I was here thinking about which authors I quote the most in my life after Marx. Here at Thesis 11, in the classroom, on podcasts, in the lectures I give. If you stop to look at it: there's a lot of Gramsci.
There's a lot of Gramsci, a lot of Gramsci, indeed! It's (argh) a big load of Gramsci! There's occasionally some György Lukács in my life as well, But, of course, there's someone else who couldn't be left out: Marcuse.
From the oldest little books, full of highlights, poor things Even books that I just showed here on the channel and this one, which is the infamous "Eros and Civilization" (Herbert Marcuse) That same book that Olavo de Carvalho followers say that is where Marcuse talks about "revolution through orgies and very perverted things", something like that. So it's Gramsci, it's Marcuse, it's Marcuse, who is the Frankfurt School guy, so now I got worried because this whole thing, apparently, makes Thesis Eleven a channel of cultural Marxism Or is it? [Subtitles by Leia Marxistas] Let's start by saying this is not a video about Olavo de Carvalho, the man.
There's already too many people talking about him, polemicizing with him There are even so-called progressive youtubers out there who criticize Olavo on video but who are also a little sexist when making their critique, aren't they? This video here is actually about cultural Marxism. Because I'm here to defend Marcuse and Gramsci.
and I came to defend them as actual Marxists, or old school Marxists and all that. none of this cultural Marxism nonsense. So I'm going to be very direct, because today's video is actually one of the most requested by you, so I have to be very thorough.
So it must be very clear right at the beginning that cultural Marxism is NOT a branch of Marxism, it is NOT a type of Marxism, it is a conspiracy theory. This conspiracy theory is not even Olavo's invention either, you will find it in many countries, and it is based on a very strange reading of Marxist texts, by authors who usually deal with questions of consciousness, of education, and yes, of culture. And then there is the question that the reading that they do is very strange indeed, And it is accepted because, I don't know, I'm going to invent a statistic here, really invented, based on my impression.
But I would say that 99% of these people have never really taken a Marcuse, or Adorno, or Lukács, or Gramsci, to read. They take the word of their gurus, Olavo being simply the most popular of these gurus in Brazil today, and they repeat without questioning much. "But Sabrina, Adorno is not exactly a simple reading, right?
You have to agree. " Yeah, he really isn't, but the point is not if that's a simple reading, easy to understand, and the person got something wrong that would be only misinterpretation. What we are dealing with here is a conspiracy theory, so what is at stake is much more than misinterpretation, it is associating totally bizarre meanings in order to generate panic and immobilize people through this.
And then we get to an issue that is very serious. If it is a conspiracy theory, then it really does not have many limits it's like Flat Earth Theory today. Cultural Marxism is like Flat Earth Theory For sure, I still think that the majority of the people who call themselves flat-Earthers today are saying this as a joke but the people who believe in a conspiracy by some cultural Marxism in the world to destroy traditional western Christian values and all that they really believe that the motto of the Marxists today has nothing to do with "workers of the world unite" or "all power to the soviets".
For them, the Marxist cultural revolution is about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll and it was Marcuse who invented "make love, not war". I'm serious. Okay, now let's understand where this conspiracy theory comes from Marxism is a dynamic school of thought with many different theorists, and many different branches as well, including the Marxian work, which is the work of Marx himself, and there is Marxism, which unfolds departing from Marx's work.
Some things are central to Marxism. The critique of capitalism, the vision of departure from capitalism towards a socialist, and then communist, society. and the method for understanding reality which is called historical materialism which in its turn also brings a revolutionary perspective from the class struggle.
That is what you have in common. Marxists will focus a lot on this question of class struggle. Lenin's actions at the beginning of the 20th century will cement this perspective into practice.
And it is necessary to organize the workers. It is necessary to organize the workers and you will see this in almost every Marxist work out there. It happens that, while the question of class struggle directly concerns the fight against the structures of exploitation, especially because it is understood that without radically changing these structures, no social change can be sustained, Marxism does not deal only with these structures That's fine, the structuralist school will disagree with that, but I told you that Marxism has many branches, right?
