The Frankfurt School (1864-1993), And Their Political Correctness That is Cultural Marxism

By Brannon S. Howse

As the chapter title and 129-year span of its life suggests—and unlike the rest of the influencers discussed in this book—the Frankfurt School is not a single individual. It is, however, comprised of a specific group of people whose philosophies merged into one overarching worldview which still burdens us today. 

The writings of the Frankfurt School faculty and their disciples are abundant, and their goal can be summed up as the eradication of Christianity. Here is a list of the most influential faculty members, the last of whom died as the twentieth century approached its close:

Walter Benjamin  (1892-1940)

Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943)

Franz L. Neumann (1900-1954)

Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966)

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969)

Friedrich Pollock (1894-1970)
Max Horkheimer (1895-1973)

Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)
Erich Fromm (1900-1980)
Karl A. Wittfogel (1896-1988)
Alfred Sohn-Rethel (1899-1990)
Leo Löwenthal (1900-1993)

After growing similar thought patterns along separate tracks, a group of German intellectuals in 1923 started what has become known as The Frankfurt School. Dr. William Lind explains, though, that the originally intended name of the institute had to be eliminated in order to conceal from the public its true agenda:

[quote] The intended name for the Frankfurt School was the Institute for Marxism. The Institute’s father and funder, Felix Weil, wrote in 1971 that he “wanted the Institute to become known, and perhaps famous, due to its contributions to Marxism as a scientific discipline…” Beginning a tradition Political Correctness still carries on, Weil and others decided that they could operate more effectively if they concealed their Marxism; hence, on reflection, they chose the neutral-sounding name, the Institute for Social Research (Insitut für Sozialforschung). [end quote]

As we have seen, many of the 21 we look at are in some way connected back to each other. In the case of the Frankfurt School, we find that it was directly connected to Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, George Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche. Dr. Lind writes:

[quote] The Frankfurt School blended Marx with Freud, and later influences (some Fascist as well as Marxist) added linguistics to create “Critical Theory” and “deconstruction.” These in turn greatly influenced education theory, and through institutions of higher education gave birth to what we now call “Political Correctness.” The lineage is clear, and it is traceable right back to Karl Marx. [end quote]

According to the online Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

"Intellectually, the school is most indebted to the writings of G. W. F. Hegel and the Young Hegelians…Karl Marx…Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud."

 
In 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, many members of the Frankfurt School conveniently found refuge in America at the invitation of John Dewey, who was on staff at Columbia University in New York. Dewey saw the opportunity to place these Marxists at leading colleges and universities around the country. He and his cohorts specifically targeted education and media as the means by which to inculcate their worldview into American culture. 

Dewey had help from Edward R. Murrow in disbursing the Frankfurt School refugees. In 1934, Murrow became the Assistant Secretary of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars. Earlier, in 1932, Murrow had gained experience as the Assistant Director of the Institute of International Education, which was established through a grant from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and he was well positioned for his later assignment. Murrow had been hired by Stephen Duggan, the director of IIE, who advised the Soviet government on issues related to their workers' colleges. Duggan was a crusader for the Communist agenda.

Murrow also joined the American Russian Institute, which had been founded with the help of John Dewey. The Institute sponsored lectures from individuals such as Anna Louise Strong, a well-known journalist who wrote books defending the Soviet system. Eventually, Murrow went to work for CBS, where he became the famed newscaster. 

Murrow is perhaps best known for using his broadcasts to destroy U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was investigating the infiltration of Communists into education, media, and Hollywood. McCarthy had personality quirks that made him an easy target for marginalization, yet many experts now admit that McCarthy was correct in his view that Communists had infiltrated American education and the media. Murrow knew it to be true because he helped settle many of these Marxists in America, dropping them into influential positions. Murrow was out to destroy McCarthy before he could uncover the anti-American agenda of Dewey, Murrow, and their friends. 

One of the men Murrow brought to America from the Frankfurt School was Herbert Marcuse. The phrase "make love, not war" shouted during the counter-culture revolution of the 1960s was coined by Marcuse. The 1960s student rebels implemented strategies laid out by Marcuse in writings greatly influenced by Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci. They were inspired by Marcuse's Cultural Revolution proclamations such as:

[quote] One can rightfully speak of a cultural revolution, since the protest is directed toward the whole cultural establishment; including the morality of existing society….there is one thing we can say with complete assurance. The traditional idea of revolution and the traditional strategy of revolution has ended. These ideas are old-fashioned…what we must undertake is a type of diffuse and dispersed disintegration of the system. [end quote]

Having achieved much that they set out to accomplish, many of the anti-American, flag burning, pot-smoking, pagan spiritualists of the counter cultural revolution are now college and university presidents, professors—and American textbook authors.

The author of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx called for a powerful central government, a punitive progressive income tax system, the merging of education with industrial production, the elimination of a free press, and much more. Thanks to many from the Frankfurt School, Marxism is alive and well in America, but this destructive worldview has been hidden from most Americans under terms that mask the reality of what is going on.  

When you hear "political correctness," what comes to mind? You probably think of PC words such as tolerance, diversity, multiculturalism, and feminism. But what hides behind these terms?

Tolerance means that one person never expresses a judgment about someone else's ideas, beliefs, and values from a worldview of absolute truth. Tolerance demands that you not only accept another worldview, but that you value it—unless, of course, the worldview is Biblical Christianity. Tolerance is very intolerant of Bible-minded Christians.

Diversity or sensitivity training is about the normalization of the homosexual lifestyle.

Multiculturalism is not the study of many cultures but the criticism of Western Culture and its founding worldview of Christianity. Multiculturalism also desires to destroy patriotism.

