteen century
… As it is, this school has enjoyed a growing prestige to the extent that it offers previously unseen means
to young intellectuals to face the problems met by the young Federal republic (translated from
Bouchindhomme, Raynaud & Rials, 1996, pp.681–682).

Launched by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, both Marxian philosophers and sociologists, the Frankfurt
“School” had many famous members, such as Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Franz Neumann,
and Jürgen Habermas, who was the assistant of Theodor Adorno. During the 1930s, with the growing influence of
National Socialism, the founders of the Frankfurt School decided to move the Institute out of the country, first in
Geneva, and then to New York City in 1935.
From a philosophical point of view, Cultural Marxism, as Critical Theory, considers culture as something that
needs to be studied within the system and the social relations through which it is produced, and then carried by
the people. So, according to Kellner (2013, p. 10), the “analysis of culture is intimately bound up with the study of soci-
ety, politics, and economics.” This theory means that the culture does not have an autonomous life next to the daily
concrete lives of individuals and their social relations. It also states that, as a consequence, cultures are built to help
the dominance of powerful and ruling social groups. Within the Marxist tradition, which sees dominant ideology as
the ideology of the bourgeoisie to control the proletariat and the working class, Cultural Marxism considers cultures
and ideologies as inextricably linked to the economic, social, and political context: they are tools in the hands of the
powerful to control the people.
According to Kellner, “Ideologies appear natural, they seem to be common sense, and are thus often invisible and
elude criticism” (p. 1). Cultural Marxism and Critical Theory denounce this fake appearance, and stimulate a deep, crit-
ical analysis of the production of cultures and ideologies within our societies. According to Brenkman, humanity “pro-
duces and reproduces itself through the totality of activities by which it transforms nature into human reality.” The
transformation includes three elements: first, “the production of material goods for the satisfaction of human needs”;
second, “the production and reproduction of social relations”; and third, “the production of symbolic interactions and
expressive forms.” (Brenkman, 1983, p. 21) In this context, culture is part of the third element, and so the main ques-
tions for Critical Theory are: how to interpret the relation of culture with the first and the second element? And what
is the potential independency of culture regarding them? Ultimately, Cultural Marxism, as Critical Theory, refers to a
part of cultural studies focusing on the “built” dimension of culture, and new ways to act, to affect, and to influence its
substance.
Cultural Marxism thus strengthens the arsenal of cultural studies by providing critical and political perspectives
that enable individuals to dissect the meanings, messages, and effects of dominant cultural forms. Cultural studies
can become part of a critical media pedagogy that enables individuals to resist media manipulation and increase their
freedom and individuality. It can empower people to gain sovereignty over their culture, and to be able to struggle for
alternative cultures and political change. Cultural studies is thus not simply another academic trend, but can be part of
a struggle for a better society and a better life (Kellner, 2013, p. 15).
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As a consequence, by “struggling” for a better society and a better life, and by “struggling” against a monolithic
culture that serves domination of men over women, patriarchy and exploitation of the working class by the elite, Cul-
tural Marxism can also be seen as a political weapon inside the academic field. As the University of Frankfurt was one
of the first universities to take advantage of the opportunity to let professors and researchers with common interests
gather, the Frankfurt School became, decades later, a “threat” for different conspiracy theories. In one way or another,
these theories claimed Adorno, Horkheimer, and their disciples were trying to destroy Western culture in order to
build a world without god, traditions, history, and values.

