CHAPTER 15: Conflict Theory and the Hegelian Dialectic
Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—Reality Is (forthcoming release May 2024)
by Linda Goudsmit
April 21, 2024
Globalism is a replacement ideology that seeks to reorder the world into one singular, planetary Unistate, ruled by the globalist elite. The globalist war on nation-states cannot succeed without collapsing the United States of America. The long-term strategic attack plan moves America incrementally from constitutional republic to socialism to globalism to feudalism. The tactical attack plan uses asymmetric psychological and informational warfare to destabilize Americans and drive society out of objective reality into the madness of subjective reality. America’s children are the primary target of the globalist predators.
In order to fully understand the synergistic and catastrophic effects of race wars and Outcome-Based Education’s third stage, Transformational Education (Chapter 12), it is necessary to understand that conflict theory is both the fulcrum and the facilitator of Marxism and its various species.
Conflict theory is a derivative of Malthusianism. Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), English economist and demographer, published his famous theory on population in 1798, An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus applied supply-and-demand economic theory to food-population ratios and ultimately to societal conflict. Malthus theorized that population grows exponentially and food supplies grow arithmetically; therefore, population would necessarily outstrip food resources and eventually result in conflict.
Marx was also influenced by German philosopher Georg Hegel (1770–1831), whose philosophy rejects objective reality and disdains the individual. Instead, Hegel posits that
society evolved and progressed in accordance with the laws of “dialectic,” a cyclical pattern in which one prevailing idea/worldview (thesis) comes into conflict with an opposing idea/worldview (antithesis), and by means of that conflict causes a new, more meritorious creation (synthesis) to emerge. Marx believed that through this process, society would eventually move past capitalist economics—as it had previously moved past feudalism—and embrace socialism and communism. (David Horowitz, Discover the Networks: Karl Marx)[i]
Dialectic is a confusing term because it is a process of conflict for resolving conflicting ideas. An article by financial analyst Jeff Carlson, CFA, posted on themarketswork, February 11, 2017, “Gramsci, Alinsky & the Left,”[ii] helps clarify the philosophy and the process.
The Dialectic Process was created by Georg Hegel. The Dialectic Process was used as a process to describe change. Hegel, a social philosopher, used the Dialectic Process to describe how societies could come to a state of more rational, elevated thinking.
Karl Marx took Hegel’s idea of the Dialectic Process and changed it subtly. Marx used it as a process to describe social change. There are three key parts to the Dialectic Process:
The first is the Thesis—or Starting Point. A better term might be the Status Quo—where we are today.
Marx believed that in order for things to change there would have to be some form of opposition to the Status Quo. This opposition is the second part—the Antithesis—or the mechanism for change. It is the people and ideas that do not support the status quo—the opposing group.
When the Thesis and the Antithesis meet—or clash—you have the third component—Synthesis. Another word for Synthesis might be Revolution. Marx believed that Synthesis was Progress—a necessary confrontation that would allow for society to emerge as a better place for most people involved.
Marx believed the Dialectic Process to be a true process—an important distinction—as a true Process does not end—it is ongoing. In other words, once we reach Synthesis the process will start again. Synthesis will now become the Thesis—the Status Quo. And new Opposition will arise.
And that—in very simplistic terms—is how Marx perceived society progressing over time
Karl Marx applied Hegel’s dialectical process for change to his own assumptions about society, and developed Marxist conflict theory. Its political applications continue today to move radical leftist domestic policies from theory to practice.
Consider Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), the German-born American political philosopher and prominent member of the Frankfurt School, dedicated to moving America gradually to the left following Antonio Gramsci’s long march through the institutions. The ideological goal of the Frankfurt School and its Marxist theoreticians was to erase the existing social structures and replace them with Marxist notions of Utopia, where distinctions between state and civil society would cease to exist, resulting in universal egalitarianism.
For me, the fatal flaw in Marx’s ideological pursuit of a Utopian collectivist society is that neither Marxism nor any of its myriad species acknowledges that there is always a ruling elite that controls the production and distribution of the limited resources that Marxist conflict theory claims exist. So, even if society’s resources were owned by the masses, their production and distribution are not controlled by the masses. Whoever controls the resources rules the ruled.
Marcuse’s particular contribution to the Frankfurt School’s effort was establishing the New Left, which differed from earlier leftist movements by shifting the focus from labor activism to social activism. Marcuse brought his Marxist theories to college campuses, and the 1960s radical leftist student movement advocated anarchy, anti-war protests, second-wave feminism, sexual liberation, and counterculture norms.
Marcuse developed the radical concept of the Great Refusal, which is the protest against that which is. Basically, it means the total rejection of what exists, in preparation for what is to come. In globalist terms, it is the precursor to the Great Reset, the metaphorical return to zero in order to build back better. Both are classic replacement ideologies.
According to German philosopher Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), Marcuse’s equally radical Marxist friend and colleague at the Frankfurt School:
The Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political offices, transforming them slowly into Marxist entities as we move towards universal egalitarianism.
The 1969 Woodstock Festival in upstate New York focused the Culture War on sex, drugs, and rock and roll. The hedonism of the Me Generation in the 1970s continued to destabilize American society. Wikipedia describes the Me Generation[iii] as transitional: “The 1970s have been described as a transitional era when the self-help of the 1960s became self-gratification, and eventually devolved into the selfishness of the 1980s.”
