Most of us have heard of identity politics. Well, identify socialism is similar but it has a whole new application. And, as far as I know, it is a term made up by the bestselling author Dinesh D’Souza. So, we will start by some of his words.

An Article by Dinesh D’Souza

What is Identity Socialism?

Dinesh D’Souza

There’s a new socialism in town. I call it “identity socialism.” The old socialism, the kind Karl Marx dreamed up, was all about the working class—the sort of blue-collar worker who, ironically, voted for President Trump. But today’s socialist couldn’t care less about the guy in the hardhat. He had his chance at revolution and blew it. Today’s socialist is all about race, gender and transgender rights. Class is an afterthought.

To understand this is to understand the left’s takeover of the college campus and all the ills that takeover has spawned: from Me Too to Black Lives Matter to girls competing against biological boys. But campus culture has now metastasized into the culture of the whole society. As liberal writer Andrew Sullivan has put it, “We all live on campus now.”

Identity socialism is, first and foremost, about division. Not just class division, but now race division, gender division, transgender division. Blacks and Latinos are in; whites are out. Women are in; men are out. Gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, transgenders are in; heterosexuals are out. Illegals are in; native-born citizens are out.

One may think this is all part of the politics of inclusion, but to think that is to get only half the picture. The point, for the left, is not merely to include, but also to exclude.

So where did this identity socialism come from? Meet Herbert Marcuse.

Born in Berlin in 1898, Marcuse fled Germany at the dawn of the Nazi era. After stints at Columbia, Harvard and Brandeis, Marcuse moved to California, where he joined the University of California at San Diego in 1965. You’d think that living in a paradise like Southern California, with all the comforts and privileges of academic life, might have softened Marcuse’s Marx-like hatred of capitalism. But it was not to be. If anything, the more he prospered, the more he wanted to bring the system down.

He had a problem, however. A big one. Socialism didn’t work in America. Life was too good. The working class in the US didn’t aspire to overthrow the existing order; they aspired to own a home. How could you foment revolution without revolutionaries? Classic Marxism had no answer for this. But almost a hundred years after Marx, Marcuse did: The answer was college students. They would be the recruits for what he termed the “Great Refusal”—the repudiation and overthrow of free-market capitalism.

Conditions were perfect. The students of the ‘60s were already living in what was, in effect, a socialist commune: a university campus. Rather than being grateful to their parents for providing them with this opportunity to learn and study, they were restless and bored. Most importantly, they were looking for meaning—a form of self-fulfillment that went beyond material gratification.

Of course, as with all successful social movements, timing was critical. Here Marcuse was very fortunate. The ‘60s was the decade of the Vietnam War. Students faced the prospect of being drafted. Thus, they had selfish reasons to oppose the conflict. Marcuse and his acolytes turned this selfishness into righteousness by teaching the students that they weren’t draft dodgers; they were noble resisters who were part of a global struggle for social justice.

Marcuse portrayed Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong as a kind of Third World proletariat, fighting to free themselves from American imperialism. This represented a transposition of Marxist categories. The new working class were the Vietnamese “freedom fighters.” The evil capitalists were American soldiers serving on behalf of the American government.

Marcuse found, in addition to the students, other groups ripe for the taking. The first was the Black Power movement, which was a militant adjunct to the civil rights movement. The beauty of this group, from Marcuse’s point of view, was that, unlike white students, its members wouldn’t have to be instructed in the art of grievance; blacks had grievances that dated back centuries. Through another Marxist transposition, blacks would become the working class; whites, the capitalist class. Race, in this analysis, took the place of class.

Another emerging source of disgruntlement was the feminists. Marcuse recognized they too could be taught to see themselves as an oppressed class. This, of course, would require a further Marxist transposition: Women would now be viewed as the working class and men, the capitalist class; the class category would now be shifted to gender.

Marcuse recognized that educating and mobilizing all these groups—the bored students, the aggrieved blacks, and the angry feminists—would take time. But he wasn’t in a hurry. Soon enough, the radical students would be the radical professors teaching identity socialism to a fresh crop of impressionable recruits.

Over time, Marcuse believed, the university could produce a new type of culture, and that culture would then spill into the larger society to infect primary education, the news media and entertainment. Even big business—the hated capitalist class itself—would succumb.

He was right. Identity socialism has arrived.

A Short Summary of D’Souza’s Article

Identity Socialism came from the mind of Herbert Marcuse. Herbert was born in Germany in 1898, and, later in life he moved to California. Well, because of his schooling and influence he grew to hate capitalism and to develop his own ideas about socialism, which was all about division and who was in and who was out: race division, gender division, transgender division. Blacks and Latinos are in; whites are out. Women are in; men are out. Gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, transgenders are in; heterosexuals are out. Illegals are in; native-born citizens are out. Here are three points to consider:

• Students in the 60’s. Students in the 60’s were looking for meaning in life. Marcuse set out to recruit them for his socialist movement. He would teach them that they were part of a global struggle for social justice.
• Other recruits. He also found others for his movement: from the Black Power movement and from the feminist movement.
• Marcuse looked to the Universities. Marcuse believed that the Universities would produce a new type of culture and that they would infect primary education, the media, entertainment and big business.

More Background on Herbert Marcuse

Here is some information that is not in the article but is in D’Souza’s book United States of Socialism. Besides Herbert’s education in Germany at Columbia, Harvard and Brandeis, at the University of Freiburg he studied under Heidegger. Well, we can stop right there and know that he is on his was down. Heidegger is entirely anti-God. Here are some words from Heidegger:

We are finite beings, thrown into the world with no knowledge of where we came from, what we are here for or where we are going…we go through life like a twig in a current, steered by a tide of sociability and conformity. Thus we lose ourselves…we cannot rely on God to show us the way; we are alone in the world, and have to find a way for ourselves.

A Scriptural Perspective

Well, to look at Herbert Marcuse’s divisions and exclusions of people and people groups, you have to question his morality and his view of God and Scripture.

First of all, God wants us to love and accept all people of all races and genders.

And God has given us His Word to guide us and show us truth. He will show us the way, contrary to what Heidegger says.

God has given us moral principles that will help us and protect us. It looks to me like Marcuse has got everything backwards. He has exalted the immoral and the rebellious and has excluded those who are godlier and who follow His Word.

Conclusion. All that Herbert Marcus has set out to do to form his identity socialism beliefs is entirely against God, and it has been developed according to his ungodly and immoral teaching—teaching that are entirely demonic. All of Marcuse’s teachings and all of the human philosophy that he has ascribed to is of the devil and is a rebellion against God. They are like a child that continually says NO to a parent who tells the child not to behave in a certain way.