3 | CULTURAL MARXISM AS A CONSPIRACY THEORY

If Cultural Marxism, as a school of thought, dates from the 1930s, Cultural Marxism, as a conspiracy theory, has
appeared in conservative and radical American literature from the beginning of the 1990s. It has been regularly
expressed in articles published in confidential journals, some of which have either ceased to exist or are no longer pub-
lished. When consulting these numerous texts addressing Cultural Marxism, it appears that they all draw on the same
set of core texts, as it is often the case in the blogosphere where multiple websites refer to each other, giving the
appearance of a huge literature but using at the end only a few common sources.4
This can be seen when examining the following texts: Michael Minnicino's (1992) article “The Frankfurt School
and ‘Political Correctness’” in Fidelio magazine5; Gerald Atkinson's (1999) article entitled “What is the Frankfurt School
(and its effect on America)?” on the informational website Western Voices World News6; William Lind's (2000) article
“The Origins of Political Correctness” on the website of the conservative institute, Accuracy in Academia, and taken
from different conferences held in 2000 by the same organization7; John Fonte's (2000) article “Why there is a culture
war” in a “policy review” by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University8; a multi‐authored work called “Political Cor-
rectness: A Short History of an Ideology” published by the Free Congress Foundation in November 2004 under the
editorship of William Lind (2004); and finally, a shorter and more recent article by William Lind (2009), “The roots
of political correctness” on the website of The American Conservative magazine.9
William Lind's multi‐authored work is, without a doubt, the most complete, most often cited, and the most
commented on among the core texts we mentioned before, it has been unanimously cited as “the” reference since
2004.10 In his chapter in this volume, entitled “What is ‘Political Correctness’?” William Lind, a military expert and
intellectual conservative, evokes the all‐powerful nature of a new state ideology in the United States. He called this
“Political Correctness,” and immediately associates it with Cultural Marxism, that is to say what he calls “Marxism
translated from economic into cultural terms” (Lind, 2004, p. 5). This was a transfer initially undertaken by the leaders
of the Frankfurt School. Lind draws many parallels between classic (economically based) Marxism and what he calls
Cultural Marxism. He explains that both aim to create a class‐less society and so are both totalitarian ideologies. This
point is crystalized in comments such as “The totalitarian nature of Political Correctness can be seen on campuses
where ‘PC’ has taken over the college: freedom of speech, of the press, and even of thought are all eliminated” (Lind,
2004, p. 6). For Lind, the two “Marxisms” rely on one founding reason for explaining history: Economic Marxism
stresses that history is determined by “ownership of the means of production”; Cultural Marxism “says that history
is wholly explained by which groups—defined by sex, race and sexual normality or abnormality—have power over
which other groups” (Lind, 2004, p. 6). Furthermore, explains Lind, the two Marxisms “declare certain groups virtuous
and other evil a priori.” Classical Marxism “defines workers and peasants as virtuous and the bourgeoisie (the middle
class) and other owners of capital as evil.” Political Correctness and Cultural Marxism “defines blacks, Hispanics, Fem-
inist women, homosexuals and some additional minority groups as virtuous and white men as evil” (Lind, 2004, p. 6).
Finally, Lind considers that the two Marxisms are characterized by their expropriation. Economic Marxism aims to
expropriate the wealthy and bourgeois; Cultural Marxism punishes, through heavy fines and by unjust laws, anything
that does not adhere to the new ideology. Lind cites affirmative action (“positive discrimination”) in the United States
as a means among numerous others to favor the so‐called “virtuous” minorities to the detriment of White men. (Lind,
6 of 12 JAMIN

2004, p. 6). Lind concludes that if economic Marxism is “dead” and discredited, Cultural Marxism has taken its place.
Moreover, although the “medium” has changed, the message remains the same: the necessity of “a society of radical
egalitarianism enforced by the power of the state” (p. 6).
Cribb Jr (2009), a former advisor to President Ronald Reagan, in the chapter entitled “Political Correctness in
higher education” describes the fear which has allegedly overrun university campuses under the name of political cor-
rectness and the fight against homophobia, sexism, and racism. From discrimination in hiring or in enrollment in the
name of multiculturalism, to conservative newspapers being stolen, destroyed, or burned by “activists,” and the impo-
sition of language conventions so as to avoid harming minorities, Cribb describes an academic context wherein pro-
fessors who are judged to be too conservative or simply in favor of the army are refused promotions; where male
workers find themselves hounded by feminist activists; and where, in the end, ultra‐politicized academics indoctrinate
their students in the name of the cult of egalitarianism, based on a destructive relativism, all of which is the fruit of the
ideological influence of the Frankfurt School.
To give another example, in “What is the Frankfurt School (and its Effect on America)?” an article which would
later influence the presidential candidate Pat Buchanan in his book The Death of the West, Atkinson explains:

Didn't America win the Cold War against the spread of communism? The answer is a resounding “yes, BUT.”
We won the 55‐year Cold War but, while winning it abroad, we have failed to understand that an
intellectual elite has subtly but systematically and surely converted the economic theory of Marx to
culture in American society. And they did it while we were busy winning the Cold War abroad. They
introduced “cultural Marxism” into the mainstream of American life over a period of thirty years, while
our attention was diverted elsewhere (Atkinson, 1999).

