The Frankfurt Conspiracy: Critical Theory & Satanism

There’s a trend amongst conservative commentators to blame the Frankfurt School — or what they call ‘Cultural Marxism’ — for all the problems in modern society. The irony in this is that the Frankfurt School are also accused — mostly on the left — of being completely ineffectual. They were, in the words of Stuart Jeffries, ‘virtuosic at critiquing the viciousness of fascism and capitalism’s socially eviscerating, spiritually crushing impact on western societies, but not so good at changing what they critiqued’ — hence György Lukács accusation that the Frankfurt School had taken up residence in an ivory tower he termed the ‘Grand Hotel Abyss’.

It was against this narrative that the ‘rival history’ of Cultural Marxism emerged. It alleges that this ‘small group of German Marxist philosophers overturned traditional values by encouraging multiculturalism, political correctness, homosexuality and collectivist economic ideas’.

The truth is somewhere in between these two extremes. The Frankfurt School fell very short of regime change or global takeover (which the conspiracists assert); but they have had a profound effect on contemporary society, particularly in the domain of Wokeness and identity politics. For better or worse, this may be one of academia’s most impressive accomplishments in recent years (especially as its perceived…