Wikipedia makes the claim that Cultural Marxism is a far right conspiracy theory, and that it doesn't exist in reality. That's an odd claim, considering that Marxism is an ideology that goes far beyond the purely economic. Marx wrote on all aspects of life, including family affairs and schooling, and all avowed Marxists acknowledge this. This fact is covered in this article by the Mises Institute. However, we don't have to dive deep into political theory in order to recognize Marxism, both in culture and in the economy.
The two basic ideas that together form the Marxist world view is that nothing should be owned privately, and that all of history is a battle between opposing groups. From this, Marx proposes the establishment of institutions like central banks and public schooling. He also embraces the idea that the working class must rise up against the capital owning class.
What Marx completely ignores is the many subtleties in the real world that demonstrate that things are private by nature, and that there are rarely only two sides to a conflict. Marx ignores the self employed entrepreneur because such people are both labourers and capital owners. He simply assumes that these will be dispossessed, and that the class war will be a clean fight between two easily identifiable opposites.
This type of black and white thinking permeates Marx's thinking, and is the reason none of it makes any sense when held up against reality. It also explains why his followers are so eager to create black and white divisions, and why they hate the little entrepreneur more than they hate the big capital owners.
Step one towards a Marxist revolution is always the creation of a black and white world. The ambiguous and uncommitted must be destroyed. Hence, we get all sorts of phony opposites. Everything becomes a political struggle, be it the weather or the colour of our skin, be it school curriculums or mask wearing in public. Not a thing is up to the individual. Everything is to be voted on and fought over.
Cultural Marxism is in this way easy to define. It's Marxism applied to aspects of life that are not economic. To engage in such discussions is to engage in Marxist thinking, even if our position is one that is considered right-leaning. Being fiercely against mask wearing is as Marxist as being fiercely for it. The non-Marxist position is to allow people to choose for themselves. Liberty is the opposite of Marxism, and Liberty doesn't dictate mask wearing one way or the other. Liberty let us choose for ourselves. That's why I've come to the conclusion that the whole mask wearing thing is best approached from an angle of ambiguity.
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