Culture Wars and Kulturkampf: 1

One often sees expressions like “culture wars” these days. I suppose they are derived from Otto von Bismarck’s Kulturkampf directed against the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. I think it is usually translated as “culture struggle”. We have so many “wars” these days. War is one of our favorite idioms. Of course, once one has a war, one needs a “Czar” to be the top guy in waging the war on whatever. If things really get desperate, one must have recourse to a “Manhattan Project” and all will be well, except the wartime housing in D.C. will be in very short supply. When I see my neighbors, I think I shall say, “ Good day. Beautiful day…let’s war on feeling poorly!” And they will respond heartily, “And may you be the Czar of good-feeling!” Or, “May you head the Manhattan Project against the blues!” Anyway, the idea is the idioms are our favorites and by using them we are once more able to evade anything remotely resembling “deep thought”. I noticed that someone recently called for a Manhattan Project to end our dependence on foreign oil. The only problem here is that the scientists involved in the actual Manhattan Project did indeed “have a clue” of where they were going and how to get there. “Culture War” is another good nonce idea. I like the Bismarckian connection and the expression “culture war” itself reminds me strongly of the song Lili Marlene: ...schon rief die Posten, die blasen Kulturkampf... and I think of jerries, the RAF, white cliffs of Dover, John Wayne, and GIs sitting around in some USO hall, the air thick with smoke from Luckies in the green pack. I will talk about culture. I do not believe in culture war. I mean, it is just too easy to identify boogey men and point one’s finger at them. Culture war is an idiom that lets us off the hook. We can identify the bad guys. Therefore, we are innocent. At worst, we were duped. We were brainwashed. Nonsense. It also assumes that since we may identify someone or a group as the bad guys, they do bad things intentionally. At this point we cross into Conspiracy Theory. Anyone who reads books by the “culture war” group will notice that there is a slippery slope to conspiracy. There is a conspiracy of the liberal media, for one. There is a conspiracy by the entertainment industry. There is a Hollywood conspiracy to subvert morality, and so on; yards and yards of the conspiracy cloth. Actually, as demonstrated by the eager reading public for fantastic religious fiction, the enemies are ourselves.