Cultural Revolution
American culture is undergoing a Marxist cultural revolution. The cultural revolution of the 1960s, which almost brought down the American government, went underground after they failed to bring down the nation by the promotion of violent revolution as it had succeeded in other nations like Russia, China and the Soviet Union. However, their dream of total revolution to establish their communist utopian order in America did not die. They changed their strategy. Rather than trying to promote an economic revolution between rich and poor, they focused on cultural transformation in order to promote a long-term revolution through the use of Marxist ideology and critical race theories.
The turmoil we are witnessing to day regarding cultural issues is a testimony to the extent that they have succeeded in the promotion of Marxist ideology through the institutions of American life. In particular they focused on taking over the educational institutions in America so they could indoctrinate our nation's youth into their communist ideology. Cultural leaders understand that who ever educates the youth of a nation will set the direction for the future of that nation. They reasoned that by taking over the educational institutions they could set a long-term strategy to take over all the other institutions that would rely on these educated young people to eventually fill the leadership positions of all the cultural institutions of the nation. They would win by default since those they discipled would now be in control of the nation's cultural leadership positions. They have largely succeeded, as Christopher Rufo points out in his new book "America's Cultural Revolution."
America’s most effective conservative intellectual proves once and for all that Marxist radicals have taken over our nation's institutions.
In the 1960s, Mao launched China’s Cultural Revolution. Cities grew overcrowded. Technocrats demanded progress from above. Anyone opposed was sent to be “re-educated.” China’s revolution was bloody, fast, and a failure, but what if America started a revolution at the same time, based on the same bad ideas, and it’s just been slower, calmer, and more effective?
In his powerful new book, Christopher F. Rufo uncovers the hidden history of left-wing intellectuals and activists who systematically took control of America’s institutions to undermine them from within. America’s Cultural Revolution finally answers so many of the questions normal Americans have, such as:
• Why is nearly every major corporation bending the knee to a far-left agenda?
• How did DEI suddenly become the department no institution can continue without?
• Why is race the main thing America’s rich, white elite wants to talk about?
• When did the left adopt all this doublespeak, saying progress is a lack of progress, equality is not equality, speech is violence, and violence is speech?
• Has the goal of the left, for a century, actually been the destruction of every Western institution?
Readers may not know the names of Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Freire, and Derrick Bell, but they will recognize the ideas they spread. How their radical, destructive ideology slowly worked its way from prisons to academia to classrooms to your human resources department will come as a shock.
Failing to act soon, Rufo warns, could allow the radical left to achieve their ultimate objective: replacing constitutional equality with a race-based redistribution system overseen by bureaucratic ‘diversity and inclusion’ officials. Most Americans don’t want this, but most Americans are no longer in control of our institutions. If the mainstream media’s depiction of a failing dystopia in need of a fresh start never sounded right to you, this expose and call to arms is the book you’ve been looking for.
Customer Review:
I was a ‘60s radical and I’m still a Denmark-style liberal, not a conservative. So you’ve gotta admit 5 is pretty fair minded. For two years I’ve been writing a parallel book, and Rufo may have just done me in. I learned a lot from his book — he’s got some amazing facts. His story is a bit jumbled, but it’s the best over-all account of CRT so far.
Part 1. Revolution — Marcuse’s “critical theory message reverberated around the world,” starting revolutions everywhere. In the U.S. we had the New Left’s “1968 Revolution.”
I remember ‘68, our year of revolution. That’s when I was arrested for posting invitations to the funeral of Bobby Hutton, the 1st Black Panther recruit. That was when 2000 of our generation were killed, just in February, in Vietnam’s Tet offensive. Rufo forgets Vietnam, which caused LBJ to give up his 2nd term. He forgets MLK’s assassination followed by 100+ urban riots, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, and Humphrey being nominated without winning a single primary. That’s why we destroyed the Dem convention. Marcuse was not on our mind. (If you leave out everything but Marcuse, he seems important.)
Rufo is right that Marcuse grabbed some attention from the media and certain far-left factions. He’s also right that “The young radicals … soon pushed Marcuse to go further.” He was as much a follower as a leader. Rufo’s right that “The New Left’s wave of violence … alienated the public.” The 1968 “revolution” only elected Nixon. It failed. But it kept trying until 1972, when Rufo notes “Marcuse was shell-shocked. … The reactionaries had won.” And, won in a landslide.
