Commonalities: Today’s “Cultural Marxists” and the Real Marxists of Yore

It seems to me that there are certain parallels between the Marxists of yore (I’m thinking late 20th century) and the “Cultural Marxists” of today. (Many of these “Cultural Marxists” of today are profiled and documented at the DiscoverTheNetworks.org site that I recently have mentioned).

To be sure, not all of them are the same, but on the other hand, we see certain commonalities, such as an overt belief in naturalistic atheism; a crafted message/agenda that offers certain but limited resemblance to true things – designed to suck in the ignorant, and from which deviation is a kind of betrayal and is punishable; a pure will-to-power (primarily through the use of governmental power – and the related shrill hatred for Trump that they feel – Trump being the ultimate “anti-Cultural-Marxist” of our day, but even a kind of power derived from shouting someone down on Twitter and destroying – to the extent that they are able – individual lives and careers); and even a willingness in some instances to resort to violence.

It’s easy for these groups to say, “we’re not like the Soviet Marxists; we have good intentions”. Well, that all reminded me of some of the things I’d read back when I was a kid in my late teens.

The following, from Václav Havel, may be considered to be a “worst-case scenario” given who the Cultural Marxists are and what they are doing, but the similarities are there. Havel was a poet and playwright from Czechoslovakia, under the Soviet regime. After the fall of communism, he was elected president of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and then president of the Czech Republic (1993-2000) when the country was split into two countries (Czech Republic and Slovakia).

Roman Catholic authority and the Soviet propagandistic “correct” understanding of things

Given that Fr Bryan thinks that the Roman Catholic hierarchy is able to “[ponder] the word of God in [its] heart and [hear] the voice of God accurately” in such a way that it can “proclaim the truth of the Gospel to the World”, I asked him, How do you account for something like this?

In the link provided, I note that “Augustine's understanding/translation of iustitificare, a Latin term which he held to mean “to make righteous” was “a permissible interpretation of the Latin word”, was “unacceptable as an interpretation of the Hebrew concept which underlies it” – and that this mistranslation became the foundation for the whole Roman Catholic teaching on “justification”.

That is, Augustine missed quite thoroughly the concept of what the Old Testament meant when it said that God was going to “justify” Israel and bring salvation.

I noted further, “This isn’t the only case in which a mistranslation gets made into [Roman Catholic] dogma”.

Fr Bryan did not respond, but this exchanged followed:

Someone named Dennis said:

John,

Regarding #957, your argument goes under the assumption that McGrath is correct and Augustine is wrong. So, it all depends on whom you take as your authority. You implicitly trust McGrath more than Augustine. I disagree. As a matter of fact, I think most people would trust Augustine much more than they would trust McGrath.

I replied:

Dennis, your appeal to authority is very revealing.

There’s no assumption at all, in the whole piece. We know that words have actual meanings, and we know what those meanings are, and that Augustine didn’t now Hebrew. We know where his understanding of iustitificare came from, and how, precisely, things went wrong. There’s not an assumption in the whole piece.

Dennis replied:

What I’m saying is we all have an authority. Mine is the Church who has decided on this. Yours is your understanding of McGrath. I think your reading of McGrath is biased on your understanding of Scripture and your disposition on the Catholic Church.

My authority, Dennis, happens to be “what’s true”. What’s really going on there. Your appeal to “authority” to decide a translation issue reminds me of something that Václav Havel wrote in The Power of the Powerless, when he was locked in the deepest bowels of the Soviet system of propaganda:

For even though our dictatorship has long since alienated itself completely from the social movements that give birth to it, the authenticity of these movements (and I am thinking of the proletarian and socialist movements of the nineteenth century) gives it undeniable historicity. These origins provided a solid foundation of sorts on which it could build until it became the utterly new social and political reality it is today, which has become so inextricably a part of the structure of the modern world. A feature of those historical origins was the “correct” understanding of social conflicts in the period from which those original movements emerged. The fact that at the very core of this “correct” understanding there was a genetic disposition toward the monstrous alienation characteristic of its subsequence development is not essential here.

Rome provides the “correct” understanding authoritatively, even if the underlying facts are all wrong. Just like the brutal Soviet regime.

Which came first, however? Which learned this tactic from the other?

It’s true, correlation is not causation. But if its “genetic disposition” looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you have to ask yourself at some point, is it related?