ABSTRACT
Utopianism is now subject to sustained symbolic violence in the liberal democratic states of the West, and all who openly advocate the politics of far-reaching social transformation are dismissed as terrorists or ideological demagogues. The trend towards liberalism was identifiable even in the more radical and anarchistic literature. As the post-war period unfolded further, a number of key divisions opened up on the political and academic left. Of these key debates and divisions, E. P. Thompson's aggressive denunciation of Louis Althusser is perhaps the most illustrative of the seismic shift that was taking place in the corpus of leftist intellectual and political life. Thompson played a crucial role in establishing what became known as cultural Marxism. Marxism in Britain had atrophied since the end of the war, but, throughout the 1960s, it underwent a mild renaissance. It is needed to detect the influence of modern cultural Marxism in contemporary accounts of riots and political protest.
