Well, let’s see. I believe that as traditional society continues to bend to the will of Marxists and secularists, fanatical Fascists who have hijacked Christianity, Socialism, and now Islam take advantage of the traditional society’s new weakness. This is true in the case of abortion. As more and more Western women accept abortion as birth control and fight against their traditional roles, Islamicists and other extremists lose more respect for the traditional culture and in an extreme move use that as proof to give women no rights. Read “The Dangers of Feminism, a post from January 2006

This happened a lot in Biblical history. Israel would leave the religion and traditions to bend to the will of those of other surrounding kingdoms, then a more ruthless kingdom would then attack the new weaker, vulnerable Israel until they lost all freedom and became oppressed. A person does not have to be a Christian or Jew to see how the pattern in ancient Biblical text applies today, especially if one believes that history is a cycle and that morality can be universally applied (regardless of one’s spiritual beliefs).

Commentary Magazine has this article on the cultural war in Europe.

George Weigel writes about two separate Cultural Wars being fought currently in Europe. Cultural War A between the secularists and the conservatives (influenced by Gramsci and Marx?) and Cultural War B between Islamic fanatics and Western culture.

I will write my thoughts on this later.

Click here to read about the life and teachings of Antonia Gramsci. He lived from 1891-1937. He was famous for writing The Prison Notebooks.

This is another good article.

From the above article “Gramsci’s Grand Plan” by Fr. James Thorton. Bold type is mine.

“The first phase in achieving “cultural hegemony” over a nation is the undermining of all elements of traditional culture. Churches are thus transformed into ideology-driven political clubs, with the stress on “social justice” and egalitarianism, with worship reduced to trivialized entertainment, and with age-old doctrinal and moral teachings “modernized” or diminished to the point of irrelevancy [ala the rantings of our Greek-American “useful idiots” who comprise the leadership of such organizations as OCL and GOAL, etc. ed.]. Genuine education is replaced by “dumbed down” and “politically correct” curricula, and standards are reduced dramatically. The mass media are fashioned into instruments for mass manipulation and for harassing and discrediting traditional institutions and their spokesmen. Morality, decency, and old virtues are ridiculed without respite. Tradition-minded clergymen are portrayed as hypocrites and virtuous men and women as prudish, stuffy, and unenlightened.

Culture is no longer a buttress supporting the integrity of the national heritage and a vehicle for imparting that heritage to future generations, but becomes a means for “destroying ideals and…presenting the young not with heroic examples but with deliberately and aggressively degenerate ones,” as theologian Harold O.J. Brown writes. We see this in contemporary American life, in which the great historical symbols of our nation’s past, including great presidents, soldiers, explorers, and thinkers are shown to have been unforgivably flawed with “racism” and “sexism” and therefore basically evil. Their place has been taken by pro-Marxist charlatans, pseudo-intellectuals, rock stars, leftist movie celebrities, and the like. At another level, traditional Christian culture is condemned as repressive, “Eurocentric,” and “racist” and, thus, unworthy of our continued devotion. In its place, unalloyed primitivism in the guise of “multiculturalism” is held as the new model.

Marriage and family, the very building blocks of our society, are perpetually attacked and subverted. Marriage is portrayed as a plot by men to perpetuate an evil system of domination over women and children. The family is depicted as a dangerous institution epitomized by violence and exploitation. Patriarchally oriented families are, according to the Gramscians, the precursors of fascism, Nazism, and every organized form of racial persecution.”

Favorite Quote-
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” Aldous Huxley

Like Marx, Antonio Gramsci believes in a war of oppressed vs. Oppressor.

The oppressors are the homogeneous ruling class who either by force or hegemony dominate the values in society. In America, the oppressor would be the heterosexual male WASP. His values that he uses to control the oppressed are present in schools, churches and everyday society.

The oppressed are subordinate to the homogeneous ruling class. Groups included are women and minorities among others. Because of the cultural hegemony exercised by the WASP male oppressors, these groups are unaware that they are being oppressed (false consciousness), hence that is why there is no worker revolution as prophesied by Marx.

In order to give the subordinate classes a new kind of consciousness, the leadership “organic intellectuals” will seek to dominate the media, educational institutions, and other mass organizations (film industry and literature. The revolutionaries will seek to replace the ruling class concepts and values and educate the subordinates of their oppression. Values held dear by the old culture will be destroyed. Once the oppressed are giving their new consciousness, then they will begin the Marxist revolution. Ironically, by raising the “oppressed”’s consciousness, they will then oppress them under Marxism! Kind of a trick.

(thanks to Stephen Yates and Wikipedia)

Modern liberals are definitely influenced by Gramsci, perhaps more than Lenin, who started an outright revolution. This is definitely evident in the political movements of the 1960s. Now the Gramscians are raising the consciousness of illegal immigrants (well actually, mainly the Mexicans who crossed the border) (another thought, what the heck is Bush doing??)

In order to fight the liberal’s war on our culture, (I hope I have proved here that “culture war” is a liberal concept originally rather than a Buchananian concept), those who are against Marxism and socialism and a culture of victimhood must again seek to control the media and educational institutions. That movement has been in place, but I do not think that most of those who are against socialist movements know exactly what we are fighting against. This is an organized movement seeking to destroy good values like freedom, equality, and patriotism.

This is a great article on the cultural war of the 21st century.

Stephen Yates, the writer, divides the groups of people fighting this “war” as Gramscians (liberal) and Tocquevillian (conservatives) and other (libertarians, paleoconservatives, fringe groups)

I will write more on Gramsci and de Tocqueville in the coming week.