This new sensibility quickly captured the op-ed page, as well as the hard news sections and the offices of management, human resources, and diversity programming. As the social scientist Zach Goldberg has meticulously documented, the vocabulary of the critical theories rapidly conquered the paper’s linguistic universe.īetween 20, the frequency of the word “racist(s)” and “racism” increased by 700% and 1,000% between 20 the frequency of the phrase “white privilege” increased 1,200% and the frequency of the phrase “systemic racism” increased by 1,000%. It was, in the words of another writer, a “revolution.”įollowing their takeover of the union, the faction of younger, ideologically driven employees-not just writers, but designers, coders, marketers, and other creatives-set a new tone for the newsroom and shifted the paper dramatically leftward. “I think what’s happening in the larger body of The Times very much mirrors what was happening in the union,” said the reporter, “and now we’re deeply immersed in DEI battles and battles over race gender.” These new employees waged a “generational battle” against existing leadership at the paper and the writers’ union, eschewing traditional labor concerns in favor of agitating for the implementation of diversity programs and left-wing ideological priorities. According to a veteran New York Times reporter, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, the paper’s ideological shift began in the aftermath of the Great Recession, as executives laid off many veteran writers and began hiring hundreds of younger reporters who had been steeped in the critical theories at elite universities. This conquest came late but progressed quickly. Like one of the Weathermen’s time-controlled bombs, Marcuse’s philosophy would eventually explode-and consume the newsroom. Marcuse faded from view just as suddenly as he had become a visible, if reluctant, folk hero.”īut the Establishment voices at The Times underestimated Marcuse, whose ideas would outlast and eventually supplant the moderate position at the paper of record. When Marcuse died in 1979, the paper published an obituary dismissing the professor as a transitory historical artifact, noting that “as the social unrest of the 1960s dissipated, Dr. One reviewer trashed “An Essay on Liberation” as a “rehash of discredited fantasies” that “reeked of totalitarianism.” Another published a snide criticism of “Counterrevolution and Revolt,” portraying the philosopher as a ridiculous, if slightly dangerous, figure who gave false legitimacy to violence and revolution. The triumph of this “long march through the media” can be represented in miniature through the conquest of The New York Times, which has long been the top prize in American media.įifty years ago, The Times ridiculed Marcuse. The radicals waged a generational war for the prestige media, and the critical theories became the house style of establishment opinion. He implored the students to learn “how to use the mass media, how to organize production,” as part of a “concerted effort to build up counterinstitutions” and develop mastery over “the great chains of information and indoctrination.” The solution, then, was to extend the “long march through the institutions” to the media and to build a counternarrative apparatus with the power to subvert the Establishment narrative and replace it with the narrative of the critical theories. Rational persuasion, persuasion to the opposite, is all but precluded.” “The meaning of words is rigidly stabilized. “Under the rule of monopolistic media-themselves the mere instruments of economic and political power-a mentality is created for which right and wrong, true and false are predefined wherever they affect the vital interests of the society,” he said. The intellectuals could produce knowledge but, left alone, could not break through the one-dimensional universe of the Establishment. Editor’s note: The following excerpt is from Christopher Rufo’s new book “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.”Ĭommunist radical Herbert Marcuse believed that the university could serve as the “initial revolutionary institution” but was not, in and of itself, powerful enough to transform the broader society.
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