As a global conspiracy theory reducing multiple facts in a single explanation, Cultural Marxism refers to a specific
vision of the end of the Cold War. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Communist threat disappeared, and yet, only a
few years later, there emerged a literature claiming that the fight was still not over, and in many ways, the threat had
passed from economic to the cultural arena. According to the analysis, the former “proletarians” who needed saving
from capitalism made way for the new “proletarians”: women, LGBT minorities, ethnic minorities, and immigrants.
They must defend themselves against the “White man” with new weapons, such as the fight against racism, sexism,
male chauvinism. This struggles, which Lind regroups under “politically correct,” is deemed nothing other than a
thought control capable of suppressing everything that is not thought or spoken “correctly.”
Atkinson also explains that, when the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, most members of the Frankfurt
School fled to the United States, where they joined major universities and influenced approaches to teaching in these
institutions.11 Despite differences in style and tone employed by various authors who contributed to “Political Cor-
rectness: A Short History of an Ideology,” the majority of its contributors also insisted that the Nazis were not
completely wrong to distrust these émigré Marxist intellectuals. They have been characterized as figures who were
not restricted in developing their profound influence on the values of young American university students, and
who showed neither respect nor consideration for the culture of their new home country.
Among the Marxist intellectuals, the most regularly cited as reflecting the membership of the School can be found
in Raehn's (2004) chapter “The historical roots of ‘Political Correctness’.” In particular, this chapter, again taken from
“Political Correctness: A Short History of an Ideology,” includes short biographies of Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci,
Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, and Max Horkheimer.
Beyond varieties of interpretations from one political group to the next in Europe and the United States,12 the
“battle” being undertaken to save “Western values” can be summarized in the following way: for those “fighting”
against Cultural Marxism, they see the idea revolving around the assertion that yesterday's Marxists would have a
very difficult time today finding “the proletariat” to support their revolutionary cause/goals. As a solution to this, in
order to regain public trust, Marxist must now extend their defense of the “proletariat” to the “new proletariat,”
who are now made up of women to be protected against “macho men”; foreigners protected from “racist nationals”;
homosexual people from “homophobes”; Humanists from “Christians”; juvenile delinquents against “violent and
JAMIN 7 of 12

aggressive police”; and so forth. Regarding strategy, the theory states that Cultural Marxists must accuse their ene-
mies of being racists, anti‐Semites, homophobes, fascists, Nazis, and conservative, which allows for the implementa-
tion of a “politically correct” language, and the banning of criticism of Cultural Marxism. As such, the ultimate goal of
Cultural Marxists, according to the conspiracy theory, is to discredit institutions such as the nation, the homeland, tra-
ditional hierarchies, authority, family, Christianity, traditional morality in favor of the emergence of an ultra‐egalitarian
and multicultural, rootless, and soulless global nation. As Raoul Girardet (1986, pp. 54–55) observed, with such a
global conspiracy theory, “all facts, whatever are their causes, are gathered, in a hard‐and‐fast logic, in a unique cau-
sality, as much fundamental as all‐powerful.”

4 | CULTURAL MARXISM TODAY: THE CASE OF BUCHANAN, BREIVIK,

TH E A U S T R A L I A N T E A P A R TY A N D T H E B R I TI S H NA T I O N A L P A R TY

For over two decades, forms of Cultural Marxism have appeared in multiple political discourses at the right of the
political spectrum. These range from traditional conservatism to the populist right to the extreme right. The conspir-
acy theory can also be found in many newspapers, blogs, and websites for political parties. While these various re‐
articulations share a close relationship with the American contexts described in the previous section, they have been
redeployed in ways that have legitimized ethno‐nationalist political parties, such as the British National Party, and
even terrorism.
The first famous appropriation of the theory in the early 2000s was made by Pat Buchanan. Columnist,
broadcaster, and influential staff member in the Nixon and Reagan Administrations, Buchanan has been a
long‐time and consistent voice of the right (Anti‐Defamation League, ), and also has been a candidate on multi-
ple occasions for President of the United States, in 1992, 1996, and 2000. Considered by some as a traditional
conservative, by others as a conservative populist, he has also been described as one of the leading figures of
paleo‐conservatism. Buchanan has repeatedly and clearly denounced what he considers the “ravages” of Cultural
Marxism. This “ideology” as it is characterized by Buchanan, is presented as a complex synthesis between Marx-
ism and materialism, secularism and atheism, individualism and egalitarianism, and, in economic terms, between
capitalism and communism. In his widely read book from 2002, called The Death of the West, Buchanan explains
how all this happened:

At Horkheimer's direction, the Frankfurt School began to retranslate Marxism into cultural terms. The old
battlefield manuals were thrown out, and new manuals were written. To old Marxists, the enemy was
capitalism; to new Marxists, the enemy was Western culture. […] To new Marxists, the path to power
was nonviolent and would require decades of patient labor. Victory would come only after Christian
beliefs had died in the soul of Western Man. And that would happen only after the institutions of culture
and education had been captured and conscripted by allies and agents of the revolution. […] For old and
new Marxists both, however, the definition of morality remained: what advances the revolution is moral,
what obstructs it is not. (…).

