Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Western civilization at the present day is passing through a crisis which is essentially different
from anything that has been previously experienced. Other societies in the past have changed
their social institutions or their religious beliefs under the influence of external forces or the
slow development of internal growth. But none, like our own, has ever consciously faced
the prospect of a fundamental alteration of the beliefs and institutions on which the whole
fabric of social life rests ... Civilization is being uprooted from its foundations in nature
and tradition and is being reconstituted in a new organisation which is as artificial and
mechanical as a modern factory.
—Christopher Dawson. Enquiries into Religion and Culture, p. 259.
M
ost of Satan’s work in School’—a group of German- Well, in the days following the
the world he takes care American scholars who developed Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, it
to keep hidden. But highly provocative and original per- was believed that workers’ revolution
two small shafts of light have been spectives on contemporary society would sweep into Europe and, even-
thrown onto his work for me just and culture, drawing on Hegel, Marx, tually, into the United States. But it
recently. The first, a short article in Nietzsche, Freud, and Weber. Not did not do so. Towards the end of
the Association of Catholic Women’s that their idea of a ‘cultural revolu- 1922 the Communist International
ACW Review; the second, a remark tion’ was particularly new. “Until now,” (Comintern) began to consider what
(which at first surprised me) from a wrote Joseph, Comte de Maistre were the reasons. On Lenin’s initiative
priest in Russia who claimed that we (1753–1821) who for fifteen years a meeting was organised at the Marx-
now, in the West, live in a Communist was a Freemason, “nations were killed Engels Institute in Moscow.
society. These shafts of light help, es- by conquest, that is by invasion: But The aim of the meeting was to
pecially, to explain the onslaught of here an important question arises; clarify the concept of, and give con-
officialdom which in many countries can a nation not die on its own soil, crete effect to, a Marxist cultural
worldwide has so successfully been without resettlement or invasion, by revolution. Amongst those present
removing the rights of parents to be allowing the flies of decomposition to were Georg Lukacs (a Hungarian
the primary educators and protectors corrupt to the very core those origi- aristocrat, son of a banker, who had
of their children. nal and constituent principles which become a Communist during World
The ACW Review examined the make it what it is.” War I; a good Marxist theoretician
corrosive work of the ‘Frankfurt What was the Frankfurt School? he developed the idea of ‘Revolution
1
March 2009
and Eros’—sexual instinct used as NKVD assassination squad caught up attended the universities in Tübingen
an instrument of destruction) and with him and hanged him from a tree. and Frankfurt, where he graduated
Willi Münzenberg (whose proposed In the summer of 1924, after being with a doctoral degree in political
solution was to ‘organise the intellec- attacked for his writings by the 5th science. While at these universities
tuals and use them to make Western Comintern Congress, Lukacs moved he became increasingly interested in
civilisation stink. Only then, after to Germany, where he chaired the first socialism and Marxism. According to
they have corrupted all its values and meeting of a group of Communist- the intellectual historian Martin Jay,
made life impossible, can we impose oriented sociologists, a gathering that the topic of his dissertation was ‘the
the dictatorship of the proletariat’) ‘It was to lead to the foundation of the practical problems of implementing
was’, said Ralph de Toledano (1916– Frankfurt School. socialism.’
2007) the conservative author and This ‘School’ (designed to put Carl Grünberg, the Institute’s
co-founder of the ‘National Review’, flesh on their revolutionary pro- director from 1923–1929, was
a meeting ‘perhaps more harm- gramme) was started at the University an avowed Marxist, although the
ful to Western civilization than the of Frankfurt in the Institut für Institute did not have any offi-
Bolshevik Revolution itself.’ Sozialforschung. To begin with school cial party affiliations. But in 1930
Lenin died in 1924. By this time, and institute were indistinguishable. Max Horkheimer assumed control
however, Stalin was beginning to In 1923 the Institute was official- and he believed that Marx’s theory
look on Münzenberg, Lukacs and ly established, and funded by Felix should be the basis of the Institute’s
like-thinkers as ‘revisionists’. In June Weil (1898–1975). Weil was born in research. When Hitler came to pow-
1940, Münzenberg fled to the south Argentina and at the age of nine was er, the Institut was closed and its
of France where, on Stalin’s orders, a sent to attend school in Germany. He members, by various routes, fled to
2
March 2009
the United States and migrated to (denounced by Pope Paul VI for his most influential representative.
