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Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Colinxy: Reclaiming the West


There are moments when it feels as though the twin cults of Marx and Islam, each with its own absolutist creed, each hostile to the foundations of Western civilisation, are poised to overwhelm the cultural, moral, and institutional inheritance that made the modern world possible.

What follows is not a master‑plan or manifesto, but a set of practical strategies for halting the erosion and beginning the long work of recovery.

Understand the Tactics of the Cults

Both Marxist and Islamist movements rely on a simple but devastating principle: manipulate the reaction, then weaponise it.

As the activist manual Beautiful Trouble puts it:

"The real action is your target’s reaction.

We’ve seen this pattern repeatedly:
  • provoke outrage,
  • frame the response as oppression,
  • leverage the manufactured crisis for more power.
Recognising this tactic is the first step in neutralising it.

Reclaim the Storytelling Space

Andrew Klavan is right: one of the most powerful tools we have is storytelling.

And the opportunity has never been greater. The cultural Left has hollowed out its own creative well, leaving us with the Woke Hero, the Girl Boss, and the Mary Sue — archetypes so thin and predictable that audiences have simply walked away. Hollywood’s box‑office collapse is not a mystery; it’s a verdict.

This vacuum is a gift. If we write compelling stories — stories with moral weight, human complexity, and genuine heroism — people will come. They are starving for it.

Rebuild Popular Culture from the Ground Up

The battlefield is not just film. It’s everything:
  • video games,
  • comics,
  • novels,
  • tabletop RPGs,
  • online worlds,
  • indie animation,
  • podcasts.
The cults have been doing a catastrophically poor job of late. Their ideological constraints make good storytelling almost impossible. The bar is low. We can step over it simply by being competent, imaginative, and honest.

This is how cultures are reclaimed: one story, one world, one character at a time.

Remind People What the West Actually Is

We must remind people, especially the young, that Western civilisation exists, that it is theirs, and that it has made their lives immeasurably better.

It is not a vague abstraction. It is:
  • the rule of law,
  • individual rights,
  • scientific inquiry,
  • free speech,
  • religious liberty,
  • the dignity of the person,
  • the separation of church and state,
  • the idea that rulers are accountable.
To surrender this inheritance to the ideological barbarians of Marxism and Islam would be an act of civilisational self‑harm.

Build Parallel Institutions

The long march through the institutions has been underway for decades. Universities, in particular, may already be lost. But nothing prevents us from building alternatives.

We can create:
  • independent universities that reject Critical Theory,
  • classical academies,
  • online institutions with rigorous standards,
  • apprenticeship‑based professional pathways.
Similarly, homeschooling, charter schools, and partnership schools offer ways to bypass the machinery of critical pedagogy entirely.

The point is not to reform captured institutions; it is to outgrow them.

Expose the Public Sector

In the public sector, sunlight is often the most effective disinfectant.
  • Use Official Information Requests.
  • Document incompetence.
  • Expose ideological capture.
  • Publicise the absurdities.
Bureaucracies fear humiliation more than anything else. They can ignore criticism, but they cannot ignore ridicule.

Reclaim the Culture, Not Just the Politics

Politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from imagination.

If we want to reclaim the West, we must:
  • tell better stories,
  • build better institutions,
  • model better values,
  • create better art,
  • cultivate better citizens.
This is not a short project. It is generational work. But every civilisation that has ever recovered itself has done so by remembering what it is, why it matters, and what it refuses to become.

Colinxy regularly blogs at No Minister, This article was sourced HERE

9 comments:

CXH said...

The socialists should check what happened in Iran to see how this works out for them. They were first against the wall once the mullahs had control.

Allen Heath said...

All of the above is good stuff, but just don't try using main stream media to publicise it; it won't.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek said...