So, that's it. There is actually an Anticast episode in which we discussed all these branches (at least most of them) So there is, for example, humanist Marxism, which will have a whole fight with Louis Althusser's structuralism, and there are authors who formulate theory and politics in such a profound way, too, that they themselves end up founding secondary lines of Marxist thought. So that's why you'll see the Leninists, Lukácsians, Gramscians, Luxembourgists, Marcusians, and so on.
. . Marcuse, in this case, will be connected to the Frankfurt School as well, so he would be a Frankfurtian Marxist, and so on.
And I just realized that that's actually the third video in a row in which I talk about Marcuse - which I think is a good thing, but now they're really going to call me a cultural Marxist. Through all these lines, some authors will focus more on certain aspects than others and in this case, authors like Lukács, Gramsci and Marcuse will show a concern with questions of consciousness as well. They will observe how people's state of consciousness may affect the possibility to draw a revolutionary potential from the tensions that already exist - already exist - between the working class and the bourgeoisie.
This means that there is concrete material antagonism between these classes, because deep down they have different interests: one wants to be less exploited and to live better; while the other wants to live so much better than the others that it needs to exploit this working class, which is the largest class. So these are opposing interests, right? And that's what generates class struggle.
What happens is that these authors are going to notice obstacles that affect the possibility of the working class to see this antagonism to mobilize, to organize, to really move and feel their chains so as to then confront the bourgeoisie. These are questions of consciousness, these three authors here they are famous for dealing with this. And I can't dive deeper now, but Lukács is going to talk about the reification of consciousness - and here reification is a kind of alienation.
Gramsci goes on to say that the contradiction of capitalism is sustained because it maintains the workers with a consciousness that is also contradictory. And here also comes the influence of the dominant ideology to maintain hegemony through consent from those workers. And then Marcuse goes on to talk about one-dimensionality, the way capitalism generates an acceptance from the workers through small increments in life improvements that are out there - which is something that I have also talked about here in the video about consumerism a couple of videos ago.
And what does this have to do with the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory? Well, that theory is based on the idea that Marxism has given up the concept of taking power, organizing the workers in a revolutionary way, revolutionary army style (which they talk about as "a violent style" and so on) and that they then moved their energy to the cultural field, focusing on destroying traditional values, weakening society through that. Olavo will then take extracts from Marcuse's works, for example, and it is good to emphasize that his thing really is with Marcuse and with Gramsci, and he's going to take these passages and he's going to impose a weird interpretation.
And then from this weird interpretation, he will extrapolate some miraculous, conspiracy theories, in one of Olavo's texts he will say the following: that Marcuse was discouraged by the one-dimensionality of the working class - which is a real Marcuse insight, right here. But he's going to say that Marcuse then abandons this classical working class - which is already a lie - because Marcuse is going to propose that a revolution should be organized by a combination of intellectual students, because they are always outraged by everything; by dissatisfied people - and here he speaks of women, unloved wives and "gays which are displeased" by male haughtiness; and he will then include outcasts in general, like murderers and rapists. It's a conclusion that is absurd, that is a lie, a misrepresentation, which defames Marcuse's work and Marcuse's conclusion at the very end of "One Dimensional Man".
Anyone who wants to see what a serious misrepresentation this is, and then in crazy trips of conservatism it reaches the point of people writing that "cultural Marxism preaches revolution by encouraging criminality and yadda yadda yadda", you simply need to check out the last chapter of "One Dimensional Man". There Marcuse unequivocally says that the working class is the living negation of the capitalist system and its mode of domination, and it is a revolutionary subject; but, nevertheless, the unidimensionality has turned the working class into an easy target for conservative forces, like an easy target for Olavo de Carvalho himself and his friends. And then Marcuse says that underneath this popular conservative base there's also people who are impoverished, condemned by society, people who are unemployed or not employable by the system, racialized people, and all these people they exist outside the democratic rule of law - the protection of rights don't reach them.
Florestan Fernandes calls these people "condemned". (You remember that I have already mentioned Florestan before here on the channel, right? ) And he himself divides the Brazilian working class.
