Who is Responsible for the Culture Wars?

Both sides are guilty, and we need to push back equally

Like many people, I'm sick and tired of the culture wars. As a classical liberal who believes in free speech and a healthy marketplace of ideas, I'm especially frustrated that culture warriors on both sides are hampering free speech, and poisoning the marketplace of ideas. Finding a way to end the culture wars has become my number one political priority in recent months. To borrow a popular saying, I'm now thoroughly not left, not right, but anti-culture war.

The first obstacle to ending the culture war is that neither side would admit to being responsible for it. The left likes to say that they are only trying to make society better and more just, and the problem lies solely with the reactionary right. The right likes to say that they would be minding their own business if not for the left's attempts at changing everything in a radical way. However, based on my recent analyses, it is clear that both sides are very much responsible. We can't end the culture wars without properly acknowledging this.

Let's talk about the left first. While the (cultural, rather than economic) left might truly think that they are only working for social justice, what they are effectively doing is imposing a radical new culture on society without most people consenting to it. This would, by definition, amount to waging a culture war. The problem here is not their commitment to social justice, but the influence of postmodernism and critical theory in their worldview. That ideology calls for the most radical deconstruction and dismantling of all existing cultural institutions, social structures and linguistic norms. According to postmodern critical theory, social justice cannot be achieved without this radical change. However, this does not align with observed reality. Universal suffrage, women's rights, the civil rights movement, gay marriage and so on were all successfully achieved without the massive destruction of the social fabric advocated by postmodern critical theory. Instead, these reforms were all won via the power of persuation, along the lines of normally accepted logic, in the marketplace of ideas. There is no objectively valid reason to abandon the successful track record of liberal reformism at all, except in the twisted philosophy of postmodern critical theory.

In fact, the mainstreaming of postmodern critical theory has made it very difficult to advance social justice causes. Take trans acceptance, for example. The existence of postmodern philosophical theory has complicated the whole thing, and let the reactionary right win arguments that they shouldn't have won. For example, my own honest view on the 'what is a woman' question is simply what appears to be similar to the women I've known before. As I've previously argued, this is actually the common sense answer, and also aligns with how the term has been used since time immemorial, at least until the postmodern and right-wing culture warriors sought to impose their own definitions respectively. My definition, the common sense definition, would actually have included the majority of trans women, at least in the social context (even if not where biological sex matters), and it would have been great for promoting trans acceptance.

But no, it isn't good enough for the postmodernists, because of their obsession with anti-essentialism. They want to deconstruct everything, which is to say make everything mean nothing at all, because of their philosophical (i.e. ideological) needs. So now both 'women' and 'trans women' have to mean nothing, at least among the trans activist establishment. This has created a vacuum for the right-wing culture warriors to come in and impose a strict biological sex definition, which is actually rooted in neither common sense nor tradition, but culture war-style animosity towards trans people. Yet, when compared to the postmodern activists' offering of essentially 'nothing' for their answer, the Matt Walsh definition at least looks more sound on paper, which is why it has become so popular lately. In other words, I hold postmodernism entirely responsible for the success of Matt Walsh et al's otherwise flimsy arguments. This is a good example of why we need to challenge postmodern critical theory, all the way up to its origins in elite academia. We can't rest until it is all soundly debunked, and firmly placed in the dustbin of history. (This, in turn, is why I offered some support to Jordan Peterson when he first raised the issue a few years ago, despite disagreeing with him on quite a few things. We desperately need people to seriously challenge postmodernism, especially on the academic front.)

All this is to say that postmodern critical theory has brainwashed many people on the left to support what is effectively a wholesale culture war on the status quo that is not necessary, and even counterproductive, for achieving social justice causes. When you don't respect the objective truth anymore, but instead insist that there can be a difference between 'your truth' and 'my truth', you are inviting people to abandon the common ground of objective truth, and make truth claims subject to culture war tribalism. When you refuse to debate things using the commonly accepted logic, but insist on endlessly questioning the common sense, you make rational discourse impossible. When you force society to change its language and culture without most people really agreeing with the changes in their hearts, you are in effect waging culture war on society, and all you are going to get is backlash. (The backlash is often suffered by disadvantaged minorities, with the privileged activists just walking away, looking for the next fight elsewhere.) Hence, getting rid of the influence of postmodern critical theory would go a long way in ending the culture wars, which would also be very good for social justice in the real world. We need to make those on the left aware of this. We need to unplug them from the postmodern programming.

Now, let's talk about the right. The right isn't innocent either. As I've discussed on multiple occasions, the US Republican Party has particularly leaned hard into culture war issues to build their voting coalition ever since the 1960s, often with the side effect of introducing authoritarian policies too. There was the distasteful alliance with segregationists during the period of the 'Southern strategy', the deprivation of civil liberties during the 'war on terror', and the empty moral panic over gay marriage, just to name a few shameful chapters of this history. The counterfeit conservatism called 'fusionism' was essentially an attempt to hide a very radical economic and foreign policy with reactionary culture wars, and selling the package as 'conservative' to voters distracted by cultural issues. It is this long-term encouragement of culture warriorism that has led to Trumpism, the popularization of various conspiracy theories, and the rise of reactionary populist movements that are borderline fascistic in character. Even if those on the left suddenly became reasonable again, it is unlikely that this populist, culture war right would be able to engage with more reasonable reformist proposals at all. This is why ending the culture war needs to be a both sides thing.

In particular, the establishment Republican Party might not like to admit it, but they are responsible for creating these monsters. The GOP, their counterparts in other Western countries, as well as their media allies are all very much responsible, and the least they could do is to change course and help end the culture wars. Sadly, with even anti-Trump Republicans backing candidates like Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence, it seems that they haven't even learned their lesson yet.

Hence, the other half of the answer to the question of how to end the culture wars, is to help the right rediscover the real conservative tradition, the tradition of thinkers like Edmund Burke. To this day, Burke is revered as the father of conservatism. But imagine if Burke was more like Trump and DeSantis. Imagine if he was instead the kind of person who encouraged populist reactionary sentiments, and built a political career around those sentiments, while attacking the civil rights of minorities along the way. Would he still be the respected figure he is today? Would he even be remembered? I'm sure there were other politicians who were more like Trump and DeSantis in Burke's day. It's just that we don't even remember the names of those people anymore, because they are not worthy of our memory at all. Burke is remembered and revered because he was a person with a good conscience, a man who actually cared about the people. His conservatism is respectable because it came from a place of caring about society, not a place of reactionary anger and hatred. Those on the right must be reminded of this truth, especially in times like these.

To end the culture wars would require those of us who are still awake to its harms to speak the truth. We need to bravely speak the truth, in the face of the increasingly unreasonable stance of the culture warriors on both sides, and bring everyone back down to the common ground of reality. Given the culture wars are being encouraged on both sides by people with power, money and influence, the act of speaking against culture warriorism would indeed be a good example of speaking truth to power. We need to do it more before it's too late.