I am having a bit of a problem with the author's use of words here.
'Cult' is a label intended to vilify that to which it is attached. The word has changed somewhat in meaning over the past decades, but does it really apply to Marxism and Islam? I leave the question open although as somewhat of a language purist I would personally say 'no'.
The author isn't really referring to Marxism anyway. Classical Marxism has been just about extinct for almost a century. Only North Korea is a shining example of it (added to which we have the personality cult of the Dear Leader - woops, we're back to cults). What has hijacked Western academe and social politics is neo-Marxism. The 'neo' isn't just for show - it represents a fundamental restructuring of the original Marxist paradigm.
Whereas neo-Marxism is a fairly unitary conceptual entity, Islam is not. There are significant theological differences between sects, and more importantly to this discussion, immensely varying attitudes towards things Western. It is demonstrably untrue to claim that Islam as a whole is dedicated to destroying the West. Using extremists such as ISIS as a yardstick of Muslim attitudes and behaviour is akin to using the IRA as a yardstick by which to judge Christianity. Indeed one of the reasons for the existence of extreme Muslim groups is the realisation that the winds of change are blowing through Islam. These include the accommodation of "fundamental Western values".
Having spent almost two decades living amongst Muslims, I regard most mainstream Muslims as allies against the woke insanity that is tearing our societies apart. There are plenty of social issues that Western secular conservatives such as myself and most dedicated Muslims agree about. It is seriously unwise to alienate them by treating them as 'cultists' intent on destroying us.

Colinxy said...

To Barend,

This is one hassle of Breaking Views picking and choosing what articles of mine they publish. Suffice to say, I have answered your “bit of a problem” quite extensively.

I have defined what I mean by a cult. I have defined Marxism (in all its forms, including Neo Marxism) as well as Islam as cults.
I have even addressed moderates in a cult, which is where you seem to get stuck on the definition.

You can find my catalogue at https://nominister.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/navigating-colinxys-articles/ with particularly attention to Cults in General, Marxism and Islam (they’ll all stubs). There are other cults in there, too, like Scientology.

Once you delve into those articles, you will appreciate why I have not summarised my argument here.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek said...

Colinxy, you remind me of Humpty Dumpty telling Alice that a word means anything he chooses it to mean.
Yes, you have defined what you mean by a cult, but it is a not a definition we all share. The Oxford online dictionary I consulted has two meanings, one the more traditional one (an esoteric, usually religious group) and another rather more nebulous one arising from common usage. In formal writing I think we have to be very careful how we use words, or we will have difficulty communicating.
You apply different rules from most of us when applying the term 'cult' to Islam. Scientology is a 'cult' by the Oxford definition but Islam is not - it's just a nasty term people use when referring to some crowd they don't like.
I have never come across the term being applied to classical Marxism and I doubt whether it applies to neo-Marxism by standard academic criteria.
Most importantly, I think you are very much in error when tarring Marxism/neo-Marxism and Islam with the same brush. They really don't have much in common - CXH above isn't that far wrong - and to claim that Islam as an entity is out to destroy the West is, quite frankly, utter nonsense.

colinxy said...

Barend, a few clarifications are in order.

1. The Humpty Dumpty analogy still doesn’t apply. That analogy only works when someone refuses to define their terms. I have done the opposite: I provided a clear, explicit definition of cult at the outset of my No Minister catalogue. You may not share that definition, but that is not the same as me arbitrarily assigning meanings to words.

2. Dictionaries are not the final authority on analytical terms. The Oxford dictionary gives a brief summary of common usage, not an exhaustive sociological definition. If we restricted ourselves to dictionary entries, we would be unable to discuss complex phenomena like “ideology”, “empire”, “propaganda”, or “bureaucracy” with any precision. Academic and analytical writing routinely uses operational definitions — which is exactly what I have done.

3. Cults are not limited to esoteric religious sects. You cite the “traditional” definition, but contemporary scholarship recognises a much broader category. Groups such as NXIVM, Heaven’s Gate, Yellow Bamboo, and numerous martial arts and self help cults are universally recognised as cults despite lacking a religious doctrine. If your definition excludes them, then your definition is simply too narrow for modern analysis.

4. Islam is not exempt from structural analysis. You argue that calling Islam a cult is merely “a nasty term people use for groups they dislike”. That may be true of some polemicists, but it is not true of my usage. I am applying the same structural criteria across cases: centralised authority (historically), sacred language, ritualised compliance, purity norms, in group/out group moral hierarchy, doctrinal absolutism, etc. These are observable features. Whether one approves of Islam or not is irrelevant to whether it exhibits cultic structures.

5. Marxism has long been analysed as a quasi religious or cultic system. You say you have “never come across” the term applied to classical Marxism. That is surprising, because the literature is extensive. Scholars from Raymond Aron to Leszek KoÅ‚akowski to Eric Voegelin have described Marxism as a political religion with cultic features: prophetic founder, eschatology, elect class, sacred texts, heresy/purity dynamics, etc. Neo Marxism inherits many of these traits, even if the organisational form differs.

