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Is the Culture War Worth Fighting? A Skeptical View
Obviously, I understand the approved answer: “Yes. We must fight because our cause is just and the thought of surrender unbearable. We must fight because our adversary’s mask has slipped off and we have seen his true face. We now know what we have long suspected: the other side is not interested in tweaking this policy or nudging that one. They are not interested in compromise, accommodation, or a negotiated peace. They mean to wipe us out. Upon this fight depends the survival of our civilization, our institutions, and our way of life. We must fight for these things, not only because they belong to us, but because — as conservatives — we know from the long, tragic history of human events that they are the best that can be built from humanity’s crooked timber, and the alternative is a chimera. Therefore, we must fight on the beaches and on the landing grounds, in print and in think tanks, in academia, on the airwaves and on Twitter. If we fail, then the whole world, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age.” (I am misquoting and misappropriating the patron saint of fighting against impossible odds.)
Another answer is that we must fight because the other side fights, so we have no choice. Culture has been the left’s main theater of operations since Antonio Gramsci identified it as such in the 1920s. As a result, his ideological descendants now control or dominate elite academia (the gateway to political and economic power), the education establishment (the mechanism of transmission for their worldview), Hollywood and pop culture, the prestige media, the legal bar and bench, and the state and federal administrative bureaucracies. Since Gramsci’s ideological spawn succeeded in taking over most of the institutions that matter, it seems hard to argue that his strategy of cultural hegemony has not been spectacularly successful.
Gramsci understood Mark Steyn’s point: culture is prior to politics, and therefore more important. In fact, Steyn’s basic insight is borrowed from Gramsci; i.e., conservative politics cannot exist in a liberal culture. Politics is merely an epiphenomenon of deeper complicated things happening below society’s surface. By focusing on politics, conservatives are merely chasing shadows projected on the cave wall. Culture is the main battleground.
It makes sense, therefore, for conservatives to look for a counter-strategy. Ricochet, National Review, Fox, The New Criterion, The Claremont Review, Hillsdale, AEI, Rob Long, Charles Murray, Mark Levin, Rush, J-Pod, Jonah, Steyn and all the other warriors on the front lines and in the trenches of this long twilight struggle are doing God’s work, and may He bless them all.
Unfortunately, no conservative I know of knows how to fix the culture. We often hear conservatives lament “If only we controlled the commanding heights! If only we had our own Daily Show, New York Times, or Ivy League!” But we don’t. And we won’t.
With that, I have three comments. Please accept them in the spirit of a combination of low conviction, devil’s advocacy, and skeptical inquiry.
One: Aren’t we kidding ourselves that we can win this war on the Left’s terms? The correct analogy may be Masada, not the Battle of Britain; the Alamo, rather than the Cold War. The truth is that there isn’t really a culture war; there is only the mopping up of pockets of reactionary rearguard resistance. Aren’t we wasting our time worrying about culture?
Two: Like the climate, human affairs are a complex, dynamic system with chaotic characteristics that respond unpredictably to shifts in policy. Therefore, the idea that the trajectory of the culture can be controlled and directed is slightly crazy.
Three: Because of Two, I suspect that both sides in the culture war seriously overestimate and overstate their own importance in shaping its outcome. In War and Peace, Tolstoy juxtaposes the two great military leaders of 1812: Napoleon Bonaparte and Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov. Napoleon is a blur of energy and activity who conceives of himself as a mover and architect of history, his own fate, and the fates of nations. Tolstoy mocks this self-conception and contrasts it with that of the serene Kutuzov, who understands that command is an illusion, and all great men are specks adrift on a chaotic ocean of history. Unsurprisingly, Tolstoy’s sympathies lie with his compatriot. It may be that the Culture War has something of this same character: what looks on the surface like the triumph of revolutionary cunning may in fact be more illusion than reality, and more effect than cause.
In normal societies, what propels culture in a particular direction is not the ideology of the elites, but impersonal, external forces that are effectively beyond any rational control. By far, the most important such force is technology. Compared with the cataclysmic forces unleashed by the wheel, the domestication of animals, agriculture, writing, the stirrup, gunpowder, the printing press, compound interest, the Bessemer furnace, the internal combustion engine, penicillin, and the integrated circuit, the scribblings of a few ink-stained Marxists are insignificant.