He also explains that

About this same time, music critic Theodor Adorno, psychologist Erich Fromm, and sociologist Wilhelm
Reich joined the Frankfurt School. But, in 1933, history rudely intruded. Adolf Hitler ascended to power
in Berlin, and as the leading lights of the Frankfurt School were Jewish and Marxist, they were not a
good fit for the Third Reich. The Frankfurt School packed its ideology and fled to America. Also
departing, was a graduate student by the name of Herbert Marcuse. With the assistance of Columbia
University, they set up their new Frankfurt School in New York City and redirected their talents and
energies to undermining the culture of the country that had given them refuge. (Buchanan, 2002, pp.
78–80).
8 of 12 JAMIN

Pat Buchanan has authored many books and articles decrying the “disappearance” of the West and the
undermining of its culture. With other conservative analysts such as Ted Baehr, Edward Griffin, Ron Paul, and Edwin
Vieira, he was also notably at the center of a 1‐hr film created by James Jaeger, called Cultural Marxism. The Corruption
of America, released in 2011. According to the film's official website, “Cultural Marxism explores the love affair with col-
lectivist ideologies that has lead to ever bigger government and the welfare‐warfare state.”13 The website also suggests

Find out how the Frankfurt School, a Marxist splinter group, established itself at Columbia University and
began ‘the long march through the institutions.’ The idea was, and still is, to infiltrate every corner of
Western culture and pervert traditional values with ‘political correctness’ and Marxist ideologies. The
ultimate goal is to destroy American free‐enterprise capitalism by undermining its economic engine, the
Middle Class and the basic building block of society, the family unit.14

The theory has taken different forms, including use as a justification for terrorism in Europe. With his murderous
attacks in July 2011 in Norway, as far as we can consider him as a “writer,”15 Anders Breivik has also drawn on the
works of authors who see the Frankfurt School, and its proponents, as the source and the cause of the erosion of
the West. His terrorist actions—a massacre leading to the deaths of 77 people—made his writings known thanks to
his simultaneous sharing of his manifesto with hundreds of like‐minded people via new media technology. The man-
ifesto highlights that Breivik too was driven by a perceived omnipresence of the threat of Cultural Marxism. A simple
word search shows that the term Cultural Marxism appears some 100 times in Breivik's manifesto 2083: A European
Declaration of Independence. The volume also begins with a section on the rise of Cultural Marxism/Multiculturalism in
Europe and in the West, and is followed by a section on the origins of Islamic colonization and the Islamization of
Europe and the West.
The manifesto's introduction and a now inactive internet link to the website of the Free Congress Foundation16
leave no doubt as to the literature consulted by Breivik when he was writing his text. Approximately, 27 pages of the
overall manuscript use, often without any cited reference, the different theses developed by William Lind's work that
was published by the Free Congress Foundation.17 The manifesto, says Breivik, is a “compilation of works by many
courageous individuals throughout the world,” even if none of these writers were directly solicited for practical and
for security reasons.
Next to Buchanan as the intellectual momentum, and Breivik as the violent impetus, political parties also use Cul-
tural Marxism. Among multiple examples, the Australian Tea Party, an attempt to export in Australia the movement
born in the United States, has integrated Cultural Marxism in its own analysis of the World. In an article called “What
is Cultural Marxism?” David Truman explains that “The Frankfurt School” with “Critical Theory” has launched the
destructive criticism of Western Culture, “including Christianity, Capitalism, Authority, The Family, Patriarchy, Moral-
ity, Tradition, Sexual restraint, Loyalty, Patriotism, Nationalism, Heredity, Ethno‐centrism, Conservatism.”18 To rein-
force its demonstration, Truman adds “Critical Theory repeats over and over this mantra of alleged Western evils:
Racism, Sexism, Colonialism, Nationalism, Homophobia, Fascism, Xenophobia, Imperialism, and of course Religious
Bigotry (only applied to Christianity).” As a consequence, “anyone who upholds traditional moral values and institu-
tions is both racist and fascist, and everyone raised in the traditions of God, family, patriotism or free markets needs
psychological help.” Truman's article also develops the theme of the hunt for “a new proletariat” as developed by Wil-
liam Lind and its co‐authors:

