The Agents of Change by Dr. Patti Amsden
Beliefs – the stuff of which civilizations are formed. Beliefs – the catalysts from which movements are spawned. Beliefs – the causes for which men live and die. Differing beliefs about the nature of reality, ethics, and values lead to differing behaviors. The dominant belief of a collective people or of the leaders of a country will drive that culture. All of life grows from, is maintained by, and bears the fruit of mankind’s beliefs.
For example, a Marxist worldview gained a standing in the arena of ideas via the writings of Karl Marx in the late 1800’s. Marx postulated that the group in power propagated oppression upon those not in power. The elite authoritarians were charged with societal and fiscal evils. Liberation of the underprivileged working class, the proletariat, became the goal of the Marxist mindset; and those ideological axioms gave rise to systems of government, commerce, and various social structures.
Marxist belief generated communistic cultures including Leninism and Trotskyism in Russia or Maoism in China. Although the economic application of Marxism, with its materialistic worldview, failed to produce strong financial systems as it had promised, the ideology stills augurs its viability. The belief did not crumble with the Berlin Wall. It lives today codified as ‘multiculturalism’, ‘political correctness,’ and even ‘cultural Marxism.’
The basic belief of class warfare between the have and have-nots, the aristocratic and the hoi polloi, the rule-givers and those proles governed by the privileged continues with a present-day cultural emphasis. Minority groups such as women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and homosexuals fall under the category of those oppressed while groups identified as male, white, Euro-centric, heterosexual, capitalist, and even Christian become labeled as the oppressors.
Social Marxism has the same goals as Economic Marxism: a cultural revolution to dethrone the ruling class who propagate traditional ideas, liberate the common class with promises of equality and utopia, and inaugurate change under the title of social liberation. Marxism is a belief that manifests in actions. Beliefs do not remain isolated in academia nor are they only specimens to be examined under the microscope of rhetorical or philosophical meanderings. If social Marxism is alive in the United States, then a cultural revolution is the goal of those who embrace that maxim.
Anyone who announces that they are committed to being an agent of change is proclaiming that they will dismantle one set of axioms and replace those presuppositions with opposing and contradicting beliefs. The promise of change is prevalent on the American political and societal landscape. The discerning citizen must ask which belief will be outdated and which ideology will provide the infrastructure for the new world.
Not all beliefs are equal. There is an elitism of ideas because some are superior to others. The question begs to be answered: if fiscal Marxism did not work in Germany or Russia, will social Marxism work in the States? What our nation believes will determine the nation we will become.