For example, the current head-spinning triumph of same-sex marriage was not the result of the persuasive powers of Andrew Sullivan and other propagandists, but rather the invention 60 years earlier of the most disruptive technology of the last century: the birth control pill. The pill made heterosexual relationships less unique and purged sex of much of its moral valence, leading to a tectonic psychological shift. This is the main reason why it is possible to think of same-sex marriage as anything other than a Vaudeville punch line.
Another manifestation of technology and its sweeping cultural power is war, which, among a myriad of other social effects, has been the main force driving government in the direction of a strong, centralized, bureaucratic state. It is also clear that no single technological shock has had a more direct and profound impact on the Western psyche than the experiences of World Wars I and II, which have brought us to the period of civilizational exhaustion of the present day.
Just as culture is prior to politics, technology is prior to culture. If so, conservatives are fighting the wrong war. Maybe we should focus less on fighting cultural skirmishes on the enemy’s home turf, and more on finding promising “conservative” technologies that favor individual liberty.
Published in General
The triumph of same sex marriage is because of the TV show Modern Family.
Absent that TV Show it would still be a 60/40 issue against instead of for.
I can’t agree with you Oblomov. Are humans then just the pawns of technology? Are we unable to consider ethics and morals relating to ourselves and others? Are there truths that actually put some parameters around human action? Do we have “culture wars” because there is disagreement about many of these questions, indicating that culture is not just what elites tell us it is? Do we have children and grandchildren that are going to have to make their way in a world that needs ethics and morals, especially relating to children BTW, now more than ever? So I guess I’m saying that I can’t agree with much of anything you have posited.
Observation: things that are not under direct rational control can nonetheless be cultivated, nor is total control necessary to have some influence.
Perhaps this is most obvious within each individual and within the tribes (family, friends, subcultures) that individual inhabit. The little tribes we live in might seem woefully frail when pitted against “the culture” at large, but fortunately our most meaningful interactions also tend to take place within their boundaries.
Given this list, I’m not exactly sure where you see the dividing line between a cultural practice and a technology. Of course, I’m not the one who thinks there needs to be one. Would property rights and the rule of law count as technologies by your measurement? I see no reason why they wouldn’t, given that cultural practices such as domesticating animals, writing, and compounding interest make your “technology” list.
What other war is there to fight?
If technology is before culture, you’re essentially arguing the old “should we do whatever we can do?”
To that, I reply, no. I have a lot of sympathy for Kant’s answer to that same question (Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals) , although I can’t spell it all out here. At the moment, let me wait for the conversation to develop a little more.
Interesting that determinism, which you here posit, is something to which the Left subscribes, although in their actions they follow the “God helps those who help themselves”rule. I think that in this regard I’d rather imitate their actions. With regard to technology, it itself is based on the ideas of human beings, is it not? Which is why the West has been very successful at it. I don’t see SSM happening in the Middle East, do you?
One more point: technology is surely required for certain cultural events to take place, but the basic principles of our culture were formed in Jerusalem and Athens, where our modern dilemmas were rather well understood.
Nice piece and interesting hypothesis. I find my own thoughts are unresolved as to it.
I agree with you about the Left’s success culturally. I’m in my 60s and their success has led to things I would have never thought possible.
I also agree that technology, and indeed the marketplace in general are destabilizing of societal institutions.
What is striking in light of this is voting trends. I need to resort to some gross simplification here in equating the GOP with conservatives, libertarians etc but think it justified since to the Left we all look the same; we are all Heretics (though I prefer the term Dissenters).
The United States in 2015 has a GOP controlled Senate, House, State Governorships and State Legislatures. In the latter three categories it has the highest percentage of control since the 1920s – before the New Deal. It seems that there is still a lot in the immune system of Americans that is resistant to the Progressive takeover of politics in addition to culture.
It is this inexplicable electoral resistance to what the Left sees as its cultural success that impel its ever more frenzied efforts to silence its opposition and create an American people servile enough to be worthy of its leadership.
So, I’m left puzzling exactly where we are.
Culture does change, and the OP is right that it’s rarely one Saul on the road to Damascus moment, but like the weather, it’s a complex mix of old and new patterns.