The Frankfurt School were frustrated at the persistent lack of interest by the Western working class in
revolt. Herbert Marcuse asked the question: Who could substitute for the working class as the agent of
revolution? His answer was: marginalized groups, including black militants, feminists, homosexual
militants, the asocial, the alienated and third world revolutionaries represented by the mass murderer
Che Guevara. (Truman, 2015)

Britain has also developed extreme right figures who have become concerned with Cultural Marxism, as demon-
strated by articles posted on the website of the ethno‐nationalist British National Party. The party's leader until 2014,
JAMIN 9 of 12

Nick Griffin, has spoken out many times on the Frankfurt School and its influence on Western Europe, notably in an
interview entitled “Understanding the Frankfurt School” posted on the party website.19 Moreover, multiple blog
entries by party activists on the BNP's website refer to the Frankfurt School and its influence, such as an unsigned
article published on July 13, 2012, titled “How to ruin a country? Part 2.” This webpage stated

Multiculturalism is an alternative to the homogeneous national state and seeks to replace it by overcoming
and eventually destroying national cultures by means of unlimited immigration, infiltration of its existing
institutions by Marxists using the Frankfurt school techniques, the corruption of the media and most
essentially the corruption of politics.20

In a contribution devoted to Cultural Marxism in the British National Party, John Richardson says that this thesis
did not originate in Britain, nor is it invoked solely by the BNP: “Since the conspiracy theory was first coined by Amer-
ican ‘cultural conservatives’, it has been reinterpreted, adopted and circulated by a wide range of right‐wing individuals
and political groups”. Since 2004, adds Richardson (2015, p. 221), “for example, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe)
has been publishing conspirational assessments of the Frankfurt School and the Cultural Revolution through its edu-
cational institute, the Bildungsakademie.” But regarding the BNP, Richardson (2015, p. 222) concludes

Looking to their more specialized, detailed and esoteric literature, we can see that a cultural struggle
permeates much of their discourse, and specifically a struggle against the cultural forces of the left—
cultural Marxists, multiculturalists and their willing dupes in the controlled media—who the BNP
positions as the true enemies and obstacles of their political programme.

Examples such as Buchanan and Breivik, the Australian Tea Party and the BNP demonstrate the highly adapt-
able nature of this conspiracy theory. This also suggests that, in the near future, similar political agendas that are
concerned with intellectualizing a perceived erosion of the West will also utilize forms of Cultural Marxism in inno-
vative ways.

5 | C O N CL U S I O N

The beginning of this article juxtaposed scholars, analysts, and journalists using empirical evidence to describe possible
specific conspiracies in politics and history with those who let themselves use interpretations and strong suspicions to
denounce broad, large, and global conspiracy. With Richard Hofstadter, we have seen “there is a big difference
between the localization of a plot at a specific moment on a specific context, and considering the whole of history
is just a conspiracy.” (Hofstadter, 1966, p. 6). Even if this led us to observe two different groups with a different atti-
tude regarding what is the truth: the opening discussion also stressed elements of continuity between both sides, and
stated it was not our goal to say where and when some authors cross the border from one side to the other, from what
is supposed to be real and serious academic work and what is more about interpretation and speculation.
This is important because, first, the power of conspiracy theories rest upon the use of some unquestionable facts
(in “conspiracy thinking,” an unquestionable fact is something you can verify by yourself). And, second, because the
case of “Cultural Marxism” as a conspiracy theory illustrates using an unquestionable fact and how this continuity
works between both sides. When looking at the literature on Cultural Marxism as a piece of cultural studies, as a con-
spiracy described by Lind and its followers, and as arguments used by Buchanan, Breivik, and other actors within their
own agendas, we see a common ground made of unquestionable facts in terms of who did what and where, and for
how long at the Frankfurt School. Nowhere do we see divergence of opinion about who Max Horkheimer, Theodor
Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse really were, when they have met and in which universities. But this changes if we look
at descriptions of what they wanted to do: conducting research or changing deeply the culture of the West? Were
they working for political science or were they engaging with a hidden political agenda? Were they working for the
academic community or obeying foreign secret services?
10 of 12 JAMIN

