Freedom isn’t lost overnight. It’s about trends.

Here is another instalment in my ‘I shall reveal unto you a mystery’ series. Allow me to begin by stating that freedom isn’t lost overnight. Its loss is about trends. Trends driven by our commonly held beliefs, our world view, our cultural mojo. These trends emerge over time and have an origin in some specific philosophy which requires examination. But before we do so, let’s examine the symptoms of societal decline. Society will become arbitrary where subjective thought will replace objective reality. This, more than anything else, is the main symptom of social and governmental decay. Society and the way it chooses to govern itself can be compared to steering a great ship. It requires a known, predetermined course. To set such a course one must know true north, longitude, the ship’s position in relationship to them and its destination. If all things are viewed as purely subjective rather then objective, then such determinations become impossible. When empiricism is replaced with ‘feelings’, then no objective determination regarding a course can be made.

Societies and their respective governments will become ever more arbitrary under such circumstances. People will lose the ability to understand such simple things as their inherent rights. Laws will become ever more poorly understood. Governments will pass new laws which contradict previous laws, especially when the new laws ignore the very foundation for law in the Anglo-sphere, namely Magna Carta and Common Law. Government will gradually emerge as a law unto itself. Checks and balances intended to limit government will fail. The inherent rights of the individual will be replaced with rights awarded to special interest groups. Individuals in such societies will be categorized and lumped into collective entities. Woe betide the person whom the bureaucrats and collectivists cannot easily place into a predetermined group that suits their feelings about what people should be like and how they should behave. Cultural conformity will become mandatory.

Of course, such societies will always have people within them who will develop cognitive dissonance under these circumstances and thus begin to warn their fellows that their ship is about to hit the shoals. In such a system, this person will be viewed as ‘difficult’ since they dare to contradict the collective group in which they have been placed. As a person who has been an entertainer, I have experienced this very thing. My love of liberty is viewed by my fellow musicians as completely unconscionable. Waste and bureaucratic control will grow immensely in order to administer the government’s grip over the people. Government sponsored arts and sports will emerge as a means of controlling thought. The reason for such is simple, feelings will become legislated. Anything that assaults the emerging collective will be attacked by the collective. More so if there is some measure of cognitive dissonance among some of the persons who are responsible for misdirecting the ship. Empiricism will be mocked. Any call for the use of reason will be labelled as a threat to the very existence of this emerging dysfunctional system. We see this very example with Islamophobia being condemned by the Canadian government. Since a phobia is a feeling, it is certainly not up to the government to tell its citizens how they should ‘feel’. But they have.

'Feelings, nothing more than feelings'. And if you feel your government is trouncing on your rights, you’re wrong! And now as to the philosophy behind this which requires our examination, from Wikipedia http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism :

“Cultural Marxism places great emphasis on analyzing, controlling, and changing the popular culture, the popular discourse, the mass media, and the language itself. Seeing culture as often having more or less subconscious influences on people which create and sustain inequalities, Cultural Marxists themselves often try to remove these inequalities by more or less subtle manipulation and censorship of culture.

A term describing such censorship is political correctness where all views on equality that disagree with the Cultural Marxist view are avoided, censored, and punished.

Related to Cultural Marxism are various forms of relativism/subjectivism and denial of the existence of objective knowledge.

The phrase "The long march through the institutions of power" refers to Cultural Marxists slowly taking over key positions in the institutions controlling culture in order to create a new culture. In effect this will create revolutionary changes without having to resort to political violence. It also reflects a worldview where Cultural Marxists view themselves as infiltrators and subversives. (The phrase is often attributed to Antonio Gramsci but was instead coined by another Cultural Marxist (Rudi Dutschke) who was influenced by Gramsci's ideas.)

The Frankfurt School and critical theory:

The idea that a culture may be problematic is not new but Cultural Marxism in its current form originates in the Frankfurt School. The Frankfurt School is a neo-Marxist school which originated around 1923 at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany.

The Frankfurt School developed critical theory in order to analyze and explain how culture creates inequalities. It has been extremely influential and today has branches in numerous fields such as critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, critical gender studies, critical criminology, critical legal studies, etc.

Freudian psychoanalysis was an important influence on critical theory. One example is the influential book The Authoritarian Personality where psychoanalytic ideas are used to pathologize Western love and pride of Christianity, the family, and the nation.

The tendency to pathologize opponents as being irrationally sick has continued with, for example, labels such as homophobia and Islamophobia.”

So, now you know, yet another mystery has been revealed unto you. I wish you and yours, liberty and self-determination and to hell with cultural Marxism because that is where it originated.