1969-1970 were the height of the anti-war era. 20th Century Fox reacted with “M*A*S*H”. But it also released a bigger hit, “Patton”, which expressed the blue collar anger of middle America towards the anti-military hysteria they saw in the Left. Something changed; the country didn’t obey the gatekeepers.
Anybody remember some of the big movies of 1976? There was “All the President’s Men”, a liberal victory lap, “Lucky Lady”, about a menage-a-trois, “The Grateful Dead Movie”, and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. The year’s biggest foreign film was Bertolucci’s “1900”, explaining the inevitable triumph of Communism with songs and dances. After all, we’d just pulled out of Vietnam.
But then “Rocky” wowed the crowd with a hero, old fashioned as that sounded then. Not the most articulate guy, but patriotic and fiercely loyal to his girlfriend, who he’d promptly marry in the sequel.
Then 1977 came along, further annoying the hell out of the Hollywood Left, because “Star Wars” got moviegoers into the idea that films didn’t have to be eat-your-spinach; they could be unabashed feel good entertainment that pushed the idea of an almighty, invisible “force” controlling the universe. The Village Voice complained that “no movie has had such a celebration of sheer warfare since the 1940s”. It changed the culture–not 100%, but more than anyone could have predicted–and both political life and entertainment would be different in the Eighties.
A team of honest, moderate liberals made “Saving Private Ryan” in 1997. Arriving at the same time as Tom Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation”, it suddenly made sacrifice and heroism respectable in liberal culture and national culture. It would have been a better film if conservatives had made it.
And that’s my sour grapes point: Conservatives do not and will not make the sacrifices and take the risks of changing the culture, aside from odd one-shots like “An American Carol” or the “Atlas Shrugged” series. Oh, and Narnia–one time when a conservative stepped up to the plate and had a mega-hit. Conservatives in the arts, by and large, don’t back up their mouths with their wallets the way liberals do. We would rather sit on our fannies and whine. People don’t respect that posture.
Well, that and all the lavender propaganda on TV and mass media since the mid 80’s. Most of the shows I’ve watched recently are straight the first season, then introduce minor gay episodes/plots/social situations the second. Blacklist, Continuum, House of Cards, etc, etc.
Probably a losing battle. I’m curious where the wave will crest though.
Oblomov,
I have to admit, I mostly have no idea what you mean by “culture war,” but I will take exception to this:
For example, the current head-spinning triumph of same sex marriage was not the result of the persuasive powers of Andrew Sullivan and other propagandists, but rather the invention 60 years earlier of the most disruptive technology of the last century: the birth control pill. The pill made heterosexual relationships less unique and purged sex of much of its moral valence, leading to a tectonic psychological shift.
In fact, the technological shift goes back further. Traditional marriage – by which I mean the form of marriage that dominated a primarily rural, agricultural society, where children were an economic asset because they worked the fields, where women were essentially property without legal or economic rights – that kind of marriage was doomed with the dawn of the industrial revolution. Once there were options for women to support themselves, once children became an economic expense rather than an asset, once choices were available, it became inevitable that some people would avail themselves of those choices. Birth control is one, but only one, of those choices. The traditional marriage I describe, and the role of women in it, was doomed as soon as it became possible for women to ascend from their status as effective chattels to being fully functional and autonomous human beings, with legal and economic rights.
There are negative consequences to that social upheaval, as there are to all social upheavals, but on the whole I think it was well worth it. I would not want to go back to those days.
The left has graduated from argument by insult to direct intimidation. Will this cause a backlash?
It hasn’t yet. Hillary Clinton just committed obstruction of justice in front of the world, by announcing that she erased her email server. She did it knowing she would get away with it, and everyone else knows she will get away with it.
If an elected official publicly states the obvious truth – that Hillary needs to be indicted and prosecuted – he will suddenly find himself without friends. In addition, he will be audited by the IRS, investigated by the Justice department, and the entire media and entertainment establishment will come down on him like a ton of bricks. And his fellow Republicans will pretend they never new him.
The backlash we need can’t come soon enough.
I am mostly in agreement with the OP’s diagnosis, but take exception to a few things.
