Cultural hegemony = a concept developed by Antonio Gramsci, refers to the dominance of a ruling class that maintains power by shaping society’s beliefs, values, and norms to appear as natural, “common sense” truths. It works through cultural institutions (media, education) rather than force, gaining the consent of subordinate groups to support the status quo.

The end of moral asymmetry in American intellectual life.

In 2023, newly disclosed documents related to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein revealed meetings and financial interactions between Epstein and the eminent linguist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky. The disclosures did not accuse Chomsky of criminal conduct. But they confirmed that, years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor, Chomsky met with him multiple times and discussed financial matters.

Chomsky’s response was characteristically blunt: his meetings with Epstein, he said, were “none of your business.” The tone may have been legally defensible. Culturally and symbolically, it was something else.

Because Chomsky is not merely a professor emeritus at MIT. For over half a century, he has been one of the central intellectual pillars of the American Left — a figure whose authority extends far beyond linguistics into foreign policy, media criticism, and moral judgment on American power. His 1988 book Manufacturing Consent shaped generations of students’ understanding of media, propaganda, and elite influence. To admirers, he has represented intellectual courage against empire; to critics, an implacable critic of Western liberal democracies.

But in either case, he has stood as a moral voice.

And that is precisely why the Epstein association matters — not as a criminal allegation, but as a symbolic rupture.

From the 1960s to Cultural Hegemony

To understand the magnitude of that rupture, one must place Chomsky within the broader intellectual ecosystem that reshaped American academia after the 1960s. While not formally a member of the Frankfurt School, his work converged with its critique of capitalist modernity, mass culture, and liberal-democratic institutions. Thinkers such as Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno helped institutionalize a style of critical theory that viewed Western society as structurally oppressive beneath its democratic veneer.

Overlay that with the influence of Antonio Gramsci and his theory of cultural hegemony: the idea that ruling classes maintain dominance not only through economic power but by shaping cultural norms, education, and moral language. Change the culture, and you change the political order.

The American New Left absorbed this framework. Over decades, it migrated from street protest to faculty lounges, from counterculture to curriculum committees. The result is what we now call Critical Theory’s progeny: identity-centered scholarship, postcolonial critique, and ultimately the framework popularly labeled CRT. While Chomsky himself has often criticized certain excesses of identity politics and has not endorsed every development in “woke” culture, his lifelong assault on American institutions provided intellectual scaffolding for the suspicion of Western norms that now permeates large sectors of academia.

The point is not that Chomsky caused CRT. It is that he helped legitimize a moral architecture in which America is presumptively guilty, power is presumptively corrupt, and Western institutions are structurally suspect.

For decades, that critique carried a tacit moral asymmetry: the critics stood above the system they condemned.

The Weberian Problem

Here is where the scandal intersects with political theory.

Max Weber famously distinguished between the “ethic of conviction” and the “ethic of responsibility.” The former acts from purity of principle; the latter accounts for the foreseeable consequences of one’s actions in the public sphere.

Chomsky’s career embodies the ethic of conviction. He has consistently argued from first principles against war, imperialism, and elite hypocrisy. But when a public intellectual of such stature maintains a relationship — however defined — with a convicted sex offender embedded in elite financial networks, the question shifts from private intention to public consequence.

Even if the meetings were purely intellectual.

Even if the financial discussions were routine.

The symbolic impact is unavoidable.

A figure who built his reputation exposing the moral compromises of power was, at minimum, socially entangled with a man whose entire operation depended on elite protection.

That tension does not prove corruption. It exposes fragility.

The Collapse of Moral Asymmetry

For many on the Right, the Epstein scandal has become shorthand for elite decadence across party lines. But for the American Left, it strikes deeper. The post-1960s intellectual project has relied not only on critique, but on moral differentiation — the implicit claim that progressive institutions and thinkers occupy higher ethical ground than the corporate, military, or conservative establishments they oppose.

The Chomsky episode does not invalidate every argument he has ever made. It does something subtler: it undermines the aura of moral insulation.

If even the most relentless critic of American elite corruption can be found in the appointment book of one of the most notorious financiers in recent memory, then the narrative of unilateral moral superiority begins to erode.

And once moral asymmetry collapses, the logic of cultural hegemony weakens.

Because Gramscian influence depends on credibility. Cultural authority must appear ethically elevated to justify reshaping curricula, institutions, and norms. If the intellectual class is perceived as subject to the same gravitational pull of wealth, access, and prestige as everyone else, its claim to exceptional moral insight diminishes.

A Myth from the Sixties Meets the Twenty-First Century

The myth born in the 1960s was that radical critique purified the critic. That standing outside “the system” conferred immunity from its temptations. Over time, that myth helped fuel a worldview in which America’s sins were magnified, while the critic’s own milieu was presumed enlightened.

The Epstein revelations do not topple Chomsky’s scholarly contributions to linguistics. They do not erase his influence. But they puncture the myth that critique equals virtue.

And that puncture comes at a moment when the intellectual descendants of the New Left are facing growing resistance from parents, voters, and lawmakers who question the premises of CRT and institutionalized “wokeness.”

The Chomsky moment, then, is not about scandal in the tabloid sense. It is about the exposure of a structural paradox: those who claimed to unmask power were not immune to its proximity.

Cultural hegemony depends on the perception of moral altitude. When that altitude drops, even slightly, the entire architecture wobbles.

The collapse is not judicial.

It is symbolic.

And symbols, in politics, often matter more than verdicts.

S.R. Piccoli | February 18, 2026

Samuel Robert Piccoli is a blogger and the author of several books, among them Being Conservative from A to Z (2014) and Blessed Are the Free in Spirit (2021). He lives in the Venice area.

Source: The Chomsky Moment And The Cracks In Cultural Hegemony – American Thinker

Green activists may be appalled by the Trump administration’s placement of economic growth, national security, and energy affordability ahead of fighting climate change — but they don’t have the final word.

Qn February 12, President Donald Trump rescinded the “endangerment finding” by the Environmental Protection Agency which asserted in 2009 that so-called greenhouse gases were a threat to public health. It became the legal basis, absent action by a divided Congress, for efforts to rein in emissions for vehicles, power plants, the oil and gas sector, high-energy manufacturing, methane from landfills (and perhaps cattle), even aircraft; anything the EPA wanted to target. This recission supports three of the pillars of the “Powering the Great American Comeback” initiative the EPA announced last February: supporting energy “dominance,” the domestic auto industry, and AI data centers with their massive demand for electricity.

The EPA deregulation followed an executive order issued the day before “directing the Department of War to prioritize long-term Power Purchase Agreements with America’s beautiful, clean coal fleet to ensure military installations and critical defense facilities have uninterrupted, on-demand baseload power.”

A day earlier, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public utility (and sixth largest utility in the country), to which President Trump has just appointed four new board members, announced it would not close two coal-fired power plants it had planned to shutter. TVA explained, “As power demand grows, TVA is looking at every option to bolster our generating fleet to continue providing affordable, reliable electricity to our 10 million customers, create jobs and help communities thrive.” Emphasis will be on new generating capacity based on natural gas and nuclear power.

Green activists are appalled by the Trump administration’s placement of economic growth, national security, and energy affordability ahead of fighting climate change. However, the U.S. President is not an outlier among world leaders on setting these priorities, as was demonstrated at the 30th annual United Nations Climate Conference of the Parties (COP30) held in Belem, Brazil last November. Ambitions had been lowered as expressed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres when reporting on the release of the 2025 Emissions Gap Report. It concluded that even if Nationally Determined Contributions are fully implemented by 2035, global warming would reach 2.3 degrees Celsius, well above the UN target of 1.5 C or the 2.0 C rise developing countries wanted the UN to shift to so as not to impede their economic growth. However, Guterres still claimed that “1.5 degrees by the end of the century remains our North Star.” Yet everyone knows “end of the century” goals are not serious.

