From the many conversations I’ve had, it seems clear that there has been a movement underfoot to apply a postmodern lens to our social construction. Ironically, such a lens deconstructs everything, including language and boils it all down to power, often applying various threads of Marxism.
At first this was really just a theoretical lens that made its way into academia in the form of various Critical Theories. Offering a variety of theories in academia sharpens one’s critical thinking skills as students compare and contrast the nuance and complexity of theory and philosophy.
In a previous podcast, Lyell Asher opened our eyes to the transition of this theory from a purely academic exercise, into its implementation in teachers’ colleges. This is what Paul, in this week’s podcast calls praxis, or the practical application of a theory.
As these teachers are emersed in the theory, they then bring it into K-12 classrooms. They are not teaching Critical Theory per se, but they are putting the theory into practice… praxis.
But, as Paul says, every time you move down a level there is a degradation of nuance and this gets rendered into the practice, creating moral imperatives, which in reality, have resulted in a schism, especially between races. A schism that both Andrew and Paul have witnessed, Andrew as a parent at the Brearley School and Paul as a teacher at Grace Church High School.
This has been coined, the Long March Through the Institutions, a slogan that Communist student activist Rudi Dutschke used to describe the strategy to create the conditions for revolution. Part of this strategy is to slowly expand the Overton Window – the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream – to allow in more extreme views.
Through this Long March, like the Overton Window, the parameters of Marxism shifted to address new challenges. Marxism 1.0, Karl Marx’s original theory, focused on the disparities between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Leninism brought about Marxism 2.0 that institutionalized Marxism creating a vanguard, which applied it to state institutions. When the Middle Class flourished, falsifying a lot of the original tenets of Marxism, a Cultural Marxism was introduced through the Frankfurt School in Critical Theory. This happiness and comfort just wouldn’t do for a revolution. These were the seeds of the latest iteration, Marxism 4.0, or Identity Marxism.
This Long March quickened its pace with the death of George Floyd, as the Overton Window was flung open with gale force winds. Seizing the opportunity, sloganeers and grifters who had been dutifully trudging along, laced up their boots in preparation for an epic battle. The revolution was now afoot.
Today, we are all a part of the revolution, knowingly or not. Can we find the Moral Courage to step into the void and renew a social contract that builds instead of bulldozes our society?
In the first episode of season two of Hold my Drink — navigating culture with a chaser of civility, and Counterweight podcast, Episode 53, we speak with Andrew Gutmann & Paul Rossi on the Long March of Marxism and its application through Critical Theory in our institutions, with its many permutations. Andrew & Paul have been on the battlefront of a social revolution that has trickled down from theory to practice, from university to elementary school, which threatens to erupt into an all-out culture war. All discussed with a chaser of civility, of course, and a hard kombucha.
Hold my Drink welcomes all people with all kinds of beverages to join us as we explore the truths of a chaotic and beautiful world, together.
Find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch the conversation unfold on YouTube, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Podcast Resources
Kindly Inquisitors, Jonathan Rauch
On teaching ‘opposing’ views of the Holocaust and systemic racism, The Times of Israel, David Bernstein
I Refuse to Stand By While My Students Are Indoctrinated, Common Sense with Bari Weiss, Paul Rossi
You Have to Read This Letter, Common Sense with Bari Weiss, Andrew Gutmann
What Andrew is reading
On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present, Alan Ryan
Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America, Charles Murray
Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters, Steven Pinker
Paul Rossi is a high school mathematics teacher, tutor, writer, and musician. He has been tutoring since 2007 and taught math at Grace Church School from 2012 to 2021. His essay "I Refuse to Stand by While My Students are Indoctrinated" was published in April 2021. After the piece came out, you might have heard him tell his story and share his ideas on a bevy of different podcasts. Paul graduated with a B.A. in French Literature from Cornell in 1992 and got an M.A. in Educational Psychology at Hunter College in 2010. He's currently writing about the impact of CRT praxis and DEI curriculum on K-12 students and student culture.
Andrew Gutmann joined the nationwide movement fighting for classical liberal values and against critical race theory in schools when the letter he wrote to the parents of his daughter’s New York City private school, The Brearley School, went viral. Since then, he has become an activist in this movement, writing about the issue, speaking to parents and parent groups, founding the organization, Speak Up For Education, and cofounding the Institute for Liberal Values. Andrew is also a former investment banker, software engineer, entrepreneur and author of the book, How To Be an Investment Banker.
Episode 53: Marxism 4.0 | Andrew Gutmann & Paul Rossi