To some people, the culture wars don’t matter. They are an irrelevance, an indulgence. A distraction from the material, bread-and-butter concerns of ordinary people, like paying the bills or finding an affordable place to live. This sentiment was echoed by Robert Jenrick, the Conservative leadership contender. As reported in the Times yesterday, Jenrick told a meeting of young activists that he didn’t want his party to ‘go down a rabbit hole of culture wars’, and that the public were more concerned about the cost of living and public services than gender issues.
The culture war is not an idle luxury. It is timely and necessary
While it’s true that politicians should focus on immediate, everyday matters that affect us all, Jenrick is wrong to discount how an ultra-liberal ideology affects us in profound, tangible ways. The culture war is not an idle luxury. It is timely and necessary.
As widely reported today, a new survey has shown that pride in Britain’s history has plummeted to record lows. According to the British Social Attitudes Survey 2023, just 64 per cent of the public said that they were ‘proud’ or ‘very proud’ of Britain’s history, down from 86 per cent in 2013 – and the lowest this has been since the question was first asked in 1995.
Some have attributed this to demographics. There are fewer people around today who remember the second world war, for example. This is true. But I suspect that it is also down to the fact that a dwindling number of children are taught about Britain’s achievements in their history classes. Increasingly, and with growing vehemence, British history has been taught as a litany of shame – a sorry tale of colonialism, slavery, racism and exploitation.
The culture wars have had a manifest impact here. As Professor Lawrence Goldman, of St Peter’s College, Oxford, told the Daily Telegraph this morning: ‘too much history teaching seems to start now from an assumption that the empire was inevitably malign.’ Robert Tombs, professor emeritus of French history at Cambridge University, points to ‘the generally negative portrayal of British history in the media, fiction, TV, films and schools.’
It’s not just in history, either. Recent generations have been taught that not only is gender mutable, but that so too is sex, and that you can choose to be a boy or a girl. That’s why the ‘culture war’ against radical trans ideology matters to women’s rights campaigners and to so many parents worried about the indoctrination of suggestible children and confused teenagers.
Many more still are afraid to speak out against trans ideology or the tenets of ultra-liberalism for fear of being shamed or cancelled. This happened in 2021 when many football fans were scolded by Gary Lineker and the like when they booed players ‘taking the knee’. What many fans objected to was the pious display of obeisance to a disruptive and divisive organisation, Black Lives Matter. The fans were of course tarnished as racists.
Being labelled with nasty names for speaking out is one thing. Losing your job is another. This is another tangible risk run by those who dare to dissent, and this has far-reaching consequences for society.
Many people won’t speak their mind on delicate matters for fear that it might cost them their livelihood. This is why ‘non-crime hate incidents’, anonymous incidents recorded by the police, determined as ‘hateful’ subjectively by those who report them, are so pernicious, and why our new government’s plan to repurpose them is such a dreadful idea. Woke ideology as enforced by the state serves to frighten and cajole the public into self-censorship.
This ideology can have a deleterious effect on society. This has been seen most acutely in America, with the BLM-inspired push to defund police forces. In cities such as Minneapolis and New York, police budgets were consequently slashed, forces withdrew from dangerous areas and arrests stopped. The predictable result was a huge increase in crime. There were also unforeseen results: according to Robert VerBruggen of the Manhattan Institute, between 2018-19 and 2020-21 the black homicide rate jumped massively, claiming thousands of black lives.
There has been a welcome fightback against ultra-liberalism in the United States and the UK. The tide certainly seems to have turned here against trans ideology. That’s all the more reason not to give up the fight now, by pretending the culture wars don’t matter.
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