THE PHILOSOPHICAL ROOTS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETAL-POLITICAL CRISIS:

MARCUSE, INTERSECTIONALITY, and POST-PROGRESSIVISM

George Carter, Ph.D.

April 23, 2017

There is general agree that the United States is facing a historically-high

level of societal disunity and instability as reflected by a growing national
divide along lines of class, race, culture, and political ideology. The nature
and reason for this disunity is complex and there appears to be no general
consensus on its cause and origin. The 2016 presidential election and its
aftermath has helped to expose the depth of this division perhaps for the
first time, especially to those in the international community unfamiliar with
the current state of internal American affairs. The shrillness of the
presidential political campaign and extent and degree of violence of political
protests (during and after the election) have been compared to the political
environment during the explosive Vietnam War era. In recent months,
grievance groups of every kind have organized as part of a self-described
resistance to the U.S. Presidency of Donald Trump. This political
resistance to President Trump is the most visible display of a widening
cultural, social, and political chasm threatening to destabilize the country.
At the center of this societal disunity are major American cities. American
cities have become enclaves of mutually-supporting left-wing political
organizations and a large population of people who identify around
postmodernist-universalism, relativism, and/or counter-culture themes.
These urban centers often are the location of powerful international
corporate-commercial interests, large immigrant populations, monopolistic
left-wing party apparatuses or ideologies, and a near hegemony over the
local social-cultural system that reinforces the leftist political perspective. For
this reason I refer to these urban enclaves as being post- American cities.
Voters in these enclaves overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton in the
2016 presidential election and these cities generally advocate for left-leaning
policies on such issues as gay and transgender rights and the shielding of
illegal immigrants from deportation. Public and elected officials and
politicians of these cities often refer to their issue advocacy as being
progressive in order to garner favorable public support.
There are clear differences between classic progressivism of the past
century and the slew of progressive issues being pushed by the political left.
Examples of post-progressivism (a term coined by this author to distinguish it
from the earlier form of economic progressivism): immigration liberalization,
free access to all toilets by transgender persons, and same-sex marriage.
While classic progressivism centered on economic justice and universal
economic value-based opportunities, post-progressivism defies simple
categorization. Post-progressivism, as a postmodern phenomenon, is
rhetorical, existential, and/or altruistic in nature. Post-progressivism
emphasizes the emotions of a life-experience, as opposed to the
consequence of the life -style or choice. The political left has benefited in
recent years by capitalizing on post-progressivism and the emotion of harm
or victimization. A myriad of issues are used to create the perception of
victimhood and to reinforce connection to a victim class through identity
politics. Some examples of these post-progressive victimhood issues
include: abortion rights, black poverty, low public opinion of Muslim refugees,
racist vandalism. The political left has effectively used fear or resentment-
based victimhood as a strategy to organize its base in the absence of a
compelling economic message (1).
The political left and their monopolistic organization holdings in most
major American Cities have established an ideologically-homogenous voting
block of diverse classes of people including immigrants, minorities, sexual
deviants, drug users, and other people who believe themselves to be
repressed by more-traditional American values. Following the presidential
election, post-American cities have promoted themselves as welcoming
cities to attract and advocate for this diverse group of dispossessed people.
In Chicago, the local government now issues ID cards to illegal aliens who are
living in the country in defiance of Federal laws and to transgendered people
who want to freely identify as the opposite sex (2). By ostensibly acting as
a protectorate for these victim classes, the post-American city has created a
formidable political, philosophical, and social constituency which is adverse
to much of America. The welcoming cities campaign is one aspect to the
political lefts strategy to capitalize on and widen the fracturing American
societal landscape.

The current manifestation of American social division may be traced to

upheaval of the 1960s and in part to the political-social philosopher, Herbert
Marcuse. Marcuse is widely considered the father of the 1960s New Left
movement which tapped into student angst at the time over the Vietnam
War and Black civil rights. Marcuse believed that traditional notions of
material Marxism could be expanded into every facet of the human
experience. Class awareness not only lie in ones economic status but in
virtually any way one constructs an identity as a subjective, emotional
experience of reality. Marcuse also encouraged the unashamed expression of
sexual desire and the embracing of a sexualized identity, as detail in his
book Eros and Civilization (3). These ideas are credited for seeding the rise of
second wave feminism and the sexual liberation movement. The rise of
urban alternative sub-cultures and greater acceptance of sexual deviancy is
a testament to Marcusian normalization of the sexualized-self as integral to
identity, personal freedom, and individuality. The grand vision of Marcuse as
a post-progressive revolutionary is further demonstrated in the evolution of
sexual liberation into a powerful political movement centered around
abortion and LGBT (lesbian gay bisexual and transgender) rights.
There are numerous class members of the post-progressive political
coalition including: Muslims, refugees, immigrants, sexual deviants, LGBT,
feminists, Blacks, Latinos, and women. These groups constitute the essential
bedrock of the post-American City political left. Membership to this over-
arching political class may appeal to anyone who believes themselves, or
others, to be victims of repression or persecution by institutions headed by
white male patriarchy or traditional Christians theology. Conservatives and
most-notably Trump have become a visible target and organizing tool of this
post-progressive political movement. Clinton notoriously called this nebulous
class of mostly-white male conservatives a basket of deplorables in a 2016
speech to an LGBT group during her election campaign (4). The management
of this diverse post-progressive coalition has drawn inspiration from a
sociological construct called Intersectionality (5). Like Critical Theory before
it, Intersectionality attributes social and economic inequality to the
aforementioned white patriarchy. Borrowing from Marxist utopianism, all
these victim classes will be freed from discrimination and repression once
the patriarchal, white capitalist class has been eliminated. So, it isnt a
surprise that this post-progressive coalition has merged with burgeoning
communist and socialists movements in the United States.
Societal discord is not a new American phenomenon as evident by the
social unrest during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Civil Rights
and Vietnam era of the 1960s. However, the nature of this current crisis is
happening at a time of relatively-solid economic growth and low
unemployment, and in the absence of any major impediments to class
attainment such as was the case in the Jim Crowe south and rampant
institutional discrimination of the past century. For example, Asian Americans
now outpace their white counterparts in wages and educational attainment.
American females attend colleges at a rate that is nearly double that for
males, and recent home purchases and employment reflect large advantage
for women. Even so, the myth of female and minority repression has become
a central narrative promulgated by the corporate media and is now a key
component of the Democratic Partys political organizing strategy. Dozens of
post-American cities have defied the Federal government on immigration
laws in harboring millions of illegal aliens. More challenges to Federal
authority are expected especially since the Federal government has shown
little resolve in the face of a coordinated front of major American cities to
challenge the legal powers of the Federal government to affect City policies.
The post-American city is an outgrowth of historic American division that has
established near-hegemonic dominion over local cultural, political and
commercial interests while projecting a clear threat to Federal authority to
govern on a national level (6).
(1) James Hohmann. Democrats Angry that Clinton had no Economic
Message. 17 November, 2016 Washington Post.
(2) Ian Mason. Rahm Emanuel Invents New ID to Ensure Illegals get their
Welfare. 31 March, 2017 Breitbart.
(3) Marcuse, H. (1962). Eros and civilization: A philosophical inquiry into
Freud. New York: Vintage Books.
(4) Katie Reilly. Read Hillary Clintons Basket of Deplorables Remarks on
Trump Supporters. 22 January, 2017. Time.com. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
(5) Hancock, A-M (2015). Intersectionality: an Intellectual History. Oxford
University Press.
(6) The United States Department of Justice. (2017). Attorney General Jeff
Sessions Delivers Remarks on Sanctuary Jurisdictions [news conference].