And for the same reasons, interpretations change if we look at what they have done: did they succeed? What has
been the real impact of their project? Can we locate this on campuses and academic discourses, or on culture in gen-
eral? Such interpretations also change again if we look at what they knew of their own influence: were they really
aware of what they were doing? Were they overtaken by the success of their works on their students and readers?
Were they themselves manipulated by foreign forces? Scholars and conspiracy theories differ significantly in their
assessments of such questions.
These questions also show the connection between the two groups. All start with unquestionable facts, but to go
on to make very different interpretation about the impact of Cultural Marxism on culture and values, with sometimes
very strong suspicions about the shameful objective behind the story. But more again, it also gives a large range of
possible uses by multiple actors from right‐wing conservative intellectuals to criticize Marxism in the United States
to radical and violent groups to denounce the “death of the West.” Finally, because Cultural Marxism as a conspiracy
theory allows each user the option to travel between both groups, and stops exactly where it fits with their own
vision, it offers a variable scope.

ENDNOTES
1
See below for multiple quotations and sources illustrating this view.
2
Translation from the author.
3
Translation from the author.
4
See Jamin (2014), “Cultural Marxism in the Anglo‐Saxon radical right literature” in Jackson P., The Postwar Anglo‐American
Far Right: A Special Relationship of Hate, Palgrave Macmillan/Pivot: Hampshire, p. 84–103.
5
Fidelio is a publication by the Schiller Institute, an institute belonging to the LaRouche network, the name of the American
alarmist and politician Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche (Minnicino, 1992). Retrieved on April 4, 2016 from www.
schillerinstitute.org
6
Retrieved on April 4, 2016 from http://www.wvwnews.net
7
Based in Washington, DC, Accuracy in Academia seek to report indoctrination of students on university campuses and the
rhetoric of lies associated with them. Retrieved on April 4, 2016 from http://www.academia.org
8
Retrieved on April 4, 2016 from http://www.hoover.org/ (accessed April 2016).
9
Retrieved on April 4, 2016 from http://www.theamericanconservative.com.
10
The work revisits some of the big names mentioned above. The multi‐authored volume is no longer accessible via the
website Free Congress Foundation, however, it is available from different outlets and conservative magazines most nota-
bly LifeSiteNews (accessed April 2016), the source from which we are going to analyze the below‐mentioned document,
and for which we will use the page numbering, is from the site http://www.lifesite.net.
11
The article is available from Western Voices World News, retrieved on April 4, 2016 from http://www.wvwnews.net.
12
See Jérôme Jamin, “Anders Breivik et le ‘marxisme culturel’: Etats‐Unis / Europe,” Amnis: Revue de Civilisation
Contemporaine Europes/Amériques, 12, Jamin, 2013.
13
Retrieved on April 4, 2016 from http://www.culturalmarxism.org
14
Idem. See also the praise of the movie by Hultberg, (2010) in its article “Cultural Marxism: The Corruption of America”
published in The Daily Bell. Retrieved on April 4, 2016 from http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/nelson‐hultberg‐cul-
tural‐marxism‐the‐corruption‐of‐america/
15
Breivik is more a compiler than an author, according to Gardell, “2,083 is not a manifesto but a compendium, i.e., a com-
pilation of texts, the majority of which Breivik has not himself written” (Gardel, 2014, p.132).
16
The link is http://www.freecongress.org/centers/cc/pcessay.aspx, now inactive. We can deduce by the url's extension
“CC” that it reroutes interested readers to a page dedicated to the Center for Cultural Conservatism, the center (also
no longer active) at the heart of the Free Congress Foundation which published online the multi‐authored work edited
by Lind discussed earlier.
17
On this borrowing of text, see Øyvind STRØMMEN, A propos d'UTØYA et de la banalisation de l'extrême droite,
Recherches internationales, 92 (Strømmen, 2011), 96.
18
All the following quotes come from http://austeaparty.com.au/web/cultural‐marxism/
19
Retrieved on April 4, 2016 from http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/understanding‐frankfurt‐school.
20
Retrieved on April 4, 2016 from http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/national/how‐ruin‐country‐part‐2.
JAMIN 11 of 12

ORCID
Jérôme Jamin http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0986-9194

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Jérôme Jamin (PhD) is a Professor at the University of Liège where he teaches Political Science through different
courses and conducts research on the concept of “Democracy.” More precisely, he works on populist, fascist, and
far right parties and focus on the ideology of the extreme right through conspiracy theories.

How to cite this article: Jamin J. Cultural Marxism: A survey. Religion Compass. 2018;12:e12258. https://doi.
org/10.1111/rec3.12258