First, a minor point: I believe that the momentum towards gay marriage specifically (as opposed to the sexual revolution generally) was caused not by the pill, but by the AIDS epidemic. Committed gay couples found that they had no recourse for things like health care proxies. This led to pressure for civil union legislation and ultimately SSM.
Which brings me to my second point of disagreement: Technological development (and more broadly, scientific understanding) is but one external factor that drives cultural changes. Throughout history, such things as epidemics, war, and demography have also contributed. I have seen arguments that Britain’s culture was affected by WWI in part because so many young men died, leaving the population older and more feminine for a generation.
And lastly, what culture does is provide a context for understanding and adapting to the external influences. Will the Internet lead to more efficient authoritarianism, or greater individual liberty? Does the advent of nuclear weapons lead a society to become more fatalistic, more pacifistic, more paternalistic, or more of something else? It all depends on how a particular culture incorporates the new reality into its thinking. So IMO the culture wars do matter. They are essential for helping preserve and advance individual liberty specifically, and civilization generally, as the world around us develops and changes.
The Alamo was a mission church.
The reason Modern Family is important is because they treated the dad sympathetically and gave everybody a model for personal change. They walked the vast majority of the people who are well intentioned but not fully on board through the process. And treated their feelings as serious, legitimate and not evil. The gay couple were presented sympathetically and gave a model that people could accept, like, identify with, and who were obviously gay. Thats why modern family is important and the cultural lynch pin to rapid cultural change and Glee wasn’t. Glee was a hateful polemics for the coverts.
Like I said, lavender propaganda. Add in a media that is incapable of being fair on gay marriage.
The triumph is because of Will and Grace. That was the initial assault against the gates.
On the culture war, my problem is HOW we fight it. Some like to argue that we have to engage the culture, fight it from the inside. I think this is a hopeless strategy. You’ll never engage Hollywood or New York. The commanding heights of entertainment and media is owned by our enemies.
The proper mode of battle has been shown to us by Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, and William F. Buckley: go around the culture, and roll your own. Start your own radio program, or TV network, or magazine. The alternative will attract people. Quit trying to work inside of NBC and take it over slowly, and create a Fox that will own the news. Quit trying to worm your way into The Atlantic or the New Yorker, and start a National Review.
With trumpets blaring, and you-know-who coming from the clouds in glory?
Yes, if that’s what we’re proposing. Isn’t the conservative approach is to win converts, one person at a time? Progressives use mob tactics to take over vital social institutions, which then “persuade” through indoctrination and/or coercion.
True, but see my response to One. We’re not proposing control. This is not as efficient or effective as totalitarianism, but it has the advantage of being righteous. We lose a lot of ground in the near-term, but we win in the end. The facts of life are conservative.
Here we disagree. If politics is downstream from culture, culture is downstream from religion. As Prager says, the most dynamic religion of our era is leftism (progressivism, secular humanism). He also says, the answer to bad religion is good religion.
Man is a religious animal. He needs meaning from which he organically grows (as in , not in a “controlled” manner) his culture. Western civilization has adopted leftism as its religion and we’re seeing the effects in our politics and public policies. The resultant (ironic) anti-human totalitarianism is making Christendom look like a pretty good alternative, although I’m not optimistic for the West at the moment.
Indeed. See here:
“Guess: Who Said This?”
Right on, about Modern Family and Glee.
Whether the Kulturkampf has been won or lost, or could be won or lost the path forward for the individual is clear:
1. Step up. Live according to your convictions. Polls have indicated there’s very little difference in the conduct of Christians and non-Christians. Marriage as understood until 30 seconds ago historically speaking, one man-one woman, wouldn’t have been redefined to any number of entities in any combination if its advocates had practiced what they preached. Think abortion is wrong? Don’t pressure your daughter, girlfriend, or wife into having one. Think the government schools are terrible? Pull your kids out whatever the sacrifice in time and money. Think theft is wrong? Don’t cheat on your expense reports or taxes. Etc.
2. Speak up. If you think sexual relations outside of one-man/one-woman marriage is wrong, say so when the opportunity presents itself (including on Ricochet, this is as safe as space as you’re going to find). Etc.
3. Pay up. Support charity. Support organizations advancing/defending your values. Etc.
Interesting. Granting the premise of the article, one is forced to ask “What exactly is a conservative technology” It appears you leapt to the same answer I did. Encryption.
iow, of course the culture war is worth fighting (for everybody), but charity begins at home.