The UN remains a membership organization, whose members are nation-states endowed with sovereign authority over their own actions. The UN has no authority to mandate anything, nor should it have. Even President Barack Obama held to this core principle. Though given the Nobel Peace Prize in the hope that he would embrace the UN climate campaign, he ended the notion that the UN could mandate national actions even though he expressed support for meeting UN goals. The result are Nationally Determined Contributions which can vary widely between countries and within countries when governments change as demonstrated by President Donald Trump’s rejection of the UN climate agenda and the U.S. boycott of COP30.

The target for Net Zero — the cutting of greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, with any continued emissions being reabsorbed by carbon “offsets” — has been moved from 2035 to 2050, with many major emitters (including China and India) saying they cannot meet that goal because improving living standards and building economic strength are higher priorities. India’s coal consumption will likely double by 2050.

Bill Gates made headlines less than three weeks before COP30 by reversing his former views on climate. In his memo he wrote, “Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.” And even in the poorest countries, Gates noted climate “will not be the only or even the biggest threat to their lives and welfare. The biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been.” The way out is more economic growth driven by innovation and the expansion of resources which Gates finds more finite today than they should be. He wants policy to “be prioritized by its ability to save and improve lives cost-effectively” which is what all those who have objected to the restrictions posed by the Greens want.

Green activists had hoped there would be a “roadmap” of policies nations would have to adopt to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. This idea was discarded early as the developing countries know this is impossible. The real world intruded with the annual report of the International Energy Agency (IEA) which was released during COP30. It projected that oil and gas demand will continue to grow until 2050 at least. Between today and 2035, half of the growth in the global automotive fleet comes from emerging and developing economies outside China, while Chinese growth will continue as well. Whether motive power comes from gasoline or electricity, energy demand will go up.

Coal will continue to be a major generator of electricity. While renewable energy, particularly solar, is growing as its technology evolves, it is being used to expand output more than replace existing fossil fuels use. China leads the world in both new solar energy and expanded coal use as it seeks every way it can to expand and do so with domestic sources for security reasons. Across Asia, coal generates half of the electricity. Natural gas has been used as a replacement for coal, but the Greens count is as a fossil fuel to be eliminated, but it won’t be.

The IEA had good news for the nuclear power industry. Surging demand for electricity means that “after more than two decades of stagnation, global nuclear power capacity is set to increase by at least one-third to 2035.” Nuclear is a clean power source. On the sidelines of COP30, the World Nuclear Association confirmed continued expansion of its nuclear coalition of 33 nations (including the U.S.) supporting the global tripling of nuclear power by 2050. Last month, German chancellor Friedrich Merz admitted it had been a “huge mistake” to close all of his country’s nuclear power plants, driving up costs and weakening national security. COP28 had listed nuclear power as one of the “low emissions” technologies that needed to be accelerated (see my earlier reports on COP27,  COP28 and COP29).

The Economist reported “COP30 ends with a whimper.” This was shown by Secretary-General Guterres when in a late plea to the conference asked, “how much more must we suffer?” He was referring to the planet, but it was more accurately aimed at the UN itself, which again found its expensive, anti-growth Green agenda not to the liking of leaders of nations operating in the real world where people expect their living standards to continually improve.

William R. Hawkins | February 19, 2026

Source: President Trump Not an Outlier on Climate – American Thinker

‘Ignoring Human Nature’: Using Biblical Reasoning, Rubio Pinpoints Why Globalism Is A Recipe For Disaster

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s powerful message at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) has garnered well-deserved attention. Standing before a room of European and Western leaders, Rubio boldly exposed the folly of globalist policies and how they have been used to undermine sovereignty, national strength, and the Judeo-Christian foundation of Western civilization.

