Last year, we warned of the onslaught of culture barbarians, the so-called neo-Marxist revolutionaries who are seeking to upend Western culture and civilization. While this article focuses primarily on one individual, this issue is broader than one person or one event. We will demonstrate it is merely a sign pointing to an issue of greater importance: The barbarians are ransacking Rome.
Students for Life in Manhattan
In a now viral video, two students of Students for Life can be seen being yelled at in an expletive filled rant by a woman claiming to be a teacher. Shortly thereafter, the woman grabs a case from the table, throws it across the table, shoves their brochures at them, and storms off, while continue to swear. The woman was later identified as Shellynne Rodriguez, at the time an adjunct assistant professor at Hunter College in Manhattan, where the altercation took place.
In a separate encounter, Rodriguez pulled a machete and pressed it against the neck of New York Post reporter Reuven Fenton while attempting to get a comment from her. Fenton walked away relatively unharmed, but less can be said about Rodriguez’ job — Hunter College fired her May 23, ABC News reported.
Teachers union says violence towards students ‘justified’
The local soviet–er, teacher’s union, PSC Graduate Center, released a statement defending their revolutionary, as quoted by Fox News:
“Rodriguez approached the display, constructively critiqued the group members, and eventually physically took down items from the table…Her actions to shut down the tabling were fully justified, and are part of a long and celebrated CUNY legacy of confronting groups…who disseminate misleading information.”
Fox News
In civilized society, swearing and throwing anyone’s property at them is considered inappropriate at best, assault at worst. Yet, to the barbarians, this is “part of a long and celebrated legacy” that is “fully justified.”
Portrait of a Cultural Marxist
In an April 2023 interview with Art In America, Rodriguez described one of her art exhibits as such:
The portraits are of radical scholars, some of whom are depicted next to stacks of books that I organized when I photographed them. I wanted to highlight inherited genealogies from liberation struggles, rooted in the Black Radical tradition and histories of Indigenous resistance.
Featured in her art are various radical activists and revolutionaries, including a one Karl Marx. Rodriguez characterizes the riots of 2020 as “George Floyd rebellions” and employs terms like “exploitation of the working class.” You know, typical Marxist terminology.
BICOPS is the only drawing where you see explicit confrontation. But, even when it’s not pictured, we understand that confrontation always looms.
Yes, it does seem like “confrontation always looms” when Ms. Rodriguez is in the room.
Rules for (neo-Marxist) Barbarians
Rodriguez’ self-identification as a “community organizer” was a red flag. Community organizers come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, but the term is most commonly used by the Progressive Left, and especially Marxist Revolutionaries influenced by Saul Alinsky.
Saul Alinsky, in his seminal work, Rules for Radicals (1971), laid out pragmatic steps for how would-be revolutionaries could bring about social revolution. While Karl Marx was a “in the clouds” thinker, Alinsky specialized in pragmatic methods which could be immediately employed by the lowest common denominator. He was not nearly as concerned about ideological purity. His tactics were guided by a cold pragmatism — an embodiment of the phrase, “The ends justify the means.”
Alinsky’s Rules were and continue to appeal to broad audiences. Many of those audiences have found some comradery with each other, if none other than a mutual desire to undo the current social order. Today, broadly, the Right, labels these ideals Woke or Critical Theorist or Cultural Marxist or Neo-Marxist. The exact term may vary with context, nuance, and debate, but they all describe the same general area of thought.
Christendom
Their common ideological foundation is at odds with the God of the Bible. Marxism cannot exist in society which submits completely to the authority of Christ. As such, neo-Marxism, much like its father Marxism, seeks to purge itself of Western ethics which is itself founded upon the biblical worldview.
We have taken for granted concepts like truth, honor, integrity, and honesty — foundations of American identity and culture, which, as they have been traditionally expressed, are derived from a scriptural understanding. If you have grown up in the West, are older than 25, regardless of whether you are an atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, or New Age Spiritualist, your concept of these ideals has been shaped by nearly 1500 years of Christian influence which is not easily erased.
There is a reason why the Western world was not too long ago referred to as Christendom and why it no longer is. There is a reason why the neo-Marxists label Christian Europeans “colonizers.” There is a reason why scholars claim Christian missionaries committed “cultural genocide.” There is a reason why cultural barbarians like Shellyne Rodriguez insist on identifying themselves as indigenous persons. They see the connection. The question is, do we?
