Leftism - a Hegelian spiral toward Marxism

29 July 2020

Have you ever gotten into a policy discussion at work, and ended up compromising your position, supposedly for the good of the company? Then the next month, became engaged in the same discussion which again ended up compromising down from your first compromised position? Then in another month, the same thing?

That's a form of the Hegelian dialectic - a never-ending spiral of discussion and compromise toward the goal as defined by your opponent.

It works in politics, too. For over a generation, we have witnessed the Left's incessant push via a Hegelian spiral toward their end goal of Marxism, aptly framed as "the fundamental transformation of America."

It's tough for those trying to understand and counter Leftism, especially if they are not aware that they are engaged in a Hegelian spiral. That is, an endless series of compromises that result in never-ending incremental steps toward Leftist goals.

You can't understand the Left without understanding the Left's objective (Marxism) and the fundamental mechanism by which it is achieved (Hegelian dialectic). Over the course of a generation we have seen America fundamentally transformed into a nation that previous generations would not recognize. Yet we have been conditioned in incremental steps to think that it is normal.

Today, not only protest, but violence is considered to be sanctioned and normal in Democrat-controlled cities. Why the wanton violence? It's part of the Leftist agenda to totally destroy America, so that it can be rebuilt as a Marxist / socialist state.

The Left’s Strategy and Tactics To Transform America

The Left's Strategy and Tactics to Transform America by Stephen Coughlin, Richard HigginsThe report: "Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left: The Left’s Strategy and Tactics To Transform America" is tremendously important. It exposes the Left in terms of warfare dynamics and allows us to understand the Left in their own terms. Indeed, the report emphasizes that this is the only way to understand the Left.

"Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left: The Left’s Strategy and Tactics To Transform America" is authored by Stephen Coughlin and Richard Higgins, published February 2019. 353 pages. ISBN-10: 1733473106, ISBN-13: 978-1733473101. Available in print, free PDF, and audio. Print and PDF versions include quotes and pullouts in color.

The authors are immensely qualified: Stephen Coughlin, Esq.: is an attorney, decorated intelligence officer and noted specialist on Islamic law, ideology and related strategic information programs. Coughlin and Rich Higgins run Unconstrained Analytics a 501(c)3 dedicated to analysis of evidence unconstrained by preconceptions and biases.

If you want to understand the relentless driving of the Left towards Marxism, read the report: "Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left: The Left’s Strategy and Tactics To Transform America".

Part 1 of the report succinctly covers Hegel, Marx, the Fabians, Marcuse, and the Frankfurt school. It's not a lengthy, boring, philosophy lesson, but rather an integrated explanation of the Left's framework.

Part 2 of the report covers the Maoist concept of political warfare, provides an example using the Colorado Democracy Alliance, and covers the Left's use of narratives.

The authors writing style is precise, yet informative, interesting, and engaging.

From the Executive Summary

Saying that “the Left moves dialectically, through time, on a trajectory” simply recognizes that the Left is a movement in history defined by its movement through history; that its backward trajectory defines its forward movement; and that failure to recognize this arc leads to error. It is for this reason that this assessment emphasizes historical events, conditions and movements that have defined the Left from the Hegelian dialectic, to Marx, to Wilson’s progressivism, to the early Frankfurt School, to Mao’s Long March, to Marcuse’s thoughts on tolerance, to political correctness.

This is how the Left should be understood. Hence, it would be a mistake to treat the historical elements of this assessment as little more than background material. Assessing the Left as if Hegel and Marx simply provide interesting historical context to today’s events is the failure to recognize that for the Left, Marx was yesterday and Hegel the day before...

Selected excerpts from the report's Key Findings:

• The political rhetoric driving American politics runs along well-trodden paths sustaining a political framework from a by-gone era incapable of coming to terms with the political movements threatening our constitutional system today.

• Constrained by this archaic rhetoric, mainstream and conservative players are outmaneuvered in an information battle-space they hardly perceive; responding to current threats in under-inclusive manners.

• The "otherism" strategy developed by Marxists to destroy America focuses on the systematic destruction of identity leading to the systematic disenfranchisement of Americans from America. It manipulates the issues of the “other”, yet it has nothing to do with the “other”. Rather, it forces a classic dialectical negation along Hegelian lines. This activity presents a clear and present danger that will succeed if not countered. As such, this analysis does not suggest that this is a way to understand the left, it argues that it is the only way to understand it; recognizing that it is 1) Marxist, and 2) dialectically driven.

• The dominant cultural narratives of our time can best be summarized by the saying; “Political correctness is the enforcement mechanism of the multicultural narrative that implements Neo-Marxist objectives.” It is through these narratives that the left drives policy.

Narratives that conservative leaders neither control nor understand drive national policy. When Republican leaders shrink from Constitutional principles for fear of being accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., they are subordinating those principles to neo-Marxist narratives designed for that purpose.