One particular statement was truly profound, and its tremendous accuracy stems from being bred out of a Biblical worldview.

Discussing the collapse of communism in Germany, Rubio warned that the celebration of this success in the West quickly morphed into an ill-conceived fantasy about the future of nations.

“The euphoria of this triumph led us to a dangerous delusion: that we had entered, ‘the end of history;’” Rubio emphasized, “that every nation would now be a liberal democracy; that the ties formed by trade and by commerce alone would now replace nationhood; that the rules-based global order – an overused term – would now replace the national interest; and that we would now live in a world without borders where everyone became a citizen of the world.”

This globalist mentality, he stressed, “was a foolish idea that ignored both human nature and it ignored the lessons of over 5,000 years of recorded human history. And it has cost us dearly.”

The Secretary of State correctly pinpointed the fatal flaw of today’s globalism: “human nature.”

This vital truth is confirmed by Scripture.

By man’s naivete, globalism sounds like a perfect ideal. What could be wrong with a world united together in harmony? Even popular science fiction series like Star Trek envision a future in which we have “evolved” past the supposedly barbaric concept of individual nations into a global system of governance. No more bloody wars, corruption, violations of human rights, hunger, and wicked regimes. Surely no one could argue against a future like that!

To many, especially the young, those who fight against globalism are viewed as selfish, power-hungry, and lacking humanity. This is not reality. Those who resist globalism do so out of wisdom.

Equipped with an understanding of human nature and history, we know that globalism would not produce a worldwide “utopia” but rather the creation of a global regime—equipped with all the wicked qualities of human nature—whose power would be limitless. The danger is obvious.

Unfortunately, despite the discernment of Rubio’s warning from Munich, his impactful words will ultimately fall on deaf ears.

God, who knows the future, told us that a day is coming when there will be a global government—and it looks nothing like the appealing picture of peace and harmony presented from the buildings of Davos.

This global government will fall under the leadership of an individual whom the Bible refers to as “the anti-Christ.” While he will come with lofty and deceptive words promising “peace,” his global regime will be blood-soaked and freedom-crushing (Daniel 9:27, Rev. 6:2). Its leader will impose his own religious system, and, like all good tyrants, he will demand to be worshipped as god (2 Thess. 2:3-4). Those who refuse will be unable to buy and sell and will be systematically killed (Revelation 13:15-18). Jesus Christ will be the only one with the power to decisively end his rule—and He will do just that (Rev. 19:20, 2 Thess. 2:8).

Even prior to this global government, as Rubio highlighted, globalist-driven policies have “cost us dearly.” The Secretary of State said plainly that the push for open borders has resulted in disastrous mass immigration, the “climate cult” has impoverished societies, and the hostility toward national sovereignty has weakened the West and emboldened global bad actors.

Far from bringing harmony and peace, the agenda-driven goals of globalists have sown instability and catered to the power-hungry.

Which brings us to the other side of globalism. Is “ideal globalism” possible? You might be surprised to learn that it is… but only when sinful human nature is no longer a factor. The Bible tells us that after the collapse of the anti-Christ’s regime, Jesus Christ will establish a global kingdom for a thousand years, with Himself as the head. Those who rule and reign with Him will be resurrected saints—those who, through Christ’s shed blood, have had the chains of sinful human nature broken.

During this time, the world “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4).

There will be no need to train for war, no injustice or government corruption, and no ideology driven supression of freedom. People are not wrong to want to live in a world like that; however, ignoring sinful human nature and attempting to bring it about with the exclusion of Christ is a recipe for a disaster that is global in scope.

Breanna Claussen is the Founder, President, and Editor-in-Chief of Harbinger’s Daily, working with ministries across the globe to educate and equip believers to stand boldly with a Biblical worldview.

Source: ‘Ignoring Human Nature’: Using Biblical Reasoning, Rubio Pinpoints Why Globalism Is A Recipe For Disaster – Harbinger’s Daily