Sound and Fury
The "Culture War" Signifies Nothing
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Throughout this essay, we will be forced to use the unfortunate and misleading words “right” and “left”—as if anyone knew exactly what they mean and who belongs to each group. These words are more phenomenal than precise or scientific, which is to say, they can only show us a general pattern understood through great theoretical rigor. This is not the place for that rigor, and I doubt even a work of many volumes could separate and organize all the various ideological strains that appear at this moment. Let us assume, then, everyone knows what is meant by these words. But let us also keep our prejudices at bay, whether favoring one side or the other, and consider both simply as phenomena of the current moment.
The first thing that jumps out is that both sides are serious—although it is often difficult to tell what they are serious about. Their visions are clearly important to them, extremely important, and they seem willing to sacrifice to achieve their desired ends. But what is it that they see, and perhaps more importantly, foresee? This combination of seriousness and vagueness has a disorienting effect on the few remaining impartial observers. One wonders if this same vagueness exists in the mind of the participants. Perhaps when the disordered mind seeks something with great seriousness, this is exactly the phenomenon we label “extremism.”
An extremist wants to take his project all the way. Maybe they will settle for a partial compromise at first; but as events continue to unfold, the remaining unfinished business becomes intolerable to them. They feel compelled to achieve the end of their project—but what exactly is that end today? If you were to ask a conservative or liberal twenty years ago what they wanted society to look like, it was fairly easy to get a clear answer. Ask a person of the left or right today and you will get one of two responses: the first will be so unreasonable and confused as to be unintelligible; the alternative will be the stuff of nightmares—that is, the nightmare scenario of their opposition.
What each side really wants is no longer a vision for “the world,” or “the west,” or “the country,” but more whatever springs to mind when opposing their enemies. Conflict itself seems to have become the point. For all the supposed seriousness, the only goal is continuation of the fight. But how can this be a goal? Conflicts are of necessity in motion, going back and forth; goals, however, progress towards an end. We must then question our presupposition that people today are indeed serious about a project, and perhaps instead are only serious about victory.
The victory they seek to achieve is victory in a “culture war.” Yet culture seems rather to have something to do with creation. We could suppose that the total annihilation of one side or the other will allow room for the winner to then create. However, both sides define each other in the process of fighting, and in fact have come to look more and more like one another. Since the battle seems to each side “existential,” each side must build itself up to be more “total.” Totality means that a thing is affected in all its parts. This is to say, each side leaves less breathing room for something different from itself to emerge.
Thus, both left and right are too busy assuring victory to allow one of their parts to deviate from this greater memetic imitation game. If one side is being exclusionary, then the other must do so as well. If one side is fearful of free speech, then the other must mirror it. If one side wants blood, then… In the process of fighting for their own cultural vision, they have inaugurated an anti-culture of destruction. Through their fanaticism, they have made the very thing for which they fight impossible.
But what is culture? As was said, at its most basic level, it is an act of creation—but more specifically, the creation of a way of life with shared customs, beliefs, values, visions, and above all loves. It is what a group of people living in peace and harmony create together. Culture, then, is not merely a given, but a goal. And moreover it is a goal that distinguishes us: what we mean when we speak of “cultured” and “uncultured” persons. Assuming we have not fallen victim to a gross philistinism, we consider a cultured person to have reached a certain “height” that an uncultured person has not.
Etymologically, the concept “culture” derives from the Latin cultura: agriculture. Likewise, it is a cultivation of soil, a preparation of ground for seeds, that one hopes will one day sprout into a bountiful harvest. A plant, if not properly cared for, grows wild. But if a talented horticulturalist comes along and shapes it, it can become even more beautiful. We would seem foolish to assume that people need less attention than plants. Culture thus requires shapers—what might otherwise be called educators.
The educator or teacher—be it a parent, a professional, or perhaps member of the clergy—is entrusted with overseeing the growth of human persons. Yet American education today focuses almost solely on preparation for participation in the economy. This would seem to assume the goal of cultivation is not to make a way of life, but to make a living. However, who would agree that a fulfilled person is merely a person that has been prepared for the busy-ness of money-making? Education, it is also said, prepares us for life by means of “socialization.” That is, we learn how to live amongst others through the social life of a school. Whatever our humanity is, it at the very least must be both social and economic. But if culture was truly reducible to these two things, it is doubtful that people would fight such an agonizing war over it.
If these categories are the sole ends of education in America, then it is safe to say that Americans are no longer “cultured,” and indeed have been bred to create our present “anti-culture.” Is it any wonder our so-called culture war is so full of sound and fury, yet ultimately signifies nothing? Of course, all of this assumes that there is something like a “human nature” that can either reach its goal or be diverted from it. Perhaps one source of the culture war is that we can neither agree as to the goal of human nature, or worse, that it even exists. Perhaps then we begin today at the wrong end of our problems.
We fight for the right to rule over an abyss. What would victory even mean in such a contest?