Major “likes” to Oblomov for mentioning Gramsci, and for citing the paramount importance of technology. McLuhan (“patron saint” of Wired) would agree. He would tell us to learn the new media languages, study their effects on everything, and act accordingly.
If your tribe is on top of new media languages, you could wind up worrying less about cultivating small family farms of content, and more about which media companies to engulf and devour.
Plaudits also to Gary McVey for the film history lesson. Today, alas, movies mostly target the young ‘uns. Social media, too. This century it is television atop the cultural influence leader board among the 35+ set. So what have we?
TV as a medium, and its streaming brethren, is less mass then ever, and more decentralized. Access is more open, but audiences are shrinking so promotion and tribal support are essential.
Yesterday many elite producers had studio deals, “d-girls” (for development), office suites, and favorite tables in the commissary. Today they work from home, competing with film students with personal portfolio channels on Vimeo and YouTube. Goodbye studio guarantees, hello IndieGoGo, GoFundMe, Kickstarter, Slated, Juntobox, and the other crowdfunding hubs du jour. (I don’t recommend Blasphemo to Ricochetti.)
Quickly, some comments about content —
Modern Family succeeded because, especially in its early years, it was very funny. Classicly funny. It was funny because writers like Chris Lloyd and Steve Levitan were graduates of the esteemed Paramount school of comedy. It’s a traditional writing style passed down, dating back from Frasier, Wings, Cheers, Happy Days, Taxi, up to MTM for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Newhart, back further to The Dick Van Dyke Show, preceded by Caesar’s Hour and Your Show of Shows. Before that it was The Army Show and the Catskills. The connecting thread is funny.
Phil Dunphy is funny because he embodies the flaws of the day, e.g. parents who want to relate to their children as a friend, a “cool dad.” This is ridiculous, i.e. a continuously funny premise. Yes, we came to like Cam and Mitchell (at least early on) but they were funny first and foremost, never discussing marriage until after SCOTUS reamed DOMA. Showtime’s Brothers, Ellen, and Seinfeld’s The Outing (“not that there’s anything wrong with that” — airdate February 11, 1993) were
seminalthere first in acceptance of same sex relationships in TV comedy.Overall I encourage conservatives, Republicans, and other tradition-minded folks who figure out that story-telling is central to having a cultural presence. (I myself am as “squishy” as any RINO, BTW, in cultural matters like support for women’s reproductive rights, equal respect for same sex relationships, and pro-sexual good times among consenting adults, in general.)
I do think we are presently in an agenda-driven media culture and massive change of the type Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes initiated on the news front is very much in order for our entertainment media. That kind of diversity we need. Plus, as with Fox News ($2.18 billion annually,) there are fortunes to be made serving under-served audiences.
Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful comments. Let me make a few general points.
First, I’m not sure that I am deeply committed to my own argument, and I’m open to dissuasion. I was mainly thinking out loud about a depressing subject and trying to make the best of it, hoping to be proven wrong.
When I was thinking about what moves culture, I originally thought of four kinds of disruptive shocks: war, economics, technology and individual personalities. But the first two seem to me to be just aspects or functions of technology. As for individuals, they of course occasionally make a big difference – e.g., Confucius, Alexander, Caesar, Jesus, Mohammed, Napoleon, etc. But it does not make for a very good solution to the culture war problem to say, “The way to fix the culture is to just make sure that the next world-historical figure is a Conservative who will turn back the tide of leftist lunacy.” I hope it happens, but it’s pretty unlikely.
Yes, the argument is somewhat deterministic. But no, I don’t believe that human beings have no say in their own affairs. I don’t have a head for philosophy, so I won’t take a position for or against free will, but there are strong and weak forms of determinism, and the weak form is not incompatible with human agency. I do think there is room for human agency, but mostly on a micro scale. And of course there are complicated feedback loops among all the forces that shape culture and society. Exogenous forces drive the big trends though, and technology is definitely the most important, especially in the past 500 years. Technological shocks were far less frequent 2000 years ago, and that made them less important relative to other factors, but they sure are important nowadays, when everything seems to be driven by gadgets.
