In 1923, a disparate assemblage of philosophers, cultural critics, and sociologists formed the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany; popularly referred to as the Frankfurt School. The Frankfurt School consisted mostly of Neo-marxists (an offshoot of Marxism)who hoped for a socialist revolution in Germany but instead got fascism in the form of the Nazi Party.
Neo-marxism differs from Marxism in that Neomarxists abandon the division of rich vs. poor and instead adopt identity politics. Rather than the dichotomy existing between wealthy and poor, it is between successful and unsuccessful demographics (white, black, Asian, male, female, gay, straight, etc.) who are aligned in a hierarchy of oppression as determined by how successful that demographic is.
Recognizing that revolutionary socialism (also referred to as communism) didn’t progress like socialist revolutionary Karl Marx and fellow German thinker Friedrich Engels had envisioned in their 1848 political document, “The Communist Manifesto,” strategizing that economics be used to drive Marxism, the Frankfurt School determined they must instead use the culture to drive Marxism. Marx’s economic theories hadn’t worked.
As Hitler was coming to power, activists at the Frankfurt School knew they had to flee so they fled to America in 1933 and were embraced at a prestigious American university. Over the next year they developed what they called “The long march through the institutions,” their plan for Marxist take over of America. It was determined they must first gain influence over the universities and the educational system, television, movies and music, if they were to drive their agenda. They called it a “long march” because they knew it would be a hundred years or so to accomplish their goal.
What we are witnessing today is the product of something that began in America during the 1930s. Their successful long march has brought the United States to a critical point in our existence.
During a recent interview, Fred Markert, a widely acclaimed expert in the rise and fall of human civilizations, commented, “From a secular academic perspective, we are past the point of no return. We are in a phase of our civilization, which I call ‘late decadence.’ No civilization, in all of history, has ever recovered from late decadence.”
Markert explains, “After 5,000 years of recorded history, there have been twenty six previous preeminent civilizations that rose to global power status like America. The average life-span of all of those superpowers–who went through six identified phases of existence from ‘outburst’ to ‘decadence,’ happened over an average of 238 years before they collapsed.”
Markert, a former dissident himself, believes, “America is already past the average expiration date and most analysts–who are not what I would call revisionists (who revise history for their own goals)–believe there is no way to turn around America because we’ve rapidly gone through these six stages of our civilization of life.”
Markert defines the sixth and final stage of a civilization’s existence as “Decadence”: the decay and breakdown of religion, morality, education, justice and unifying customs, which he claims began in 1985 in American and accelerated in 2014.
Could these trends not be more indisputable, witnessing our present culture?
Václav Havel, former Czech statesman, writer and dissident, who served as the last President of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then as the first President of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003, told his countrymen the greatest challenge they were facing was a “decayed moral environment.”
I am certainly not alone in believing there is a moral and spiritual lesson for the United States to be discerned in the events of these past few months. Painfully, we have become glaringly devoid of belief in God and, as an oppressive consequence, we have become increasingly devoid of consideration, compassion, humility and forgiveness …values crucial to a free peoples’ republic.
Lech Walesa, Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who served as the first democratically elected President of Poland from 1990 to 1995, made this insightful observation, “Americans were drifting away from spiritual values as they became richer.” He said, “Sooner or later, we [Americans] will have to go back to our fundamental values, back to God, the truth, the truth which is in God.” Then Walesa made a most interesting statement, “We look to America …and expect from you a spiritual richness to meet the aspirations of the 20th century.”
During a speech delivered at Faneuil Hall in Boston in 1852, American lawyer and statesman Daniel Webster (1782–1852) remarked, ”If we work upon marble, it will perish; If we work upon brass, time will efface it; If we rear temples, they will crumble to dust; But if we work upon men’s immoral minds and imbue them with high principles, with the just fear of God and love of their fellow man; we engrave on those tablets something which no time can efface, and which will brighten and brighten to all eternity.”
The Apostle Paul counseled, “Where the Spirit of the Lord Is, there is liberty.”–2 Corinthians 3:17
“God-devotion makes a country strong; God-avoidance leaves people weak.–Proverbs 14:34.
Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics. At times the column is editorial in nature.
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