A New Structure of Power
Deconstructionism began as a subversive cultural force: a loose alliance of radical critics, artists, intellectuals, and activists united by the shared conviction that all structures of meaning and authority are suspect. Emerging in the wake of the 1960s counterculture and the collapse of Western confidence after decolonisation, the early Deconstructionists sought to dismantle the narratives of power that underpinned what they saw as the oppressive legacy of Western civilisation.
This project of dismantling was not limited to politics. It extended to language, identity, morality, art, and even reality itself. Drawing on the work of post‑structuralist thinkers like Derrida, Foucault, and Butler, Deconstructionists asserted that truth is not discovered, but constructed, and that these constructions always serve power.
A Metaphysics of Negation
Unlike the Proceduralists and Globalists, who believe in progress, markets, and rational systems, the Deconstructionists define themselves negatively: not by what they affirm, but by what they oppose.
- They reject liberal universalism as a mask for white, Western dominance.
- They reject reason as a patriarchal tool of control.
- They reject objectivity as a colonial fiction.
- They reject normativity (sexual, gendered, religious, aesthetic) as violence disguised as order.
At its core, Deconstructionism is a metaphysical inversion: a moral framework built not in terms of what is good, but on what had been excluded, marginalised, or violated by liberalism and its historical predecessors. The oppressed, however defined, become the moral centre of gravity. But this inversion has a peculiar consequence: while it opposes liberalism at the level of metaphysics, it is entirely dependent on liberal infrastructure for power.
Colonising the Host
Rather than overthrowing liberal institutions, Deconstructionists colonised them. The shift began in universities, where activist academics embedded deconstructionist frameworks into disciplines like literature, history, sociology, education, and gender studies. Over time, their critique of power became a new form of power, especially in elite Western institutions eager to display moral sophistication.
From the academy, Deconstructionism spread through:
- HR departments, which internalised the language of “inclusion,” “unconscious bias,” and “safe spaces”;
- Media, where legacy outlets began narrating the world through lenses of systemic oppression and lived experience;
- Corporate branding, where global companies co‑opted deconstructionist language to cloak themselves in moral virtue;
- Public education, where frameworks like critical race theory and gender ideology became pedagogical defaults.
This process reflects a deliberate strategy to subvert from within by framing liberal institutions as tainted by their colonial, patriarchal, heteronormative origins, and thus in need of permanent, radical critique. Yet these same institutions retain their procedural skeletons, giving the Deconstructionist project a structure through which to wield real power: hiring policies, speech codes, content moderation algorithms, ESG scoring, and diversity benchmarks. In this way, Deconstructionism functions as a parasitic ideology that feeds on the carcass of liberalism, undermining its claims to neutrality while exploiting its institutional machinery.
“Cultural Marxism”: Why the Label Is Used — and Why It Misleads Here
Cultural Marxism is a popular shorthand used by critics to describe the migration of revolutionary critique from the realm of class and economics into culture, identity, and language. The label gestures at a real genealogy (the influence of the Frankfurt School, critical theory, and activist academia) and at a real strategic shift (what some call the “long march through the institutions”). As a polemical tag, it captures the intuition that yesterday’s economic revolutionaries re‑entered public life as cultural revolutionaries.
But in this context the term is a misnomer. What we describe on this page as the Deconstructionist project is not a straightforward “Marxism applied to culture,” but a post‑Marxist, post‑structural turn that abandons key Marxist commitments while retaining a revolutionary posture. In particular, Deconstructionists typically:
- reject economic class as the primary analytic lens in favour of identity and discourse;
- replace historical materialism and teleology with genealogies of power and social construction;
- swap a programme of proletarian seizure for managerial capture inside institutions (HR, media standards, education policy, trust & safety, ESG);
- derive legitimacy from therapeutic categories (harm, trauma, safety) rather than from labour, production, or ownership.
Consequently, calling Deconstructionism “Cultural Marxism” obscures more than it reveals. It implies a single coherent doctrine and a direct line from Marx to current practice. In reality it is a coalition of post‑Marxist and postmodern currents that operate through liberal institutions while negating liberal metaphysics. Where precision matters, it is better to speak of post‑Marxist critical theory, post‑structural activist frameworks, or simply Deconstructionism as defined here.
How we use the term here: this site treats “Deconstructionists” as a distinct faction in the five‑faction model. The phrase “Cultural Marxism” may appear in quotations or external attributions, but our analysis avoids it as a defining label, to keep the metaphysical differences clear.
The Real Origins of “Polarisation”
Much of what is today called “polarisation” is misunderstood. The Proceduralist–Globalist Axis maintained a stable order throughout the second half of the twentieth century because it operated within a single metaphysical framework: liberalism. Its internal disputes—over markets, regulation, foreign policy—were instrumental, not existential. Both sides agreed on the basic premises: secularism, individual rights, material progress, and technocratic governance.
The arrival of the Deconstructionists shattered this equilibrium. For the first time, an oppositional metaphysics was injected into the system. Not merely a rival ideology, but a rejection of liberalism’s very foundations. Deconstructionism does not believe in procedural neutrality, individual agency, or universal rights. It believes in power, identity, and grievance.
Liberalism was never designed to contain a hostile metaphysical rival. Its institutions—courts, media, universities—presuppose that all participants share basic assumptions about truth, freedom, and the legitimacy of reasoned debate. Deconstructionists reject those assumptions outright, yet now operate those very institutions.
The result is not polarisation, but ontological incoherence:
- Courts that must apply equal protection now selectively apply justice based on group identity.
- Universities that once pursued truth now enforce ideological conformity in the name of justice.
- Media that claimed objectivity now elevates subjective experience as sacred.
From the inside, this looks like escalating conflict between “Left” and “Right.” From the outside, it is clear the liberal operating system is trying to run two incompatible worldviews at once—and crashing.
The Rise of Woke Managerialism
The outcome is what some have called “woke capitalism” or “progressive neoliberalism,” more precisely: managerial deconstructionism. It wears the uniform of liberal democracy—elections, markets, rights—but is animated by a moral vision alien to the Enlightenment tradition.
Today’s Deconstructionists are:
- Institutionalised, not radical;
- Puritanical, not permissive;
- Therapeutic, not philosophical;
- Moral absolutists, cloaked in the language of relativism.
They no longer challenge power but define it. Through the language of trauma, harm, and safety, they have crafted a new orthodoxy in which dissent is pathologised, disagreement is framed as violence, and compliance is rewarded with moral status.
The Irony of Victory
Deconstructionism began as a revolt against the moral authority of Christendom’s legacy and the rationalist promise of liberalism. But its triumph is deeply ironic: it has become a metaphysical system of its own, rooted in resentment and enforced through soft‑totalitarian means.
Far from being the voice of the marginalised, Deconstructionism is now the voice of credentialed elites—activists, administrators, and influencers who have risen to power through the very institutions they once scorned. And though it pretends to speak on behalf of the oppressed, it now polices the language, beliefs, and behaviour of ordinary people with an intensity that would shock the old religious inquisitors.
In doing so, it has replaced moral truth with moral posture, and left a hollowed‑out populace searching for something real, something rooted, something that cannot be deconstructed.