He talks about those who are "integrated" and the "condemned", who are thus kept in the system but always on the edge, simply trying to survive. And then Marcuse proceeds to quickly say that the fury of that part of the population that is naturally distrustful of the ideology and the political apparatus and so on, when they go to the streets, they go unarmed and unprotected they are going to demand the most basic civil rights of all, this rage ends up being an excellent fuel to generate consciousness and drive more organized political action, also provoking the working class, that is, what he is questioning is the traditional idea of revolution of the early 20th century saying that it would no longer fit and several fronts of action would be necessary that together may provoke the conscientization of the working class as well. That is, it has nothing to do with this conspiracy theory stuff about revolutionary criminality and rapists.
To whoever wants to understand this a little more, I also recommend a dissertation by Stefan Fornos Klein, who was my advisor during my sandwich doctorate at UNB and he is a sociology professor at UNB as well. I'll leave the link for you, even the links to Olavo's own texts but because Stefan approaches precisely the perspective of domination and liberation in Marcuse's work and his dissertation is very didactic, I recommended it. Ok, but what about Gramsci, the infamous Gramsci of Brazilian Gramscism?
Gramsci is the guy who is even here on my T-shirt today. And the thing about Gramsci is that he doesn't discuss domination only, how domination takes place in society, he talks about hegemony as well. At some point, I will make a video just about him, but I can already say that he says that hegemony is established when the forces dominating society can do it through consent and it only resorts to coercion when things get out of hand.
This perspective is very easy to see today, including a parallel with Foucault, who is not at all Marxist, but who speaks of the docilization of bodies and their training as techniques of discipline that are used in the society so that punishment comes as a last resort. You will see Foucault talking about this in Discipline and Punish, History of Sexuality, but you'll see in Gramsci that, in this dynamic, Gramsci is very sensitive to this question of ideology in society and that's why he also focuses a lot on the need for critical education. So what's Olavo's followers' issue with Gramsci?
Again, they will misrepresent everything Gramsci wrote to create panic and according to Olavo, and here I am quoting him, "Antonio Gramsci was the greatest teacher of swindle the world has ever known. " So, here Olavo takes Gramsci's analysis from "The Modern Prince", in the passage where he says this, he talks about how should the party behave in order to lead the working class, and then Olavo invents that Gramsci is talking about the party as a transmitter of an "evil cunning". And you can see how the associations are made employing words that carry a negative connotation, right?
"Evil. " It's no wonder that the people who come here saying that Marx was a Satanist also buy it, this kind of thing. Gramsci, in his vast work as a journalist, intellectual who also had of a brief political career before being arrested by fascism in Italy, he will speak of education, he will speak of culture, he will speak of conscience, but always tied to the perspective of transforming the capitalist mode of production.
So, once again, who would be Gramsci's historical subject? The working class, which needs to be organized. So he goes as far as to criticize the way in which political parties that focus too much on the vanguard are failing to play the role of raising mass intellectuals from within the working class and he will also have a whole analysis of the media as a party, which is something which could be easily applied to Brazil today.
But, what is the non-logical conclusion that Olavo draws from this? He is going to say that, for Gramsci, revolutionary propaganda is the only objective and justification of human intelligence. Then he will say that cultural Gramscism lead PT (the Worker's Party) to power, and that this ensured that PT could steal at will, and that "PT this, PT that, PT, PT, PT, PT", meanwhile Gramsci tosses and turns in his grave.
Just by looking at the treatment that is given to Marcuse and Gramsci, you can already see that there is a lot of bad faith employed to misrepresent what they say, and that's why it sells. They take things, take them out of their context and then they associate them to other issues which create panic in people who are not used to examining their own position in society on a day-to-day basis, and it goes further because, of course, there is a smaller portion of people who are there, they examine their position and find out that their class interest, patriarchal and so forth, is really to keep things the way they are. So, in the same way the working class must be the negation of capitalism, these people have an interest in power that makes them the negation of socialism and communism, and then creating a conspiracy theory as such becomes an important weapon.
First, because it generates a fictional common enemy, second because this enemy generates fear through moral panic, third because, once you earn these people's trust, you can say whatever you want about this enemy, can't you? You can take a true situation from Gramsci and paste it to a totally false one and then a lot of people won't see the difference and then the cultural Marxism theory, the conspiracy theory, was born. But why do people fear cultural Marxism and end up buying this conspiracy theory?
