Dog And Pony Show: The Culture Wars

 

Let us be clear, the whole concept of 'The Culture Wars' is a memetic trick to deceive and keep a stranglehold upon the masses of humanity. How, it is a distraction, a means by which the capitalist system protects itself by drawing one's attention towards an issue of far lesser significance. Most of these things, it turns out, are actually symptoms of the very capitalist system itself; as they are divisive in nature, and often classist in behavior, this is the very reality of capitalism. Division strengthens capitalism, the more divided we are the less likely we are to come together and agree that it is the system, rather than the petty issues of minor difference, that is the problem.

People fight, it is one of our most pleasurable pastimes, but what we fight for and over is what matters most. "Cultural identity' is certainly one of the most amorphous things to combat over, it is nearly undefinable, as cultures are ever changing; the question is more 'what culture, when?' rather than 'what has happened to my culture?' as time is ever shifting the cultural narrative. To be clear, it is not that the issues themselves have no significance in and of themselves, the problem is that many of the issues are created by the capitalist system itself. Racism is an outgrowth of capitalism's classist oppression of people, as is sexism, xenophobia, homophobia ect ect. Classism is a stratification system, as is its parent capitalism, these are the natural results of capitalism having reign over society. The more divided we are the fewer opportunities we possess to rectify it; thus the stratification/segregation/apartheid, that it creates makes walls before our collective societal discourse.

If we do not grapple with the very fact that we are combating ourselves rather than the root cause of our suffering than we are bound to repeat history over and over again and again. Human combat over issues of great significance is valuable and important, if we are to work together to solve our inequities and create more general opportunity and autonomy for all, we must come to the realization that our fight is being spread thin on multiple smaller fronts; combating only the symptoms rather than the disease. The culture wars are an excellent method of maintaining capitalism, as peoples individual differences, however slight, always can be found subjectively disagreeable on an individual basis; though these things may indeed have no effect upon those disagreeing and indeed may have no effect on society or the culture as a whole, in a negative way. Thus, the culture wars, in in effect creating the very real picture of a person not being able to see the forest through the trees.