Confessions of a Cultural Marxist

UPDATE: Plagiarism alert Breivik's text on "Political Correctness" appears to be lifted almost entirely from a screed called "Political Correctness: a Short History of an Ideology?" by William Lind, "Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation."

In the introduction to his "compendium" manifesto, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, Anders Breivik asks "What is Political Correctness?" and "How did it all begin?" His answer dwells on the Frankfurt School, and singles out Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilization as especially important (I have condensed Breivik's text here):

One work, however, is of such importance that it must be recommended despite its difficulty: Eros and Civilisation by Herbert Marcuse...

In brief, Eros and Civilisation urges total rebellion against traditional Western culture –the “Great Refusal” – and promises a Candyland utopia of free sex and no work to those who join the revolution.

The very achievements of this civilisation seemed to make the performance principle obsolete, to make the repressive utilisation of the instincts archaic. But the idea of a non-repressive civilisation on the basis of the achievements of the performance principle encountered the argument that instinctual liberation (and consequently total liberation) would explode civilisation itself, since the latter is sustained only through renunciation and work (labour) – in other words, through the repressive utilisation of instinctual energy. Freed from these constraints, man would exist without work and without order; he would fall back into nature, which would destroy culture. To meet this argument, we recalled certain archetypes of imagination which, in contrast to the culture-heroes of repressive productivity, symbolised creative receptivity.

Marcuse understood what most of the rest of his Frankfurt School colleagues did not: the way to destroy Western civilisation –the objective set forth by George Lukacs in 1919 – was not through abstruse theory, but through sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.

Breivik's account of Marcuse is a very strange and convoluted rendition, which, in essence, mistakes critique for advocacy and thus inadvertently comprehends a mirror image of what Marcuse was saying. Whether or not one subscribes to Marcuse's version of Freud or likes his terminology, it is crucial to distinguish between three concepts here: repressive sublimation, non-repressive sublimation and repressive de-sublimation. What Marcuse was advocating in Eros and Civilization was non-repressive sublimation. He criticized repressive de-sublimation. The two terms are opposites.

The "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" strategy for destroying Western civilization that Breivik lamented was actually something Marcuse opposed -- a sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll strategy for defending the hierarchical status quo: "The promotion of thoughtless leisure activities, the triumph of anti-intellectual ideologies, exemplify the trend. This extension of controls to formerly free regions of consciousness and leisure permit a relaxation of sexual taboos (previously more important because the over-all controls were less effective)."

Breivik's grisly "mistake" is not an innocent one. He has brought the technique of mass murder as a self-promoting publicity stunt to a new low. Perhaps the best punishment for that crime would be exposure of the gut-wrenchingly backward credulity and stupidity of his interpretation of "cultural Marxism."

The lying sack of shit that fabricated this modern-day Protocols of the Elders of Political Correctness is William S. Lind:

"William Sturgiss Lind, Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation, is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, born July 9, 1947. He graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1969 and received a Master's Degree in History from Princeton University in 1971. He worked as a legislative aide for armed services for Senator Robert Taft, Jr., of Ohio from 1973 through 1976 and held a similar position with Senator Gary Hart of Colorado from 1977 through 1986. He joined Free Congress Foundation in 1987."