IF YOU ARE LIKE ME A TORENT of new terms and seemingly bizarre ideas have hit you in the last five years and you have wondered, “Where are these crazy ideas coming from? Who invented them? Why is anyone paying attention to them?”
I’m thinking of the first time I heard the adjective WOKE applied to someone, or my first exposure to Critical Race Theory through the book White Fragility, or the first time someone suggested that we abolish the police department, get rid of natural gas ranges, or demanding that I use weird pronouns to address them. What is all this? Where did it come from? Why are seemingly sane people uncritically capitulating to these ideas?
Christopher Rufo has done us a great service. His book Americas Cultural Revolution: How the Left Conquered Everything explains just how deeply the left has gained contol of Academia, the Deep State, and our Fortune Five Hundred Companies. For example, did you know that, of money given to political parties in the last election by employees of the Federal Government, almost 90% went to Democrats.
Most importantly he describes the “long march through the institutions,” suggested by the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci, that began in 1968, and has culminated with the current political and social coup achieved by the Left. To use their favorite term, they have gained hegemony over these institutions. The fruit of their hegemony is the social chaos that now engulfs us.
I can’t reccomend this book enough. Ideas have consequences. Rufo explains the consequences of the Left’s abhorent ideas, and how they gained ascendancy in a free culture. He traces the history of the left’s conquest of Academia, and the broader culture, through four ruthless, selfish, ideolouges—Marxist philosopher, Herbert Marcuse; his disciple, Angela Davis; Brazialian Marxist, Paulo Freire; and Harvand Law professor, Derrick Bell.
Herbert Marcuse
Marcuse (1898-1979) was a European non-religous Jew, of the infamous Frankfort School, who fled Germany in the 1930s for New York. A self-avowed Marxist, he took a teaching post at Columbia University, (shame on Columbia), eventually settling at San Diego State University in California. His philosophy provided the intellectual foundation for the sexual revolution which launched in 1968. Marcuse coined the term, “Make love not war.” His goal was the destruction of the nuclear family, and the collapse of biblical sexual morality was the key to that end. He is the most important, and influential intellectual, that you have probably never heard of.
Angela Davis
Most people that came of age in the fifties and sixties remember Angela Davis (1944-), a disciple of Marcuse. She was an architect of the Black Liberation Movement. When by 1975 it was apparent that she and her movement would not attain their ends through violence she retreated into academia where she has brewed her Marxist poison and trained many disciples. Her efforts have had remarkable results.
Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire (1921-97), a Brazilian Marxist, has had an under-appreciated, but massive, influence on American education. His book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, (over a million copies in print!), is the most influential book on educational philosophy in the free world. It urges educators to use education as a tool to free the oppressed and usher in the workers paradise predicted by Marx. In other words, education is a tool not just to teach the three R’s—reading, writing, and rithmetic—but to promote social engineering. Rufo notes that this book “has become a foundational text in nearly all graduate schools of education and teacher training programs” (Pg. 145).
Freire’s lies have been corrupting the Ivy League for decades. For example, despite understanding his agenda, Harvard (Shame on Harvard) hired Freire in the late sixties to promote his poison.
Derrick Bell
The last important revolutionary is Derrick Bell (1930-2011), professor at, where else?—Harvard Law School. Harvard, afflicted with white guilt and motivated by affirmative action, hired Bell, a black civil rights lawyer—although he was under-qualified to teach at Harvard Law.
And Bell had issues. Nursing a disturbing level of bitterness and grievances towards whites, he eventually came to hate white people. Convinced that America’s racism was systemic and could not be cured, he taught that all whites are racist whether, they will admit it or not. Bell’s solution was black racism towards whites and a complete overturn of America’s social structures. Through his numerous disciples, and students, one of which was Barack Obama, he promoted the idea of Critical Race Theory. It has slowly seeped through the American Academy. Today we are tasting its bitter fruit today. Another disciple, Kimberle Crenshaw, developed the concept of “Intersectionality.”
If I was in control of the world, I would make this book mandatory reading for all high school seniors. If I couldn’t do that, then I would make mastering this book a requirement for a college diploma at every university in America. Buy a copy. Read it. Knowledge is power. Few realize how deeply the left has gained control of the levers of control and influence. Only those who understand how this happened will be able to prevent it from happening again.
Ordered. Can’t wait to read it.