- 17 Dec 2017 02:43
#14871627
Actually, the 'New Left' was indeed a thing during the 1960s and 70s. It drew most of its inspiration from theorists such as Herbert Marcuse and other members of the Frankfurt School. Most orthodox Marxist-Leninists regarded them as heretics, since they essentially abandoned the industrial proletariat of the developed capitalist societies as a possible agent of revolutionary change, and fixed their hopes instead on the Third World peasantry and saw their task as that of leading a 'cultural revolution' in the West rather than actually fomenting a political revolution. This is where the concept of "cultural Marxism" ultimately comes from. The New Left was pretty much dead in the water by the late 1970s, and by the 1980s it was in full retreat. It has never recovered its former influence, and is generally despised by orthodox Marxists in the same way and for the same reasons that we despise 'Eurocommunism'. They are still sometimes resurrected as a bogeyman by right-wing commentators, despite the fact that the 'New Left' actually no longer exists any more, and hasn't existed for almost 40 years. Lol.
PI there is no "New Left" or "alt Left", stop with that nonsense.
Actually, the 'New Left' was indeed a thing during the 1960s and 70s. It drew most of its inspiration from theorists such as Herbert Marcuse and other members of the Frankfurt School. Most orthodox Marxist-Leninists regarded them as heretics, since they essentially abandoned the industrial proletariat of the developed capitalist societies as a possible agent of revolutionary change, and fixed their hopes instead on the Third World peasantry and saw their task as that of leading a 'cultural revolution' in the West rather than actually fomenting a political revolution. This is where the concept of "cultural Marxism" ultimately comes from. The New Left was pretty much dead in the water by the late 1970s, and by the 1980s it was in full retreat. It has never recovered its former influence, and is generally despised by orthodox Marxists in the same way and for the same reasons that we despise 'Eurocommunism'. They are still sometimes resurrected as a bogeyman by right-wing commentators, despite the fact that the 'New Left' actually no longer exists any more, and hasn't existed for almost 40 years. Lol.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Marx (Groucho)