A Fabian Wolf Disguised in Sheep’s Clothing — Hidden Meanings in Common Words
One of the iconic symbols of the British Fabian Society is a wolf with a sheep skin tied to its torso, which represents one of the Fabian Society’s tactics of deception, shrouding true intentions with benevolent rhetoric. One such tactic is linguistic confusion. The deceivers use words interchangeably that actually have incompatible meanings, or they use words in public discourse that are understood by the naive public to have a commonly shared meaning but members in the know understand the words’ hidden meanings. Examples of these deceptive tactics are the hidden meaning of the word progress and the replacement of the word republic with the word democracy.
Roger Baldwin, a member of the League for Industrial Democracy (an American satellite of the British Fabian Society) and founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), explained the hidden meanings of these words as used by socialists in the know.29 Progressive meant “The forces working for the democratizing of industry by extending public ownership and control”; democracy meant “strong trade unions, government regulation of business, ownership by the people of industries that serve the public.”30 “Notes” on p. vi described the NCSS’s “substantial revision and reproduction and editing” in the Handbook’s sixth edition, suggesting that the choice of the word democracy to replace republic was deliberate.
Replacing the word republic with democracy is a clever tactic for rewriting history and nudging each generation of Americans away from the country’s founding ideas. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 deliberately rejected democracy (majority rule) as our country’s form of government.31 The delegates chose representative governance in a bicameral structure for the legislature to diffuse power of densely populated states so they couldn’t lord over less populated rural states.32
Columbia University professor George S. Counts distinguished the Progressives’ meaning of democracy from the common meaning generally assumed by the American public:
- The democracy of the past was the chance fruit of a strange conjunction of forces on the new continent; the democracy of the future can only be the intended offspring of the union of human reason, purpose, and will....
- Democracy of course should not be identified with political forms and functions-with the federal constitution, the popular election of officials, or the practice of universal suffrage...it is a sentiment with respect to the moral equality of men:... A society fashioned in harmony with the American democratic tradition would combat all forces-tending to produce social distinctions and classes [equity]; repress every form of privilege and economic parasitism [private property]; manifest a tender regard for the weak, the ignorant, and the unfortunate [oppressed]; place the heavier and more onerous social burdens on the backs of the strong [oppressors]; glory in every triumph of man in his timeless urge to express himself and to make the world more habitable [climate controlled]; exalt human labor of hand and brain as the creator of all wealth and culture [rather than transmitted through tradition]; provide adequate material and spiritual rewards for every kind of socially useful work [behavior modification]; strive for genuine equality of opportunity among all races, sects, and occupations [abolition of meritocracy]; regard as paramount the abiding interests of the great masses of the people [collective]; direct the powers of government to the elevation and the refinement of the life of the common man [centralization]; transform or destroy all conventions, institutions, and special groups inimical to the underlying principles of democracy [discrimination against and suppression of opposition]; and finally, be prepared as a last resort, in either the defense or the realization of this purpose, to follow the method of revolution [violent demonstration]. (Emphasis added). (pp. 41-42)33
Education historian Samuel Blumenfeld commented that Progressives use the terms democracy and socialism interchangeably for deceptive purposes, that is to create confusion in the minds of many intelligent people who favor democracy but oppose socialism.34
Purpose, Philosophy, and People of the British Fabian Society
The Fabian Society was founded early in 1884 as an offshoot of a weaker socialist organization that later folded. Its purpose was to "reconstruct society (emphasis added) in such a manner as to secure the general welfare and happiness,"35 defined of course by the Society, not by the American Declaration of Independence.36
The Fabian Society’s mission is illustrated in the stained-glass Fabian Window on display at the Shaw Library at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).37 The window’s design is attributed to Shaw, who is depicted wearing a green tunic with his right hand wielding a hammer while his left hand steadies a globe on an anvil. Shaw and another founder of the society “mould” a new world. The depiction represents an elite class of humans as re-creators of the world through “scientific reconstruction” rather than natural selection using technology (including medicine) as its tool. On the lower section of the window are two groups of intellectual elites, men on one side and women on the other side of a stack of books symbolizing Fabians’ focus on academic influence as the most important mechanism of power.
The Fabian Society’s LSE, together with the Frankfurt School, gave rise to critical theory (grounded in Marxism) and pedagogy. Critical Race Theory (CRT) in American education is rooted in their foundational work.38 The thought leaders from these institutions continue to influence the NEA resolutions, such as NEA’s 2021 resolution to support the teaching of CRT in K-12 classrooms.39
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in Fabian Society Leadership
The Fabian Society became influential because it attracted into its ranks men and women who were leaders or who would become leaders in a variety of intellectual fields.40 British Fabians penetrated political parties, labor unions, government offices, schools, and the press by securing key positions in these institutions. As with economics, morality formed a key component of the Fabians’ reconstruction program from the outset -- criticizing the biblical worldview of morality to promote sexual liberation, abolition of the nuclear family, and global governance.41
For example, Fabian Society co-founder Edward Carpenter, Walt Whitman’s homosexual lover and an early gay rights advocate, wrote The Intermediate Sex (1908) which became a foundational text of the LGBT movements of the 20th century.42, 43, 44 Fabian co-founder and sexologist Dr. Havelock Ellis authored The Task of Social Hygiene which promoted birth control for sexual freedom and for training teachers to give sexual instruction to children.45 G. Bernard Shaw, also a co-founder, who is rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare, is recognized for his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights.46 Shaw’s 1903 stage play “Man and Superman” posits that humanity is evolving through positive eugenics and reproductive technology towards "superman".47 His 1911 play “Getting Married” presents monogamous marriage as an oppressive legal institution.48
Fabian eugenicist Julian Huxley (eugenics meaning artificial selection) became the first president of the British Humanist Association and first director-general of the U.N.’s education arm, UNESCO, and wrote its founding document.49 Annie Besant became one of the thought leaders who formulated the principles of English Socialism.50 The most significant of the socialist theosophists, Besant eventually became a worldwide leader of the Theosophical Society after abandoning scientific secularism.
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