[ekiru]

'Cultural Marxism' is an overtly antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming a devious plot by certain Jewish academics a plot to subvert "western civilization" and attributing their influence as the cause of myriad social and political stances/events/developments that the advocates of this conspiracy theory disapprove of.

[tptacek]

Even if you don't believe this (I think Jordan Peterson, who is fond of it, is a charlatan but not at all an anti-Semite), the term obviously occludes more than it clarifies, and was deliberately coined as a powerful negative emotional appeal; the choice to include it in a CERN physics workshop presentation is telling.

[sedachv]

"Cultural Marxism" is neither about culture nor about Marxism. The term was coined by anti-Semite William Lind in a speech at a 2002 Holocaust denial conference: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/...

The fact that Peterson adopted the term does not necessarily imply that Peterson is an anti-Semite, but it definitely confirms that he is an idiot who cannot even be bothered to do basic research on the things he likes to rant about.

[tptacek]

That's useful information, thanks.

[rjf72]

I do agree it's important to basic research on the things one likes to rant about. Wikipedia in contemporary usage has become completely useless for controversial or social topics, but it used to be a reasonable source of information. This [1] is an archive of the Wiki page on Cultural Marxism providing some broad information and background. Suffice to say it was not coined in 2002 by anybody.

[1] - https://archive.fo/YzkIS

[sedachv]

You are promoting a dog-whistle phrase that refers to an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory: https://www.salon.com/2018/11/04/how-far-right-conspiracy-th...

[Fins]

But that "cultural marxism" label might be neither very cultural nor particularly marxist does not mean that what it labels isn't for the most part senseless bunk either. Oh, and marxism does happen to be more popular in academia than it deserves, too.

[sedachv]

What does a simple idea like "stop treating women as though they were all idiots" have to do with any particular culture? If you don't understand the difference between "stop insulting your female colleagues" and Marxist economics or politics, obviously the problem is that there is not too much, but too little Marxism being taught in academia.

[Fins]

Really, the sooner marxism is completely forgotten the better. And what is usually called "cultural marxism" would make Marx and any classic marxist spin in their graves.

I would like to see some references of which groups or individuals, exactly, "treat women as though they were all idiots". Makes for a nice strawman but not anything that Strumia claimed, is it?

[lawnchair_larry]

How can someone possibly call Jordan Peterson a charlatan? Are we redefining that word now too? Also, describing something as “telling” is a pretty strong signal that one lacks any substantive rebuttals but cannot resist throwing shade. It’s cheap.

[pvg]

Hang on, 'charlatan' is being 'redefined' merely by someone's opinion but the elaborated-upon use of 'telling', a word with a straightforward literal meaning, is fecund with secret malicious bias? It's hard hard to see how both of these can be true.

[tptacek]

Have you read Maps of Meaning? I haven’t, but Nathan Robinson did, and wrote a review of the whole Peterson gestalt, which I found wholly convincing and you should find with no trouble at all.

I feel that what I found “telling” about the use of a controversial, poorly defined, culture-war term like “cultural Marxism” was pretty obvious: that the talk wasn’t given in good faith or with an intent that was productive with respect to the attendees.