You can quibble that technology is really just an aspect of culture, you can’t draw a clear line between the two and therefore it isn’t really an exogenous force. But even if that’s true in some philosophical sense, in real life the emergence of new technologies and their effects are mostly stochastic and unpredictable, so they might as well be an external force. Of course all this depends on being rigorous about defining your terms, which are slippery and difficult, but thankfully Ricochet is not the American Journal of Semiotics.
Having made the argument, it does strike me as somewhat Marx-ish, since the core of it is that the means of production (i.e., technology) determines consciousness (i.e., culture). I am somewhat sorry about this and open to dissuasion by the anti-materialists, but at least to this extent Marx seems to me to have a point.
I used the sexual revolution/gay marriage example, but only to make the point that technology has quite a lot to do with society’s attitudes toward these things. I did not take a pro or con position on it. I’m not sure that I have a strong position on it in principle, except that I hate the undemocratic way mainstream America is being made to rub its nose in it.
First, a minor point: I believe that the momentum towards gay marriage specifically (as opposed to the sexual revolution generally) was caused not by the pill, but by the AIDS epidemic. Committed gay couples found that they had no recourse for things like health care proxies. This led to pressure for civil union legislation and ultimately SSM…….
I think there is some truth in that, the AIDS epidemic, highlighted the importance of committed monogamous relationships in life. Gays themselves started to realize it in a big way.
. Of course there were many gays in committed relationships before this, but they were for the most part hidden, so the whole coming out movement was the thing that allowed the rest of society to take note of gay lives.
As for cultural impact of tv shows regarding gays (not ssm in particuar), personally it was a show that had a fake gay character, where a gay guy was portrayed in a non threatening upbeat way, with humor, that influenced me. Threes Cimpany with Jack Tripper.
the means of production (i.e., technology)
Let’s put aside industrial production models. Information Age media extend our senses, enabling us to communicate and ultimately think differently. Not “better”, not “worse”, but very differently.
Media are languages so it’s wise to explore their grammar. Radio enabled Hitler, Churchill, and FDR to find huge audiences. Synchronous sound with moving images enabled Reagan and JFK. Obama’s popularity was based on an evolving multi-media celebrity model. Image over issues. A resonant voice helped considerably, but with eye-culture hangover, we often underestimate sound.
Cross media “literacy” has supplanted the dominance of the written word. Western logic, based on the sequencing of letters, words, and paragraphs no longer dominates. The multi-sensory barrage of images and sounds has its own non-linear logic. Storytelling, one-liners, and sound bites go viral, reaching audiences on an emotional level. Texts sit on shelves, or get demoted to Goodwill tax deductions.
Video and smartphone images more resemble cave drawings than texts. (Sometimes history circles back.) Tech is transforming humanity. “We shape our tools and our tools shape us.”
For the moment, technology is changing how we think, how we communicate, and how we do simple things like retrieve information or call a cab. Information Age wonders like data science are only the beginning of how we understand our new selves. In the near future, bio-tech will change us physically. So think of this a just a warm-up exercise.
No minor point Herbert.
I lived in the West Village when AIDS got started, and there was quite a raging, life or death debate being reported from activist meetings. Some resisted the monogamy lifestyle argument vociferously. The survivors, mostly, were those who lived more cautiously.There was a great deal of suffering in that neighborhood, and far too many funerals and friends’ names on that quilt.
So in a sense what became the SSM movement represented a generational turn to lifestyle conservatism, post-plague. For that reason alone, compassion and approval seem to me the only responsible, moral responses of the straight world to loving same sex couples in permanent relationships. Whether we believe in fully equal civil unions or use of the institution of marriage, let’s put away the “sin” talk and be glad that this new generation is able to live longer, safer, lives when blessed to find loving companions.
1 – Yeah, about that…
You can pretty much repeat that pic in any major city in the country, so it’s not like it’s an isolated phenomena.
2 – You just basically told every Christian (and faithful Jew and Muslim, for that matter) that they have to make a choice between their faith and your glorious new world. The scriptures of all three specifically forbid acceptance of homosexuality. But it’s not like you don’t already know this. I guess I’m still a little stunned to see people (on a supposedly right-wing website, at that) openly demanding that choice. Logically, there’s no other way to see it.