• By submitting to these narratives, establishment Republicans first become pliant, and then obedient to the Left, accommodating it... In this role, establishment Republicans become the defeat mechanism of the Left.

A strategic understanding of the Left recognizes that it is dialectically driven. As such, the Left is a teleologically informed movement that executes through history and thought, along an arc, with a trajectory. It is Hegelian. It defines everything that “is” as fuel for “becoming” in a dialectical process that compels it to negate. — “Change” “Perpetual Revolution” — Analysis of the Left that does not account for the dialectic will fail.

• The critical theory of the Frankfurt School is classical Marxism dedicated to penetration and subversion that relies on Hegelian processes to achieve its objectives... It seeks the destruction of Western culture...

• Frankfurt School leader Herbert Marcuse concurred with the Gramsci Marxist plan to adopt a “long march through the institutions” strategy based on Mao’s “long march” political warfare strategy.

• The Left focuses on cultural and institutional power by communicating its ideological initiatives in terms of “values” while targeting the placement of cadre throughout the mass line so they can enable those “values” by converting them first to norms, then to policy, and finally to law.

Selected excerpts from the report

The Left "powers down" by converting Marxist values first to norms, then to policy, and finally to law.

Critical theory is simply the relentless reduction of Western civilization through a systematic series of negations that applies the Hegelian dialectic in support of Marxist objectives understood in nihilist terms. (Page 63)

It is with this understanding of the mechanics of “Repressive Tolerance’s” dialectical aufheben that one can see that it is necessarily directed against America and the American way of life. Marcuse calls for subversion, undemocratic means, and the suspension of the First Amendment in furtherance of implementing a postmodern campaign of “otherisms” based on racism, discrimination, etc. When reading Frankfurt School materials, the “right” and “fascism” should be understood to mean anything that is either not from the left or is something about which “the Left” disagrees. (Page 69)

Note that aufheben means to cancel or put an end to. Thus, today's cancel culture.

Hence, the statement that “political correctness is the enforcement mechanism of postmodern narratives that implements cultural Marxism”, speaks directly to the negation engine Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance” put in motion that today culminates in hate speech narratives. Political correctness is a Neo-Marxist line of effort. It is also an existential threat. (Page 71)

... the Frankfurt School, from its beginning it has been a Marxist organization purely dedicated to the destruction of Western society through the ruthless application of Hegel’s dialectic to every line of effort at every level of execution. (Page 85)

This analysis affirms that the first understanding of the Left is one that recognizes that it IS a teleologically informed movement that executes through history and thought, along an arc, with a trajectory. (Page 90)

At the 2008 Democratic National Convention held in Denver, that chose Obama as the Democratic candidate, [Democracy Alliance founder Rod] Stein spoke of the need to consolidate counter-state activities in the state through the placement of committed personnel at the senior levels of the government in what has popularly come to be known as the “deep state”. (Page 103)

The Left adopts a strategy that leverages their mass line to harness ever increasing power over institutions, including corporations, the government, religion, and the media. It is through Mao’s concept of political warfare that institutions are co-opted and authoritarian power is wielded. For this reason, there is an immediate need to understand what the media calls the “deep state” as the Maoist counter-state. (Page 126)

The Republican establishment, because it chooses to operate inside the Left’s cultural framework when responding to mass line narratives, has become an asset to the Left’s overall effort. (Page 129)

It is in this context that establishment Republicans become the designated defeat mechanism of the Left because, having been elected to reverse the Left’s efforts with no intention of actually doing so, they become the agents responsible for demoralizing the base that elected them. (Page 141)

Read the report

The report states that "The Left cannot be understood outside the dialectical materialist core that defines it. The dialectic comes from Hegel, the materialism from Marx. The two cannot be disassociated from each other or from the Left."

If you want to see through the smokescreen of the Left, read the report: "Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left: The Left’s Strategy and Tactics To Transform America".

References

The report contains 465 footnotes and references.

Appendix D of the report contains an extensive list of recommended reading material.

Hegel’s Dialectics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, June 3, 2016

Video interview with Stephen Coughlin

Video interview with Stephen Coughlin, author of "Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left: The Left’s Strategy and Tactics To Transform America". Dr. Jerome Corsi interviews Stephen Coughlin, Esq.: attorney, decorated intelligence officer and noted specialist on Islamic law, ideology and related strategic information programs.

"When associated with rising factional discord, the increased hostility from the Left resonates a violence that is becoming a clear and present danger."

The interview is also available as a podcast: Dr Corsi Interview 07-20-20: Stephen Coughlin - Understanding the ANTIFA & BLM Counter Revolutions. See CorsiNation for more books and interviews.

 

The Challenge of Marxism, by Yoram Hazony, Quillette, August 16, 2020. Review: The Marxist threat to liberalism, by Fred Elbel, 24 August 2020.

Liberalism, Progressivism, Leftism, by eugyppius, 20 May 2022.
 

Left or Liberal?

 

Author: Fred Elbel