Best of Right Opinion

• Paul Kengor: Marx at 200: Classical Marxism vs. Cultural Marxism
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• Tony Perkins: Saudis Draw Line in the Sand for Christians
• Todd Starnes: Lawmakers Say Army May Have Violated Law by Targeting Baptist Chaplain
• Peggy Noonan: If Adults Won’t Grow Up, Nobody Will

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Opinion in Brief

Paul Kengor: “What is … cultural Marxism, and how did it emerge? It began not on May 5, 1818, with [Karl] Marx’s birth but over 100 years later with the birth of what came to be known as the Frankfurt School. … Cultural Marxists understand that the revolution requires a cultural war over an economic war. Whereas the West — certainly America — is not vulnerable to a revolt of the downtrodden trade-union masses, it is eminently vulnerable when it comes to, say, sex or pornography. While a revolution for wealth redistribution would be unappealing to most citizens of the West, a sexual revolution would be irresistible. … The threat of Hitler’s Germany drove the Frankfurt School out of Europe and into the welcoming arms of America’s left-wing academics. Most to all of the leading practitioners of the Frankfurt School were Jews who needed a safe haven from Hitler’s madness. So they and their institute came to New York City, specifically to the campus of Columbia University, already a hotbed of communist thought. Pleading the case for them at Columbia was John Dewey, founding father of American public education and communist sympathizer. … It was no coincidence that Columbia housed the nation’s top teachers’ college — a creation of John Dewey. From there, the cultural Marxists spread their ideas to campuses nationwide. Their extremist notions would sweep up the ‘60s New Left, to which the likes of Herbert Marcuse became an ideological guru to the radicals who today are tenured at our universities. … These modern cultural revolutionaries are succeeding magnificently in redefining everything from marriage and family to sexuality and gender. And most stunning of all, it’s the parents — many of them conservative Christians — who are paying for the grand indoctrination with their lifesavings. And 200 years henceforth, Karl Marx would be chuckling heartily at that irony.”