6. Islam and Marxism do not need to be identical to share structural features. You object that they “don’t have much in common”. In terms of theology, obviously not. But I am not comparing their doctrines; I am comparing their sociological structures. Two systems can be very different in content yet similar in form. Both: claim universal truth, divide the world into believers and unbelievers, possess a moralised teleology, demand ideological conformity, treat dissent as moral deviance. These parallels are structural, not theological.

7. As for whether Islam seeks to “destroy the West”: I did not claim that every Muslim, or Islam as a monolithic entity, is engaged in such a project. What I have argued is that certain interpretations and movements within Islam, historically and contemporarily, have explicitly expansionist and civilisational ambitions. To deny that such currents exist is simply inaccurate.

If you want to disagree with my definition, that’s fine, but then the task is to show where it fails analytically, not to appeal to a dictionary or to personal unfamiliarity with the literature.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek said...

Colinxy, I don't think that much separates us. A problem with English (cf. French or Dutch) is that dictionaries reflect common usage and so, especially with the americanisation of English, we enter a realm of uncertainty where there should be precision.
You have indeed provided a "clear, explicit definition of cult" but by acknowledging that "[I] may not share that definition" you are more or less conceding that there is some arbitrariness about the definition of that term.
'My' definition is not restricted to religious movements, by the way.
The trouble with point 4 is that we could start attributing 'cultic features' to a host of organisations - the UN, for instance. Surely the broader the scope of the term, the less impact it has.
Likewise, the UN "historically and contemporarily, [has] explicitly expansionist and civilisational ambitions."
Your essay is an interesting academic exercise but I honestly don't think it adds to most readers' understanding of the issues involved, particularly not in the case of Islam.

colinxy said...

Barend, I’m not sure how much actually separates us, but the definitional issue isn’t quite as arbitrary as you suggest.
English does drift with usage, yes, but that’s precisely why I set out a clear definition at the start of my time at No Minister. If a term is contested, the responsible thing is to define it explicitly and then use it consistently. That’s what I’ve done. It’s not an admission of arbitrariness; it’s an attempt at clarity.
One of the most useful definitions I draw on comes from the late Mike Rinder, a former senior Scientology executive (paraphrased): “How easy is it to leave?” If leaving an organisation triggers shunning, harassment, intimidation, or violence, or if the only exit is a coffin, then you’re dealing with a cult. That criterion cuts through a lot of semantic fog, because it focuses on behaviour, not branding.
And yes, that definition absolutely applies to the mainstream sects of Islam. I’m not claiming every obscure offshoot behaves this way, but the dominant traditions do make leaving extraordinarily difficult, often lethally so. That’s not a theological judgement; it’s an observable sociological fact.
You’re right that many organisations can display cult like features without being full cults. I’ve said the same myself. My Neo Malthusian series is a good example: the ideology exhibits cultic traits, but it isn’t a cult in the strict sense. The UN, as you mention, also shows cult like tendencies, especially in its universalist, civilisational ambitions, but it doesn’t meet the threshold of coercive exit control. (Although leaving the UN as a country is remarkably difficult: Indonesia is the only country that ever tried, and even they returned.)
As for whether my essay “adds to most readers’ understanding,” that depends on whether the reader wants a surface level discussion or a structural one. My aim isn’t to rehearse the usual talking points about Islam or any other ideology. It’s to map the underlying mechanisms: the psychological, organisational, and behavioural patterns that recur across movements, religions, and political projects. That’s the value of a structural definition: it lets you compare phenomena that look different on the surface but operate the same way underneath.
Out of curiosity, when did you read my definition? I can see which posts have been opened today, and my cult definition article hasn’t been accessed yet. It would help me understand where our disagreement actually lies.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek said...

I made it to your website but the specific page request was met with "Oops! That page can’t be found."
Looking at the website, I can see what you are about and I generally like it. I can see where you are coming from with regard to the definition of cultism. I'm not sure how useful I find statements such as "the ideology exhibits cultic traits, but it isn’t a cult in the strict sense", though. But do keep up the good work - sock it to 'em!

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