major US universities—Columbia, theory of liberation which ‘opens Basically, the Frankfurt School
Princeton, Brandeis, and California the way for licence cloaked as lib- believed that as long as an individual
at Berkeley. erty’), Max Horkheimer, Theodor had the belief—or even the hope of
The School included among Adorno, the popular writer Erich belief—that his divine gift of reason
its members the 1960s guru of Fromm, Leo Lowenthal, and Jurgen could solve the problems facing so-
the New Left Herbert Marcuse Habermas—possibly the School’s ciety, then that society would never
3
March 2009
4
March 2009
two types of revolution: (a) political German Ideology of 1845, written dis- Left movement in the 1960s.
and (b) cultural. Cultural revolution paragingly about the idea of the family They proposed transforming our
demolishes from within. ‘Modern as the basic unit of society. This was culture into a female-dominated
forms of subjection are marked by one of the basic tenets of the ‘Critical one. In 1933, Wilhelm Reich, one of
mildness’. They saw it as a long-term Theory’: the necessity of breaking their members, wrote in The Mass
project and kept their sights clearly down the contemporary family. The Psychology of Fascism that matriar-
focused on the family, education, me- Institute scholars preached that ‘Even chy was the only genuine family type
dia, sex and popular culture. a partial breakdown of parental au- of ‘natural society.’ Eric Fromm was
thority in the family might tend to also an active advocate of matriarchal
increase the readiness of a coming theory. Masculinity and feminini-
The Family generation to accept social change.’ ty, he claimed, were not reflections
The School’s ‘Critical Theory’ Following Karl Marx, the School of ‘essential’ sexual differences, as
preached that the ‘authoritarian stressed how the ‘authoritarian per- the Romantics had thought but were
personality’ is a product of the pa- sonality’ is a product of the patriarchal derived instead from differences in
triarchal family—an idea directly family—it was Marx who wrote so life functions, which were in part
linked to Engels’ Origins of the Family, disparagingly about the idea of the socially determined.’ His dogma was
Private Property and the State, which family being the basic unit of soci- the precedent for the radical feminist
promoted matriarchy. Already Karl ety. All this prepared the way for the pronouncements that, today, appear
Marx had written, in the ‘Communist warfare against the masculine gender in nearly every major newspaper and
Manifesto’, about the radical notion of promoted by Marcuse under the guise television programme.
a ‘community of women’ and in The of ‘women’s liberation’ and by the New The revolutionaries knew exactly
5
March 2009
Education
Lord Bertrand Russell joined with
the Frankfurt School in their ef-
fort at mass social engineering and
spilled the beans in his 1951 book,
The Impact of Science on Society. He
wrote: “Physiology and psychology
afford fields for scientific technique
which still await development. The
importance of mass psychology
has been enormously increased by
the growth of modern methods of much it costs per head to make in the United States or Europe
propaganda. Of these the most in- children believe that snow is black, which do not openly acknowledge
fluential is what is called ‘education.’ and how much less it would cost to their debt to the Frankfurt School.
The social psychologists of the fu- make them believe it is dark gray . The witchhunt on today’s campus-
ture will have a number of classes of When the technique has been per- es is merely the implementation of
school children on whom they will fected, every government that has Marcuse’s concept of ‘repressive
try different methods of producing been in charge of education for a toleration’—‘tolerance for move-
an unshakable conviction that snow generation will be able to control its ments from the left, but intolerance
is black. Various results will soon be subjects securely without the need for movements from the right’—
arrived at. First, that the influence of armies or policemen.” enforced by the students of the
of home is obstructive. Second, that Writing in 1992 in Fidelio Frankfurt School.”
not much can be done unless indoc- Magazine, [The Frankfurt School
trination begins before the age of and Political Correctness] Michael
ten. Third, that verses set to music Minnicino observed how the
Drugs
and repeatedly intoned are very heirs of Marcuse and Adorno now Dr. Timothy Leary gave us anoth-
effective. Fourth, that the opinion completely dominate the universi- er glimpse into the mind of the
that snow is white must be held to ties, “teaching their own students Frankfurt School in his account of
show a morbid taste for eccentric- to replace reason with ‘Politically the work of the Harvard University
ity. But I anticipate. It is for future Correct’ ritual exercises. There are Psychedelic Drug Project, ‘Flashback.’
scientists to make these maxims very few theoretical books on arts, He quoted a conversation that he had
precise and discover exactly how letters, or language published today with Aldous Huxley: “These brain
6
March 2009
drugs, mass produced in the labora- in the usage of psychedelic drugs. In multi-billionaire atheist George Soros
tories, will bring about vast changes 1965, he wrote in a book issued by the who chose, as one of his first domestic
in society. This will happen with or publishing arm of the UK’s Tavistock programs, to fund efforts to challenge
without you or me. All we can do Institute: “The nation, seems to be the efficacy of America’s $37-billion-a-
is spread the word. The obstacle to fascinated by our 40,000 or so drug year war on drugs. The Soros-backed
this evolution, Timothy, is the Bible.” addicts who are seen as alarmingly Lindesmith Center serves as a lead-
Leary then went on: “We had run up wayward people who must be curbed ing voice for Americans who want
against the Judeo-Christian com- at all costs by expensive police activi- to decriminalize drug use. “Soros is
mitment to one God, one religion, ty. Only an uneasy Puritanism could the ‘Daddy Warbucks of drug legal-
one reality, that has cursed Europe support the practice of focusing on the ization,” claimed Joseph Califano Jr.