As Marxist species continued to undermine the fabric of American life, their ideologies of collectivism and radical activism began shifting toward social justice, identity politics, and alternative lifestyles. The country was primed to elect its first black president, Barack Hussein Obama, in 2008. Obama’s particular forte is obfuscating language. Beginning with his infamous speech promising to “fundamentally transform America,” Obama seduced a nation with cultural Marxism and its Marxist doublespeak.
Americans were unprepared for the transformation that our nation’s first community organizer-in-chief had planned. They didn’t recognize the obvious warning sign that Obama’s career as a community organizer was with an Alinsky-inspired group in Chicago, the Gamaliel Foundation. It was simply inconceivable that a president of the United States would govern in accordance with Alinsky’s rules:
The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displaced by new patterns that provide the opportunities and means for citizen participation. All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new. (Rules for Radicals, p. 116)
Under Obama’s watch, American education shifted from traditional classical learning to Common Core standards, and teachers became agents of social change rather than educational authority figures and stable cultural role models. Obama facilitated the entry into Outcome-Based Education’s third phase, Transformational Education, when the educational emphasis shifts to changing children’s actual values.
Barack Obama’s radicalism, euphemistically labeled progressivism, is the continuation of Herbert Marcuse’s New Left, which resurrected political correctness in order to restrict free speech in America and ultimately criminalize oppositional political speech.
An interesting follow-up article by Jeff Carlson published on February 16, 2017, “The Goal of Political Correctness,”[iv] discusses political correctness, Herbert Marcuse, and his contributions to the War on America:
Political Correctness is the forceful application of whatever belief furthers a political agenda. It is the words themselves. Any ideology that advances the cause is Politically Correct—because it works. There is no search for factual correctness—there is only the search for what achieves the goal. In this way, truth has been pulled from itself and is no longer a vehicle for honest discourse. It is a vehicle for control….
As I wrote in “Gramsci, Alinsky & the Left,” Critical Theory—a theory used to criticize every traditional social institution—provided the origin of Political Correctness. As noted by Raymond V. Raehn, “Political Correctness seeks to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans and is therefore totalitarian in nature”. Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism—also known as multiculturalism. Multiculturalism views traditional culture as the true source of oppression in the world. It is the translation of Marxism from economic to cultural terms….
Marcuse also embraced the idea of feminism—he saw in it the potential for radical social change. The process of rethinking femininity and masculinity—gender identity—could lead to a replacement of masculine traits with feminine ones (Marcuse has been credited with advocating and advancing androgyny). Marcuse noted in 1974 that “I believe the women’s liberation movement today is, perhaps, the most important and potentially the most radical political movement that we have. Feminism is a revolt against decaying capitalism”. Marcuse recognized in Feminism the impact that could be had on the traditional family.
So, consider our backdrop. Gramsci promoted an overturn of societal institutions, values and morals as a means to promote change—to promote Cultural Marxism. The Frankfurt School took Gramsci’s ideas and began the process of implementing them—introducing them into American Society. The Theory of Critical Thinking was employed to launch criticisms and attacks on every traditional social institution—oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole. Theodor W. Adorno focused this view and narrowed in on Culture as the primary factor in perpetuating Capitalism. His goal—a “genuine liberal” free of all groups, including race, family and institutions. His target—the traditional family model. His premise—the traditional family produced a society defined by racism and inequality and was therefore deserving of overthrow. Marcuse utilized timing and events to engage in a reshaping of morality—engaging and promoting the student uprisings of the 1960s—through his “Great Refusal”—his embrace of feminism—and gender identity. And the process continues today.
In its colloquial usage, critical thinking is the ability to analyze information effectively and then form a judgment. In Marxist Critical Theory the word critical is used to mean criticism. So, Critical Theory is actually Criticism Theory. The goal is to criticize, demean, and destabilize the existing culture in order to create social chaos. Criticism Theory is a tool for conflict, and conflict theory is at the heart of the racism, black supremacism, and the current war on maleness and femaleness that is convulsing America today.
Fomenting race wars and sex wars, based on the two simplest divisions in society to identify, is part of globalism’s war on nation-states. Using the tactical divide-and-conquer strategy to create social chaos, the globalist scheme is to make society ungovernable, and then sweep in with its planned Unistate to restore order. What globalists cannot achieve through lawful constitutional means they seek to achieve using Hegel’s dialectic for social change:
Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis
Thesis: The United States of America exists as a constitutional republic and sovereign nation.
Antithesis: Leftism’s march through American institutions creates overwhelming chaos and conflict, including race wars and wars between the sexes, that make the country ungovernable and collapse the economy into socialism.
Synthesis: The globalist elite replace socialism’s centralized government with globalism’s planetary Unistate.
Globalism insists that in its Utopian managerial Unistate, “You will own nothing and be happy.” The reality is that globalism is far more ambitious than any known species of flawed Marxist ideology—the globalist Unistate is 21st century feudalism on a planetary scale. The ideological genus Marxism only works theoretically in society. In practice, universal egalitarianism can never be achieved, neither in Marxism nor in any of its myriad species, because its operating infrastructure is a binary system of ruling elite and ruled masses. Globalism regresses humanity back much farther than Marxist fantasies of egalitarianism. The supremacist managerial Unistate unapologetically reverts humanity back to a future of permanent feudal servitude.
[i] Discover the Networks: Karl Marx; https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individuals/karl-marx/
[ii] Gramsci, Alinsky & the Left; https://themarketswork.com/2017/02/11/gramsci-alinsky-the-left/[iii] Me Generation; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_generation[iv] The Goal of Political Correctness; https://themarketswork.com/2017/02/16/the-goal-of-political-correctness/
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