Feminism is not about equal rights for women but about the destruction of a patriarchal society in favor of a matriarchal society. The goal of feminism is the destruction of the family by eliminating the husband and father as provider, protector, and principled leader of his home. Think of fathers like Charles Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie, John Walton from The Walton's, and Ward Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver. Each of these television programs presented what American society at one time expected and loved about the patriarch of the family. A father who did not shape and encourage his children to embrace and live out a Christian worldview through their character and life choices was looked down upon by society as being a dead-beat, a drunkard, a reprobate, or at least slothful.

Our society no longer has these high expectations, nor do we shun men who are not principled and present fathers. In today's television programs, the father is often not even in the picture, and, if he is, he certainly is not a leader trying to disciple his children in truth and right living. Often Dad is the whipping boy of the show, the stooge the children treat with disrespect or even contempt. 

Feminism has accomplished its goals—the destruction of the American family through the destruction of the father and the resulting the rise of the welfare state.

Political correctness is all about creating chaos by destroying the American family, replacing the role of the father with the role of the State, normalizing sexual perversion, and ridiculing traditional morals and virtues that stem from Christianity. The PC crowd uses this chaos to justify more government. 

Political correctness, in general, is a masking term for cultural Marxism. An all-powerful and intrusive government that robs you of your freedoms is the ultimate goal of what you may know only as political correctness.

Although people regularly laugh about political correctness as if it is some kind of joke, losing your freedom of religion, freedom of speech, property rights, and parental authority is no laughing matter. Thought control is not funny, and many Christians already have been prosecuted under hate-crime laws for sharing the gospel and for publicly speaking out against homosexuality. Many of these ideas are also hiding behind names such as social justice or white privilege. 

Alvin Schmidt describes another agenda behind political correctness when he writes:

[quote] The idea behind political correctness is the notion of oppression. Women, blacks, Hispanics, and homosexuals are viewed as oppressed minorities due to the influence of Christianity and capitalism, bringing about the need for a revolution to overthrow their white, male, heterosexual, Euro-centric oppressors. [end quote]

And in his research paper "Political Correctness in Higher Education," T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr, outlines the problem among us:

[quote] Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Politically Correct assault on the curriculum is that it has occurred at many of America's elite universities. Take, for example, the case of Stanford University, an institution that has long played a leadership role in American higher education. Stanford eliminated its long-standing Western civilization requirement in 1988 and replaced it with a multicultural program known as "Cultures, Ideas, and Values." Under this new program, freshman at Stanford can just as easily study Marxist revolutionaries in Central America as they can Plato, Shakespeare or Newton. Because elite institutions such as Stanford set an example for the rest of American higher education, other universities eagerly adopt these devastating assaults on the curriculum. This "trickle-down" effect will have a long-lasting impact on the way future generations of Americans will be educated. One distinguished scholar recently lamented that "higher education is increasingly about acquiring attitudes and opinions that one puts on like a uniform."  [end quote] 

Nearly 30 years ago U.S. News and World Report noted that there were even then 10,000 Marxist professors teaching at America's colleges and universities. That number today is much higher. Tracking the growing trend, Georgie Anne Geyer, writing in a 1989 Denver Post article, reported that "the percentage of Marxist faculty numbers can range from an estimated 90 percent in some Midwestern universities." Herbert London, writing in “Marxism Thriving on American Campuses,” states in 1987 that:

"The strides made by Marxism at American universities in the last two decades are breathtaking…Every discipline has been affected by its preachment and almost every faculty now counts among its members a resident Marxist scholar."

The way to combat political correctness is to expose it for the Marxism it really is. Equally important in defeating this anti-Christian, anti-American worldview is to not comply with its mandates. Call homosexuality what it is—sin. Expose feminism as being anti-family and anti-father. Show tolerance as moral relativism and intolerance toward those who don't conform to the politically correct dictates of tolerance. Reveal sensitivity training as an attempt to destroy freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Point out to your family and friends the impact that cultural Marxism has had and is having on American faith, families, and freedoms. 

William Lind accurately describes how we have allowed this worldview to destroy America by failing to follow and teach a Biblical worldview to the next generation: 

"In the United States of America our traditional Western, Judeo-Christian culture is collapsing. It is not collapsing because it failed. On the contrary, it has given us the freest and most prosperous society in human history. Rather, it is collapsing because we are abandoning it."

By eradicating Christianity not only will the family fall and the Church become impotent, but capitalism and the free enterprise system that were birthed out of the Protestant Reformation will be destroyed. 

The ultimate goal of cultural Marxism is to destroy Christianity in all areas of American life: law, science, economics, history, family, social issues, and education. The elimination of the Christian worldview from the culture will create the desired chaos. Once chaos has reached a fevered pitch, the public will cry out for government to solve the problem and people will accept socialism—and the outright rejection of the U.S. Constitution and our other founding documents. Then the cultural Marxists will have accomplished the transition from cultural Marxism to traditional Marxism—socialism—the economic philosophy of Karl Marx. 

So, unless you desire to live in a country where the middle class has been eliminated—most will live in a socialistically enforced poverty of equals while a few remain wealthy—and where we are under the tyrannical thumb of a small group of cultural elitists who control every aspect of your life, then you had better speak up. Nothing is more powerful than the truth, nothing scares the elitists more than their worldview and agenda being exposed for what it really seeks to accomplish, and nothing would be more likely to make the faculty of the Frankfurt School turn over in their graves. 
 

Copyright 2009 ©Brannon Howse. This content is for Situation Room members and is not to be duplicated in any form or uploaded to other websites without the express written permission of Brannon Howse or his legally authorized representative.