for centuries and America since our drug addicts (rather than our 5 million of Columbia University’s National
founding days. Drugs that open the alcoholics) and treating them as a po- Center on Addiction and Substance
mind to multiple realities inevitably lice problem instead of a medical one, Abuse (The Nation, Sep 2, 1999).
lead to a polytheistic view of the uni- while suppressing harmless drugs such
verse. We sensed that the time for a as marijuana and peyote along with
new humanist religion based on intel- the dangerous ones.” The leading pro-
Music, Television and
ligence, good-natured pluralism and pagandists of today’s drug lobby base Popular Culture
scientific paganism had arrived.” their argument for legalization on the Adorno was to become head of a
One of the directors of the same scientific quackery spelled out all ‘music studies’ unit, where in his
Authoritarian Personality project, Dr. those years ago by Dr. Sanford. Theory of Modern Music he pro-
Nevitt Sanford, played a pivotal role Such propagandists include the moted the prospect of unleashing
7
March 2009
atonal and other popular music as charge of the New York Times in
a weapon to destroy society, degen- 1992—drew greatly on the Frankfurt
erate forms of music to promote School’s study The Authoritarian
mental illness. He said the US could Personality (New York: Harper, 1950).
be brought to its knees by the use In his book Arrogance, (Warner
of radio and television to promote a Books, 1993) former CBS News re-
culture of pessimism and despair— porter Bernard Goldberg noted of
by the late 1930s he (together with Sulzberger that he “still believes in all
Horkheimer) had migrated to those old sixties notions about ‘liber-
Hollywood. ation’ and ‘changing the world man’
The expansion of violent vid- … In fact, the Punch years have been
eo games also well supported the a steady march down PC Boulevard,
School’s aims. with a newsroom fiercely dedicated
to every brand of diversity except the
Sex intellectual kind.”
In his book The Closing of the In 1953 the Institute moved back to was their concept that led to the cur-
American Mind, Alan Bloom ob- the University of Frankfurt. Adorno rent fad for the rewriting of history,
served how “Marcuse appealed to died in 1955 and Horkheimer in 1973. and to the vogue for ‘deconstruction’.
university students in the sixties The Institute of Social Research con- Their mantras: ‘sexual differences are
with a combination of Marx and tinued, but what was known as the a contract; if it feels good, do it; do
Freud. In Eros and Civilization and Frankfurt School did not. The ‘cultur- your own thing.’
One Dimensional Man Marcuse al Marxism’ that has since taken hold In an address at the US Naval
promised that the overcoming of of our schools and universities—that Academy in August 1999, Dr Gerald
capitalism and its false conscious- ‘political correctness’, which has been L. Atkinson, CDR USN (Ret), gave a
ness will result in a society where destroying our family bonds, our background briefing on the Frankfurt
the greatest satisfactions are sexual. religious tradition and our entire School, reminding his audience that it
Rock music touches the same chord culture—sprang from the Frankfurt was the ‘foot soldiers’ of the Frankfurt
in the young. Free sexual expres- School. School who introduced the ‘sensitivi-
sion, anarchism, mining of the It was these intellectual Marxists ty training’ techniques used in public
irrational unconscious and giving who, later, during the anti-Vietnam schools over the past 30 years (and
it free rein are what they have in demonstrations, coined the phrase, now employed by the US military
common.” ‘make love, not war’; it was these to educate the troops about ‘sexu-
intellectuals who promoted the di- al harassment’). During ‘sensitivity’
The Media alectic of ‘negative’ criticism; it was training teachers were told not to
The modern media—not least Arthur these theoreticians who dreamed of a teach but to ‘facilitate.’ Classrooms
‘Punch’ Sulzberger Jr., who took utopia where their rules governed. It became centres of self-examination
8
March 2009
where children talked about their what I was doing, they would [at-
own subjective feelings. This tech- tack]” (Journals, p. 157).
nique was designed to convince
children they were the sole authority
in their own lives.