Because of course people are afraid of murderers and rapists! And they're saying that cultural Marxism gives power to people like this, that do bad things and also because people are afraid to be in a society that is changing to what they consider worse. And they are afraid that this is changing without them realizing it.
These would be the allegedly sneaky change proposed by the cultural Marxists which would then unleash an eternal political correctness that harms them and then there would be no place for these people in the world. Look, this thing of political correctness, let's face it, we must put an end to sexist and racist remarks. That applies to the left, too, and to everybody.
So we're just going to keep on nagging about it. But the thing is: there is nothing sneaky about it. The point is that the majority of society would benefit from these emancipating changes in treatment and structure and even in these basic things, like human rights, which is not even a Marxist thing, but the conservative right puts everything in the same bunch so that people don't see that crime, for example, is related to the inequality which is caused by capitalism.
Then, guided by right-wing intellectuals, they will think that crime is actually generated by human rights, that's right. Forgetting that these basic rights, which are actually liberal, are theoretically, for everybody. And that's the reason for the great articulators, or those who also want to pass as great articulators, they are creating and feeding this conspiracy theory.
That will help to keep people afraid of emancipating theories, so it makes everybody easier to control through panic and covers from their sight a series of structures of domination that exist in the status quo. What they are doing is precisely what they accuse us of doing and that is why conspiracy theories are a bummer. Because then a lot of people will think that the left and the right are just the same, when it's the content that we have to look into but in a very deep way so that we don't buy all this nonsense out there.
Now, is there a remedy for a conspiracy theory like this this size? Yes, there is, but we have a huge job ahead of us. Even because these guys are smart, they decided to create panic precisely against extremely useful theorists for us to generate politicization and to help people understand all the chains holing them down.
They are very smart indeed, because when they say that cultural Marxism wants to destroy Western culture, they are trying to get people to relate themselves to a culture that is dominant, specific, shaped by a dominant class, to benefit themselves, not necessarily these people. And they can make a lot of people in Brazil, which is a country that was invaded, exploited, colonized, and to this day is a target of imperialism intervening in politics and economics, they go ahead and make these people feel represented by a foreign colonial culture that is all manufactured in the first place. And, not to mention, the very notion of Western culture has a thousand misconceptions.
So I'll leave a video about that from Contrapoints, from Natalie, in the links as well. Wow, but then I'm recommending a channel in English by a trans woman, the way these people mix up everything, I can already see the comments, guys saying Pabllo Vittar has gone too far this time. The point is, in the end, Marcuse and Gramsci were right.
The reason the conspiracy theory about them sells so well is: they were right. Capitalism and its intellectuals, today very well represented in Brazil by conservatism, but also around the world, they know what they are doing and they produce ideology. They want to put their ideology above the scientific and academic discussion in schools, like the creationism crowd, and then they create the enemy, saying that cultural Marxism is in schools, because, gee, how absurd it is to teach Marx, who is one of the fathers of sociology, in sociology class.
The same way we teach Hayek in Economics, right? And then, they create a project like "School without party". Which is actually a one-party school, we've already talked about that, and all the teachers want is to teach in peace, to teach the content in peace.
I know the left sometimes miscommunicates this, but when the left says no to "School without party", it's not so that we may have a teacher telling the student who to vote for, it's not this opinion thing, it's to teach in peace as you would in other places in the world. I miss that! And the conclusion I came to is that, in order to dismantle this, we need to talk more about Marcuse.
We need to talk more about Gramsci. So, how good that they are my specialty, right? Because Thesis Eleven is here, it is growing.
You are there and I am still here, even on the run. So, stay tuned, there will be much more Marcuse, much more Gramsci for you here on the channel. Conspiracy theory people think that Gramsci and Marcuse are dangerous authors.
And the truth is that they are very dangerous, yes. Not because they are trying to sneak values into the culture of the world, destroy Western culture, but because they are trying to bring a theory of emancipation to us, and emancipation is exactly what these people don't want.
