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I have been editing here since December 2005, and was made an administrator on the English Wikipedia in May 2006.
Cultural Marxism, etc. A bit of a statement to leave here for a while
I've been trying to help out with some of the articles that are currently controversial because they are bound up with current culture wars, especially the article on "cultural Marxism".
As far as that particular article goes, I've been reading into the scholarly literature, and it seems to me that "cultural Marxism" is a perfectly good term, used by intellectual historians, etc., since at least the early 1980s, to label forms of Marxist practice that concentrate on cultural analysis and critique from a Marxist viewpoint [edit: in fact it seems to date to 1973, when it was coined by Marxist author Trent Schroyer]. Or you could call them practices that apply Marxist theory to analysis and critique of culture. E.g. the British tradition of Marxist commentary from the mid-1950s through to at least the end of the end of the 1970s (involving Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, and others) is often referred to by perfectly reputable scholars as an example of cultural Marxism in action.
The term has been co-opted more recently by some rather loopy (as they seem to me) people. They do, however, seem to be talking about roughly the same thing, i.e. Marxist analysis and critique of culture. They just have highly contentious theories about it that concentrate on the Frankfurt school (whereas the main inspiration for the "cultural turn" in much 20th century Western Marxist practice actually appears to be Antonio Gramsci)... and some of them appear to think cultural Marxism is taking over the world, destroying Western/Christian values, etc.
With these sorts of articles, I'm not so much interested in pushing a point of view as in making some attempt to help protect the integrity of the encyclopedia from culture warring, whatever the source. In the case of the cultural Marxism article, it's possible to go to a different extreme from the more conspiracy-minded theorists and try to deny that Marxist analysis and critique of culture (aimed at furthering Marxist political objectives) exists at all. It obviously does, and Gramsci, Williams, Fredric Jameson, etc., would think it's a legitimate practice and indeed a good thing.
I'd like to see outcomes with such articles that are as comprehensive, scholarly, and neutral as possible, not reflecting any particular sympathies that I might have (which are, in any event, likely to be qualified and complicated) or any particular political viewpoint. Contentious claims that go beyond what is in mainstream scholarship should be presented as such, but it isn't the business of the encyclopedia to be overtly taking sides on live issues of political, philosophical, or cultural controversy. The strength of the encyclopedia is that it remains as neutral as is possible, so that almost anyone can trust it.
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