In a recent Newsweek article, a Wyoming GOP partisan decried “Christian Nationalism” for “blurring the lines between church and government.” Yet, this supposed “blurring” is not novel. Government is not synonymous with “the state” (i.e., civil government.) Nor is separating the state from the government and the state from the church. R.J. Rushdoony clarifies this in his lecture, “What Identifies America as a Christian Nation?”,
“What we have is a separation of church and state, and this is what the Founding Fathers demanded. But not a separation of Christianity and the state, you can never separate religion and the state. Because what are laws about? morality! A law says; “Thou shalt not do thus and so”.
R. J. Rushdoony, “What Identifies America as a Christian Nation?”
All too often we’ve heard it said “you can’t legislature morality.” To which, we’ve responded, “then what are you legislating if not morality? Immorality?”
“Every system of laws is an establishment of religion. There is no such thing as a neutral law. A law is not neutral, for example, about murder or theft. A law can be just, but it cannot be neutral. Laws are either humanistic, or they’re Christian, or they’re Buddhist, or they’re Islamic, or whatever. You can never separate religion and civil government. It’s impossible. What they’re trying to do is disestablish Christianity as the religion of the United States in order to establish humanism.” (Rushdoony)
The neo-Marxists have actively worked to deconstruct and disestablish the influence of Christianity in their worldview and are actively seeking to do the same in our culture. Make no mistake, the enemy isn’t capitalism, it’s the foundation which makes capitalism possible. Make no mistake, it’s not heterosexual normativity, it’s the cultural and societal framework which promotes and celebrates the union of one man and one woman, raising together children. Make no mistake, it’s not conservatism or Republicans or White people, these are all merely — at times — symbols the Marxists associate with their real enemy, Jesus Christ.
Assail the Unassailable
The goal, per Alinsky’s Rule for Radicals, is to create divisions and weakness in power structures and institutions which would normally be beyond reproach. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump,” wrote the Apostle Paul. The culture barbarians hope by creating symbols and associating beliefs with those symbols, they can “disestablish” those beliefs structures by attacking the symbols — one might call it “straw manning.”
So, while Christ and His church may be too big to take on, this politician or that public figure can be associated with it, and by association (guilt by association is a popular tactic of theirs) may be employed to bring shame and disrepute upon us all. The family unit as a form of self-government was once the foundation of American society. Yet, through a series of social revolutions, the barbarians have proceeded to make a mockery of it.
Abortion is a necessary part of this playbook. Abortion gave women exclusive power over the continuation of a couple’s lineage and legacy, taking by violence the natural order of family governance, and taking hostage her husband, or boyfriend, or any sexual partner — reflecting the steady decay on the once stable relationship structure of a husband and wife in a covenantal marriage.
We digress, this is a topic for another article, one to come next month. The takeaway is this: Rodriguez’ attack on students was not a teacher having a bad day, it was a culture barbarian ransacking Rome.
Rome did not fall in a day
When the Visigoths invaded the city of Rome in A.D. 410, it is difficult to communicate to a modern audience how earthshattering the news was to the known world. While Rome no longer stood as the capital of the Roman Empire, the city was still viewed as an important symbol of Roman prestige and legacy. The idea that barbarians were looting, raping, and murdering the once proud capital of the once great Romans shook the world to its marrow.
For a millennia, Rome served as the foundation of the civilization world in the West. For the first time in generations, the Romans had to consider maybe their security could not be secured by the state, the foundations upon which their existence was entrusted to, may not be so strong. These questions, and more, would inspire Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine, to write his foundational work, The City of God.
Among the Roman nobles was a belief, if they just gave the barbarians what they wanted, they’d do their thing, leave, and life could go back to normal. They welcomed the barbarians as they raided the city, going so far as to offer their wives and daughters to be raped and murdered. The barbarians did leave, but life did not go back to normal.
While historians debate the exact end of the Roman Empire, the first ransacking of Rome (there would be more), was definitely a clear sign of its decline. The barbarians would eventually consume the Roman Empire piecemeal. Rome did fall.
Yet, the culture barbarians would be wise to remember history: Out of the ashes of Rome rose Christendom.
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