Talk:Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory

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Frequently asked questions

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Frequently asked questions about Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory

Q1: Why is this topic called a "conspiracy theory" in the title?

A1: Because that's what the reliable sources call it, and Wikipedia follows what reliable, independent, secondary sources say. See the sources listed in the footnotes in the lead of the article, for example.

Q2: Why is it labeled "far-right" and "antisemitic" in the first sentence? Doesn't that show a biased, leftist point of view?

A2: See answer #1; because that's what the reliable sources call it; see the citations for the first sentence.

Q3: Dworkin (1997) has the term in the title of his book, so the field clearly must exist.

A3: Not if he's the first one to talk about it. Dworkin said (on page 3) that "My account is the first intellectual history to study British cultural Marxism conceived as a coherent intellectual discipline". If he's the first, then either it's not a preexisting field, or no one has discovered or named it before him. Either way, that would be a different topic; this article is about the conspiracy theory dating to the 1990s.

Q4: I came here to read (or edit) about scholars who apply Marxist theory to the study of culture.

A4: Much of this is covered at a different article, Marxist cultural analysis.

Q5: Why is this labeled "antisemitic"? Plenty of people involved with the Frankfurt school were Jewish!

A5: This article is about the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory dating to the 1990s, and the reliable sources consistently identify it as antisemitic. The Frankfurt school is a different topic, and dates back to Germany in the 1920s.

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

David Auerbach (2014-12-11). "Encyclopedia Frown". Slate. Recently, an adequate and fairly neutral page on 'Cultural Marxism,' which traced the history of Marxist critical theory from Lukács to Adorno to Jameson, simply disappeared thanks to the efforts of a single editor.
Russell Blackford (2015-07-27). "Cultural Marxism and our current culture wars: Part 1". The Conversation.
Russell Blackford (2015-08-02). "Cultural Marxism and our current culture wars: Part 2". The Conversation.
McKinney, Kara (2021-11-29). "Tipping Point". One America News Network.
Alexander Riley (2022-05-12). "On Cultural Marxism, the Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory? Woke Deception at Wikipedia". Minding the Campus.
Shuichi Tezuka (2023-12-11). "Introducing Justapedia". Quillette.

A warning about certain sources: There are two sources on the subject of "Cultural Marxism" that represent a citogenesis or circular reporting risk to Wikipedia as they plagiarize verbatim directly from an outdated draft that came from Wikipedia, which can be found here (2006 revision here). The sources are N.D. Arora's Political Science for Civil Services Main Examination (2013) and A.S. Kharbe's English Language And Literary Criticism (2009); both are from publishers located in New Delhi and should be avoided to prevent a citogenesis incident.

Concerns regarding the most recent edit

As an IP, I am unable to revert the most recent edit (diff). However, I would like to point out that this simplification is not supported by the sources, dictionaries, or editorial consensus. In fact, it contradicts what is stated in the MCA article. 87.116.180.169 (talk) 00:35, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a reasonable way to phrase it, and supported in discussions that have been had on the talk page in the past (I think most recently in Archive 30). It certainly is not contradicted by our sources, nor does it introduce any conflict with the other article. I see no reason to revert. MrOllie (talk) 00:49, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This question briefly came up on talk again last month, and is now in Archive 35. I'd mildly prefer sticking with "refers to" as a way of sidestepping that not *every* placement of the words "cultural" and "Marxism" next to each other refers to the conspiracy theory (though I'd agree that usage does *almost always* refer to the conspiracy theory). That said, it isn't something I'd revert a good faith change on either way. CAVincent (talk) 02:57, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have a pretty clear consensus for "refers to" in previous Talk discussions, so I have now reverted. Newimpartial (talk) 16:04, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sources should be more accessible

For a controversial subject like this, it should be encouraged to have sources linking to accessible websites that aren't paywalled or have to be viewed through academic journals or books. Yourlocallordandsavior (talk) 10:28, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That’s not our problem and we can do nothing about it. Dronebogus (talk) 10:44, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On paywalled sources, see WP:PAYWALL. Sadly the WP:BESTSOURCES are not always open access and for a contentious topic we should use best sources. I don't see excessive use of paywalled sources here. Are there specific contentious factual claims we make here that you are concerned about the sourcing of? BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:08, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]