Cultural marxism is a term coined decades ago for the self-declared and quite real strategy of a "long march through the institutions". What else would you call it?
No, Cultural Marxism refers to a body of 20th Century Marxist writings almost entirely predating 1968 that explored the importance of ideology and culture. The far right has been confusing itself and conflating different strands of leftwing theory and practice for decades; the Frankfurt School academics and intellectuals have nothing to do with the 'long march through the institutions'; only Herbert Marcuse had something to do with student radicalism in the late 1960s, and he was nowhere near as central to the FFS as Adorno.
The phrase 'long march through the institutions' was coined by the 1968er Rudi Dutschke, who was familiar with Lukacs (rightly identified as a Cultural Marxist in his philosophy, but in his political practice he was a Stalinist) but was also influenced by Maoism and Third Worldism, entirely separate traditions.
In the wake of 1968, western societies saw the rise of so-called 'new social movements' - environmentalism in particular, but also feminism plus lesbian and gay liberation. The 1970s and 1980s saw almost all of these abandon any connection with Marxism of whatever variety.
Intellectually, post-structuralism and postmodernism replaced Marxism, which provided the nurturing ground for queer theory, to bring things back towards the thread topic.
In case you haven't noticed, there are still large, well-funded political organisations which explicitly define themselves as Marxist and yet the entire premise of a "class struggle" and the oppression of the working classes ('proletariat') has practically disappeared, instead the "oppressed" are now a diverse (sic) coalition of minorities who supposedly have common ground in the sense that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.
Please name the 'large, well-funded political organisations' that define themselves as Marxist. Any political party that defines itself as Marxist is usually extremely marginal.
Nearly all of what is labelled 'Cultural Marxism' on the right is post-Marxist ideologically - certainly in relation to classical Marxist theory and practice *as well as* the positions of Adorno et al, the actual Cultural Marxists. Some aspects are merely social liberalism - bear in mind that Marxism and liberalism coexisted for a hundred plus years before 1989 and the collapse of the 'actually existing socialist' East Bloc, so of course there has been dialogue throughout that time.
In the US context, another catch is that the Democrats were in the north a multi-ethnic, multi-religious coalition of hyphenated Americans for much of the 20th Century. Southern Democrats were also uneasy partners in this coalition, and boosted Dem numbers to prolonged majorities in the Senate and Congress for many decades. So the 'coalition of minorities' aspect is not entirely new.
Self-identified Marxists today are more often than not gender-critical and regard identity politics as entirely compatible with neoliberalism.
Centre-left parties now attract much support from the educated middle class, as well as public-sector workforces, which are usually more unionised than private sector workforces, and reflect the interests of these groups in many respects. This group was called in actual communist societies 'the New Class', it's also called the professional-managerial class. There is a significant overlap with many aspects of corporations' management (eg HR departments) and culture industries in the private sector, as well as non-profits - charities and NGOs. The direct influence of Marxism on any of these groups and sectors seems attenuated and limited; they all have to compromise with neoliberalism.
Here's an
actual Marxist criticising someone involved in environmental justice for missing the point regarding the Green New Deal, and freely criticising the professional class, 'MSNBC-brained liberals' and "Robin DiAngelo-inspired DEI training sessions", etc.
https://www.historicalmaterialism.o...onse-to-michael-leviens-review-climate-change
In other words, this is a criticism of what the right calls 'woke' or 'Cultural Marxism'
from the left - and a far more concise and accurate set of criticisms, since the actual Marxist can discuss industrial production and workforces, which the post-Marxist left can't bring itself to do.
The assumption that 'the left' thinks entirely in lockstep is as bogus as the assumption that 'the right' agrees on everything. On an issue like climate change, the predominant response from the US right has been foot-dragging, denialism and contrarianism. The European right has been more supportive of environmentalism, although there are contrarians and denialists in the UK and Europe as well.
On an issue like gender identity, the centre-right has proved itself to be a lot more reasonable and sensible than the centre-left, and ends up agreeing with parts of the radical left, in some cases from different starting premises. There are also centre-right politicians in the UK and EU who end up siding with gender identity ideologues and parrot the standard mantras (see the remarks of assorted Tory MPs over the past few years).
