Marx and Coca-Cola

This provocative essay explores the perceived decline of European culture in the aftermath of World War II, arguing that it is caught in a double bind: ideological barbarism from the East (communism) and moral barbarism from the West (consumerism and cultural decay). The author, Jean Cau, laments the erosion of Europe's cultural identity, claiming that Marxist leftism is being repackaged in Western, especially American, forms—resulting in a hybrid youth culture that paradoxically embraces both revolutionary ideals and capitalist symbols. Through scathing critique, Cau warns of a cultural landscape increasingly dominated by ideology, where true artistic and intellectual freedom is stifled. Cau ultimately contends that what remains is not culture, but a battleground—one where survival depends on resisting the totalizing forces of modern mass society.

Originally published in Éléments no. 8-9, November 1974

Translated by Alexander Raynor

---

European culture, since the end of the Second World War, finds itself crushed between two grinding machines. On the one hand, an ideological mass barbarism coming from the East; on the other, a moral mass barbarism coming from the West. Between the two, Europe—once the cradle of culture and myth—experiences the fascination of its own decline in a dual enslavement. In this regard, our cultural environment is laden with signs that, though seemingly muddled, are no less revealing upon closer reading. In other words, Marxist cultural leftism is being sold to us American-style.

What could be more peculiar, indeed, than to witness this split personality among the political and intellectual youth of our Europe? On one side, Marx; on the other, Coca-Cola. On one side, Lenin and the revolution that will sweep away all imperialisms; on the other, American films, Anglo-Saxon theatre, pornography, drugs, free love, violence, fashion dictated by New York or California, pop music, psychedelic mysticisms, and even language invaded by Anglicisms.

We celebrate the revolution, but we wear blue jeans. We praise Chinese puritanism, yet flock to cinemas showing Last Tango in Paris. In truth, we are provinces of an empire whose twin capitals are Moscow and Washington.

In sum, European culture has become a slave.

What’s striking is that both barbarisms—those that strip us of our identity—have something in common: the cult, whether totalitarian or democratic, of the masses; the idolatry of numbers imposed by materialist political ideology, whose only concern is to sell, to a conditioned mass, the mad illusions of universal happiness.

And so we witness two parallel movements: the USSR giving birth to a consumerist, mercantile society at the same pace as American mass culturalism gives rise, for all its endless offshoots, to the Left and to leftism. The two monsters, gazing at each other over the body of Europe, are fascinated—because they know that between them exist troubling and secret similarities.

Should we still use the word culture? Let us look clearly and face the truth: ideology has devoured, perverted, or slowly penetrated every form of cultural life. Everything—books, newspapers, cinema, television, theatre, education, even painting—is now steered by a compass whose degrees may vary, but which is always, always pointed left.

Certainly, the teeming leftist movements (including those engulfing the Church) may deceive with their diversity and reassure through their chaotic agitation, but beneath this foam and froth, what do we find? We find, intact and increasingly solid, socialism, which—though sects may proliferate—remains, behind this smoke screen, the only Church whose towers rise and lengthen their shadows.

So, from this perspective, what becomes of culture? For now, in the West, communism is cunning: it surrenders culture to leftism. It doesn’t contest the field. It lets intellectuals, artists, and clergy reign there more or less unopposed. After all, since the West has not yet reached the final collapse of its political structures, why not allow leftism—and what are called countercultures or even anti-cultures—to gnaw away at and destroy the aesthetic and moral foundations?

The leftism of the sons—what better way to subjugate the fathers! To be sure, communist ideology and culturalism secretly loathe the leftist student (or artist or teacher or priest), but, also secretly, they are not displeased that these people devalue and destroy. The more disorder there is, the more fervently the call for order will be heard. So let the leftisms give the West a fever, since tomorrow, we will be the only doctors.

Let the leftisms ride Marcuse, Freud, abortion, sexual liberation, self-management, conceptual art, anti-psychiatry, Oedipus or Anti-Oedipus—let these wild-haired boys spur on every social, moral, or cultural utopia they please, since we, the communists, are sitting astride the right horse: broad-backed and strong-limbed. What will Mr. Krivine (in France) weigh tomorrow against Mr. Marchais? And Cardinal Marty, a flower of utopia between thumb and forefinger, against Mr. Brezhnev with his clenched fist?

The dominant ideology has developed, atop the ruins of republican liberalism and Christianity, an immense scholastic corpus of formidable rigor. Any culture not in its service is stifled, blocked, and terrorized. Contrary to what we may believe—or even feel—any person today who does not bow to Marxist socialism (whatever chapel of this Church the worship is held in) is as little free to express or affirm themselves as Galileo was in his time.

Yes, the new Inquisition is among us. Its priests are everywhere, and the terror they wield is no less than that of the hooded men of the Holy Office. True, their method does not resort to the stake. It doesn't need to. It has something better: conditioning.

So, is there still hope? Can a culture stand today against the universal scholasticism of the new Terror? And where is this culture? For my part, I see it—if it exists—beyond very grave struggles and terrible political and social confrontations. Otherwise, all debate is futile. Victorious socialism will call culture nothing more than its own propaganda and law.

Then, those among us who survive will be the vilified kamikazes of a lost war, and the hunted witnesses of a vanished world. Until such a History unfolds, there is no more culture. Whether we like it or not, there is only a fight.

This essay reminds me of the quote by Jean-Luc Godard, as he famously said in his film Masculin-Feminin (1966), "This film could be called The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola"