Ending the Culture Wars
Time for an Armistice?
In recent weeks Labour MPs Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, have both expressed a wish to see the “culture wars” come to an end. As they have done so, they have also continued their acts of aggression in the self same conflict. Nandy said that individual sports should be free to decide for themselves whether to let men participate in the female category. Phillipson revoked the commencement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, so removing provisions for Universities to uphold freedom of expression. One has to presume that either they are ignorant of their own hypocrisy here, or think that victory for their chosen culture can be sealed by these acts.
So what are the culture wars? Who are the belligerents? Who are the commanders and leaders? What exactly is being fought over? How did the wars start? And, crucially, how will they end? In short, what would the Wikipedia page on “The Culture Wars” say were Wikipedia itself not entirely captured (as indeed it is) by an army in this very conflict?
The original culture war was Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Mao aimed to remove the "Four Olds": old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. He believed that these elements were preventing China from achieving true socialism and needed to be eradicated to build a new communist culture. This was no mere battle of ideas, millions died.
By 1991 the culture wars had flared up in the United States and was written about in James Davison’s "Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America". Davison portrayed the wars as Progressivism versus Orthodoxy, but makes the classic American mistake of attributing liberalism to the left. Now, of course, liberalism does exist on the left, the late Tony Benn was a great example. And I think we can all accept that a little socialism - the safety net - is a good thing. So when we see the culture wars being waged by the left, it is specifically the authoritarian tendency that is in the van.
Simon Heffer wrote in The Telegraph:
“The great lie about the culture wars is that the Right started them. It didn’t. It lacked the requisite intolerance to do so [my bold]. The cult of virtue-signalling, whereby earnest liberals curry favour with their co-religionists by seeking people and things to denounce, is rooted in Orwellian bullying by the Left.”
And while Heffer makes the same mistake as Davison in his use of the word liberal, he is right, the 21st century culture wars are waged by the far-left. As with all newspeak the term ‘culture wars’ is constructed to frame things in a manner that benefits the Left, usually by attempting to portray themselves in a good light, or those that oppose them in a bad one. The leftist meaning of the word “progressive” is a case in point and a particular bête noire.
Many of the core tenets of classical liberalism—such as individual liberty, free markets, and limited government—came to be associated with what we now call conservatism. The left’s hijacking of the word liberal for their own cause is perhaps an even more egregious example of newspeak than ‘progressive’. The preference for state intervention, regulation, ‘hate speech laws’, equality of outcome over equality of opportunity, and so forth, are all antithetical to true liberalism.
Liberals want a small state and for it to be a referee and not a player. The Left want the state to be large and controlling, and for corporations to adhere to their orthodoxy - this, by the way, is the very definition of fascism.
So, in this Orwellian world, we might call the aggressor in the Culture Wars “The Party”, by which I mean all the sympathisers of woke causes rather than paid-up members of any of the leftist political parties, although there is considerable overlap. Members recognise each other by their declared adherence to articles of faith such as the use of pronouns. The list of beliefs will be familiar to many, as well as the belief that “trans people” are a distinct category worthy of recognition and protection in law, we have the notion of “white privilege” with its particular brand of racism re-branded as anti-racism (newspeak, again). Then there is “queer theory” which seeks to rid the world of the old taboos around sex, especially paedophilia. These behaviours have come to be known as ‘virtue signalling’, but yet again we see an example of newspeak. These are not virtues in any sense of the word that are being signalled, this is allegiance signalling. They clamour for equity unaware that their leaders only want it for the masses so they might be controllable. They want you to give up your car and take the bus, but don’t think for a second that they would.
Nandy declares the wars over, then encourages men to compete in women’s sports. Phillipson declares the wars over, then stymies free speech. What should we make of this?
It would seem that Nandy and Phillipson want the culture wars to end by way of an outright victory for the invading army of the authoritarian left. That, simply, is not going to happen. Far too many people realise what is at stake, here. If “The Party” wins we shall be living in tyranny. The party elites will be doing fine, the champagne socialists will survive and thrive, but the rest of us plebs will not be able to get well-paying jobs, and we shall not be able to complain, and we shall see our children’s futures ruined by indoctrination, immigration, and iatrogenic harm. Somehow, I don’t think the ordinary Brit will stand for it. But then, the people have not woken up to these threats yet, and maybe they’ll just lie back and take it. With over 50% of the British population reliant on the state, maybe there are already too many people scared of losing their jobs for standing up for themselves. If you are in “The Party” you can get a very lucrative gig being a “Diversity and Inclusion Officer” for one of the countless branches of the ever expanding state machine. If you are not, then it is cancellation for you. Your CV sifted out by woke AI, or by entrance tests with the wrong right answers. This has been happening for years, and the last administration did nothing to stop it. Their only attempt at pushback was the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, and that lies dead in the water.
If we can extend the “wars” metaphor to one most of us know about (although I suspect they don’t teach about in school anymore, after all the bad guys were authoritarian socialists then, too), then those people who know that what is happening is wrong, but have yet to speak up out of fear, can be likened to the refugees from Dunkirk. The recent General Election left many bloodied and no longer in the theatre they need to be in. Nevertheless, there remain operatives behind enemy lines. About a year ago, I could probably name every single one, they were so few in number, and their commitment so enduring. However, in the last 12 months, we have seen quite an explosion in numbers, I can no longer keep up. This is a good thing.
So, we shall call these defenders “The Resistance”.
Baroness Clare Fox, founder of the Academy of Ideas, commented on Phillipson’s betrayal writing in The Telegraph:
”In an interview on Monday, Bridget Phillipson declared “the culture wars on university campuses end here”. Now on Friday, she has declared war on the culture of free speech on campus. Let me assure her, as a parliamentarian and the Director of the Academy of Ideas, surrender is not on the cards. The fight-back starts here.”
The culture wars could end, or they could continue for another 60 years. If they are to end, it shall not be via the victory of the authoritarian; the human spirit will not allow it. Victory, then, will occur when the liberal values, established via the collective wisdom of all humanity over millennia, are once again revered. Those new-fangled ideas that have been wrecking the education of our youth since the 1960’s will die as bacteria under sunlight. The first step, then, is to remove the shadows of oppression from education and academia. Free speech has to become the norm in Universities. Its protection is necessary. From that all else will follow.
Phillipson has enjoined a war that she cannot win, although she might keep it going for another five years. The cost will be measured in another generation unsure of themselves, their place in the world, their value, their sex, and oppressed by the racism of anti-racism. A generation reliant on, and subservient to “The Party”.
This is no time for an armistice.
D-Day is some way off. Those of us prepared to fight for enlightenment values, for freedom, for democracy, need to regroup and plot our conquest of Berlin. Except, for this metaphorical Berlin, we must get there long before Stalin’s lot.
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