Marcuse's still-relevant contribution was the awful dogma of “repressive tolerance,” which Rufo duly notes. Rufo carries on about Marcuse right to the end. But he’s wrong to say the Panther’s used his ideas. He cites Panther Minister of Info Cleaver, but Cleaver says he got his idea for Franz Fanon, not Marcuse. Yes Angela Davis was his disciple, but she was more of a Communist Black Panther than a Marcusian.
Rufo begins with Marcuse, a disciple of Critical Theory (invented in 1937) because he wants to show us the roots of critical race theory (CRT). But this causes him to miss CRTs taproot — Black Power. There are strong and direct historical links from Malcolm X, to Stokely Carmichael (Mr. Black Power) to Derrick Bell (godfather of CRT) and even from Stokely to today’s #1 Crit, Ibram Kendi. Rufo misses all of that. He should read the #1 Crit historian Peniel Joseph.
Understanding this would let him see the war between Black-Power-CRT and MLK. The Crits semi-secretly hate MLK who everyone loves. That is one of CRT’s major vulnerabilities and biggest cover-ups.
Part 2. Race — Finally someone dug up all the details on Angela Davis’ role in the Marin kidnapping that killed the judge and made her a Left hero as a “political prisoner.” That alone is worth the price of the book. And he has lots more info on her.
Strangely he says BLM grew out of the black liberation movement. I’d never heard of it … because that’s just Angela Davis’ name for the Black Power movement (p.112). She’s trying to tone down “Black Power” and make it fit in with the CRT talk of “liberation.” Rufo should know better than to adopt her language! But the BLM chapter’s a good one, as is the one on Seattle.
Part 3. Education — this taught me a lot about Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (frightening). I’d heard it was dominant in education, but how dominant? I’m still not sure. And how does that compare with CRT in education which we hear much more about in the news. Fifty pages later we learn only that Gloria Ladson-Billings “founded critical race theory in education.”
Part 4. Power — Derrick Bell the godfather of CRT, started out doing great civil rights work. But then Harvard called. He knew he was not qualified and that he got the offer because he was Black. For some reason this led him into a life of pretending to be a victim of racism and making outrageous claims that racism had never been worse. This made him a guru to a bunch of young Black lawyers. In response to Bell’s “narcissism and moral grandstanding,” Rufo gives us a terrific summary of Henry Louis Gates’ take-down of CRT (Gates does: Finding Your Roots on PBS, and is a Harvard Prof).
What’s Missing? — Many controversies from the last 10 years are overlooked entirely: cancel culture, microaggressions, cultural appropriation, CRT in education, trans activism, Robin DiAngelo (of White Fragility) and Kendi and his books. (There is a short note on Kendi’s worst idea ever.)
Rufo’s Conclusion: The Counter-Revolution to Come — Having declared himself a radical, Rufo ends the book by trying to lead a counter-revolution against the (failed) 1968 New Left revolution (CRT), which he thinks has already happened. His mistake is that he keeps forgetting that CRT calls for a two stage process (1) “a long march through the institutions” and then (2) the revolution. Starting with the founding paper of Critical Theory, “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937), which Rufo should read, stage (1) is presented as accomplishing nothing but chaos. Then comes the revolution (also known as the abyss) during which a miracle happens and we arrive at utopia.
Rufo understands this, but it is nearly impossible to believe anyone believes that, hence his mistake. So he says, “Ultimately, critical theory will be put to a simple test: Are conditions improving or not improving?” He forgets that the Critics constantly sell their ideology by claiming “conditions are NOT improving, they're getting worse.” Rufo just told us that Bell always said that, and that’s what launched CRT. This is an age old Marxist mantra (heighten the contradictions of capitalism! — make things worse).
So Rufo’s “simple test” will be (and is being) passed with flying colors. They ARE making things worse! And as horrible as that is, it’s working and has been working for 60 years. We are not yet near the revolution (thank God). Things can still get much worse. Americans need to wake up and realize what is happening.