Our Cultural War

Now that The Left controls the House, the Senate (albeit precariously), all major media, almost all colleges and universities, and Hollywood, what should one who espouses traditional American values do? As a member of that group, I’ve decided for the moment to focus on maintaining my inner peace, work, and achieving my personal goals. My societal focus shifts from the recent elections to the ongoing cultural war in America. The outcomes of this cultural war always determine the outcomes of the political war. The cultural war we are in consists of a fight for supremacy over the minds of hundreds of millions of Americans and is between two opposing sets of values. The recent presidential election is merely a change on the scoreboard of this fight, an indicator of the latest cultural shifts in America, in this case a strong run by The Left.

How did this shift happen?

It started with ideas. Ideas have power. When they are adopted by an individual, particularly with emotion behind them, they manifest themselves in the form of observable behavioral changes. If adopted by enough people en masse within a society the resulting collective behavioral changes will shift the ideological center of that society and thereby cause a shift of political power. That in turn will change the culture, and become observable in literature, journalism, art, philosophy, movies, podcasts, conversation, social norms, what is considered "ok" by most (a society's moral compass), and in many other ways.

We are currently witnessing this process play out in America.

Certain ideas have been inculcated in the minds of millions of Americans, especially over the past fifty years, and two generations of youth have become open slates to write them on. These ideas, theories, were planted in American thought by a group of core intellectuals after which they have spread like a virus. They first appeared in books, published papers, college classrooms, and think tanks. They were then absorbed by a broader group, that consisted primarily of college professors, students, and a small, reading public. These college professors themselves then began to spread those theories through the same channels. These were spread in everyday conversation, but many students and readers then wrote books themselves, or movies and TV shows, weaving these ideas into their stories, which were then disseminated to the reading and viewing public, often as presumed "entertainment". The cycle continued, as the ideas sprouted and grew to bear fruit.

(Some say that actors employed by foreign countries as part of a long-term, deliberate act of subversion helped plant and nurture these ideas in American soil. Yuri Bezmenov, a defected, former KGB propaganda expert explained this subversion process in detail, as he was taught it in the former Soviet Union, in a highly compelling lecture to some American students way back in 1983. It's hard not to be shocked at the degree to which events that have transpired since correspond to the stages of subversion he outlined. Regardless of whether the originators were subversives or merely sympathetic Americans, the effect is the same.)

These ideas lead us to the two opposing sets of values in the cultural war: Leftist Morality and Traditional American Values.

Here is a list of some of the ideas that have been planted, cultivated, and are now yielding their unholy fruit: 

• The de-emphasis of logic, critical thinking, and the search for objective truth as the paramount goals of learning and education, and their replacement with a subjective Leftist Morality, especially evident within the disciplines of History, Literature, Philosophy, and Political Science.
• The creation of “safe spaces” on college campuses, where only a narrow set of ideas is allowed to be heard, free of dissenting opinions, even if true, that might support Traditional American Values and thereby "harm" the students. All this replaces free discussion, the open marketplace of ideas, and open invitations to speakers with intellectual prowess across a broad spectrum of ideas.
• The devaluation and even demonization of the idea of rugged individualism, the entrepreneurial, independent, strong, free spirit that built America, replaced by the idea of collectivism, where the collective state takes precedence over the individual. "It takes a village to raise a child."
• The corresponding delegitimization of core American institutions and symbols, such as advocating the removal of the Electoral College, and destroying monuments of American heroes.
• The delegitimization of Religion and replacement of religious morality with the new Leftist Morality.
• The suppression of speech, not on the grounds that it is untrue, but that it violates the norms of the new Leftist Morality, that is that it might be considered "offensive" to one or more groups.

The societal adoption of these ideas inhibits the very ability of Americans to openly challenge them, making them even more insidious. All of them erode American institutions and values that form the foundation of freedom, opportunity for all, and what made America great, and therefore lead to catastrophe for every one of us.

However after having been delivered continuously for over fifty years through the aforementioned books, classrooms, movies, television shows, news broadcasts, and other elements of popular culture, and thereby normalized, these ideas are beginning to become accepted by the American mainstream and that is leading to the erosion of the American system.

 

The entire process is so subtle, that it is almost imperceptible when spread out over many years. As the old adage goes, "If you drop a frog in boiling water it will immediately jump out, but if you put it in warm water and gradually bring it to a boil, it will stay until it is dead." 

The Leftist Moralism is a major current in the ocean of American ideas and like the Gulf Stream impacts the globe, it significantly impacts all areas of American society. We'll call this stream the Social Justice Movement. Its tributaries include the BLM, LGBTQ, immigrant, feminist, Native American, socialist, and labor rights movements, all of which subtly erode the ideas of free enterprise and opportunity that made our country great and created the modern world, and replace them with social engineering by a small group, under the ruse that this is required to establish social justice. 

This movement in our ongoing cultural war, this cultural shift has resulted in a political power shift, and that is what we just witnessed. 

So over the next few years, as I focus on my own inner peace, work, and personal goals, and observe from afar whatever The Left will do while they have the power, I will continue to spread ideas that might help my side in the cultural war to win it, the side that above all values freedom, capitalism, the entrepreneurial spirit, freedom of opportunity, freedom of religion, individual achievement, free speech, truth, and the laws and institutions in which these values are enshrined.

-Forsyth