The Network
Atkinson continued: “The In her booklet Sex & Social
Authoritarian personality,’ studied Engineering (Family Education Trust
by the Frankfurt School in the 1940s 1994) Valerie Riches observed how in
and 1950s in America, prepared the late 1960s and early 1970s, there
the way for the subsequent warfare were intensive parliamentary cam-
against the masculine gender pro- paigns taking place emanating from
moted by Herbert Marcuse and his a number of organisations in the
band of social revolutionaries under field of birth control (i.e., contracep-
the guise of ‘women’s liberation’ and tion, abortion, sterilisation). “From
the New Left movement in the 1960s. an analysis of their annual reports,
The evidence that psychological tech- it became apparent that a compara- houses, medical, educational and
niques for changing personality is tively small number of people were research establishments, women’s
intended to mean emasculation of involved to a surprising degree in organisations and marriage guid-
the American male is provided by an array of pressure groups. This ance—anywhere where influence
Abraham Maslow, founder of Third network was not only linked by could be exerted. It appeared to have
Force Humanist Psychology and a personnel, but by funds, ideology great influence over the media, and
promoter of the psychotherapeu- and sometimes addresses: it was over permanent officials in relevant
tic classroom, who wrote that, ‘... also backed by vested interests and government departments, out of all
the next step in personal evolution supported by grants in some cases proportion to the numbers involved.
is a transcendence of both mas- by government departments. At the During our investigations, a speak-
culinity and femininity to general heart of the network was the Family er at a Sex Education Symposium in
humanness.” Planning Association (FPA) with its Liverpool outlined tactics of sex edu-
On April 17th, 1962, Maslow gave own collection of offshoots. What we cation saying: ‘if we do not get into sex
a lecture to a group of nuns at Sacred unearthed was a power structure with education, children will simply follow
Heart, a Catholic women’s college in enormous influence. the mores of their parents.’ The fact
Massachusetts. He noted in a diary Deeper investigation revealed that that sex education was to be the vehi-
entry how the talk had been very the network, in fact extended further cle for peddlers of secular humanism
‘successful,’ but he found that very afield, into eugenics, population con- soon became apparent.
fact troubling. “They shouldn’t ap- trol, birth control, sexual and family However, at that time the power
plaud me,” he wrote, “they should law reforms, sex and health education. of the network and the full implica-
attack. If they were fully aware of Its tentacles reached out to publishing tions of its activities were not fully
9
March 2009
10
March 2009
11
March 2009
guidance, children naturally make its current curriculum provision. Dr. its remote origins in the 18th centu-
choices based on feelings. Powerful William Coulson recognised the psy- ry Enlightenment. But like Lenin’s
peer pressure, freed from the values chological damage Rogers’ technique Marxism it is a breakaway movement.
which stem from a divine source, inflicted on youngsters and rejected The immediate aims of both classical
ensure that ‘shared values’ sink to it, devoting his life to exposing its liberalism and the Frankfurt School
the lowest common denominator. dangers. have been in the main the same (vide
References to environmental sus- Should those in authority in your eleven points above) but the final
tainability lead to a mindset where Catholic education not do likewise, end is different. For liberals they lead
anti-life arguments for population as ‘Citizenship’ makes its deadly to ‘improving’ and ‘perfecting’ western
control are presented as being both approach?” culture, for the Frankfurt School they
responsible and desirable. Similarly, If we allow their subversion of val- bring about its destruction.
‘informed choices’ about health and ues and interests to continue, we will, Unlike hard-line Marxists, the
lifestyles are euphemisms for atti- in future generations, lose all that our Frankfurt School do not make
tudes antithetical to Christian views ancestors suffered and died for. “We any plans for the future. (But) the
on motherhood, fatherhood, the are forewarned,” says Atkinson. “A Frankfurt School seems to be more
sacrament of marriage and family reading of history (it is all in main- far-sighted that our classical liberals
life. Values Clarification is covert and stream historical accounts) tells us and secularists. At least they see the
dangerous. It underpins the entire ra- that we are about to lose the most pre- moral deviations they promote will
tionale of Citizenship (PSHE) and is to cious thing we have—our individual in the end make social life impossi-
be introduced by statute into the UK freedoms.” ble or intolerable. But this leaves a big
soon. It will give young people secu- “What we are at present experienc- question mark over what a future con-
lar values and imbue them with the ing,” writes Philip Trower in a letter to ducted by them would be like.”
attitude that they alone hold ultimate the author, “is a blend of two schools Meanwhile, the Quiet Revolution
authority and judgement about their of thought; the Frankfurt School rolls forward.
lives. No Catholic school can include and the liberal tradition going back
this new subject as formulated in the to the 18th century Enlightenment.
Curriculum 2000 document within The Frankfurt School has of course
Timothy Matthews is the editor of the British, Catholic Family News. A news service of the National
Association of Catholic Families, United Kingdom. The article appeared in the American Catholic
weekly, The Wanderer, December 11, 2008. It is reprinted here with permission of the author.
12