As for their kinsmen far off, on the skirts of the nation,
They harried all earth to make sure none escaped reprobation.
They awakened unrest for a jest in their newly-won borders,
And jeered at the blood of their brethren betrayed by their orders.
They instructed the ruled to rebel, their rulers to aid them;
And, since such as obeyed them not fell, their Viceroys obeyed them.
When the riotous set them at naught they said: “Praise the upheaval!
For the show and the world and the thought of Dominion is evil!”
They unwound and flung from them with rage, as a rag that defied them,
The imperial gains of the age which their forefathers piled them.
They ran panting in haste to lay waste and embitter for ever
The wellsprings of Wisdom and Strengths which are Faith and Endeavour.
They nosed out and digged up and dragged forth and exposed to derision
All doctrine of purpose and worth and restraint and prevision:
And it ceased, and God granted them all things for which they had striven,
And the heart of a beast in the place of a man’s heart was given…Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass
Basic Information
Broadly a school of neo-Marxist doctrine associated with the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt am Main that has sought to re-interpret the conditions necessary for the revolutionary change inherent to Marxist ideology.
Amongst the evolving doctrines to emerge from the Frankfurt School was the idea that the existing order should be broken down not by the direct confrontation that had been the focus of previous attempts at revolution, but by infiltration and destruction from within.
Amongst the targets of the Frankfurt School were the traditional family, social deference, respect for national institutions and the influence of Judeo-Christian values on public life.
As a result, the school has become a byword for subversion amongst social conservatives - probably attributing to it achievements above and beyond those it actually deserves 'credit' for. That said, social changes that have come about since the formalisation of the school in the 1960s have certainly mirrored their proposed methods, if not their desired ends … and probably been more destructive and less sucessful than most of them might have wished.
Sources
Wikipedia's take on the Frankfurt School
Essay on the Influence of the Frankfurt School on the US
Essay on the Alleged Role of the Frankfurt School in Undermining The Church in the UK
Game and Story Use
- This would be the sort of cause the Discordians might favour - not that there's any evidence that they have as yet.
- An unusual conspiracy in that it comes from the opposite political direction to most … or at least that's what it appears to do.