it's a real war, not a culture war
Oct. 12th, 2006 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaA couple of weeks ago i wrote that i believe the idea of the "culture war" is a lie.
When i say that, keep in mind that i DO believe there is a war going on in our culture. I think though that it is a real war. I don't think it should be called a "culture war" for reasons i will outline in a second. But in this war, just as in any war, people are beaten, raped, kidnapped, lined up and shot in classrooms, stabbed, hanged, dragged on the street behind a moving car; people are traumatized, shell-shocked, hide in their houses because they fear attack at any time; people are denied rights, discriminated against, driven away from their homes, shamed into silence, driven to drink, drugs, or suicide, survive by passing as members of the invading army; a people is silenced and isolated from one another as their history is erased and their language is suppressed and misappropriated; the invading army turns its subjects against one another.
This is a real war, not a culture war.
In a "culture war," the conflict is said to be between competing sets of ideas. The idea of culture war is used to gloss over the real death, the real torture, the real discrimination going on. If all we have is a war of words, then the people on both sides are both "equally responsible" for the incivility.
Instead what we really have is this: most people on all 'sides' have experienced some degree of being subjugated by force, but then we are all turned against one another because we've been fed various sets of lies about who is to blame for our pain. And in the process some of us continue the process of subjugating others because they are more vulnerable than we are, so we can.
The words that are spoken on top of all of this are not spoken by people who stand at positions of equal authority. There is no "free marketplace of ideas" any more than there is a "free market." Discourse appears to be 'dying' because it has never been alive; it is a facade propped up to keep us distracted while the poor scrounge for a way to live and rail against whoever their leaders are scapegoating this generation (one generation it's the Jews, next it's the gays or maybe the blacks; misogyny is always in fashion too).
When i say that, keep in mind that i DO believe there is a war going on in our culture. I think though that it is a real war. I don't think it should be called a "culture war" for reasons i will outline in a second. But in this war, just as in any war, people are beaten, raped, kidnapped, lined up and shot in classrooms, stabbed, hanged, dragged on the street behind a moving car; people are traumatized, shell-shocked, hide in their houses because they fear attack at any time; people are denied rights, discriminated against, driven away from their homes, shamed into silence, driven to drink, drugs, or suicide, survive by passing as members of the invading army; a people is silenced and isolated from one another as their history is erased and their language is suppressed and misappropriated; the invading army turns its subjects against one another.
This is a real war, not a culture war.
In a "culture war," the conflict is said to be between competing sets of ideas. The idea of culture war is used to gloss over the real death, the real torture, the real discrimination going on. If all we have is a war of words, then the people on both sides are both "equally responsible" for the incivility.
Instead what we really have is this: most people on all 'sides' have experienced some degree of being subjugated by force, but then we are all turned against one another because we've been fed various sets of lies about who is to blame for our pain. And in the process some of us continue the process of subjugating others because they are more vulnerable than we are, so we can.
The words that are spoken on top of all of this are not spoken by people who stand at positions of equal authority. There is no "free marketplace of ideas" any more than there is a "free market." Discourse appears to be 'dying' because it has never been alive; it is a facade propped up to keep us distracted while the poor scrounge for a way to live and rail against whoever their leaders are scapegoating this generation (one generation it's the Jews, next it's the gays or maybe the blacks; misogyny is always in fashion too).
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 09:24 pm (UTC)best,
Joel
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Date: 2006-10-13 04:29 pm (UTC)best,
Joel
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 04:27 pm (UTC)best,
Joel
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Date: 2006-10-13 05:31 pm (UTC)But, if it makes you happy, you could use words like "aristocracy" or "upper class" or "bourgeoisie."
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 05:32 pm (UTC)best,
Joel
no subject
Date: 2006-10-12 10:04 pm (UTC)"[...] The principal result of the witch-hunt system (aside from charred bodies) was that the poor came to believe that they were being victimized by witches and devils instead of princes and popes. [...] Against the people's phantom enemies, Church and state mounted a bold campaign. The authorities were unstinting in their efforts to ward off this evil, and rich and poor alike could be thankful for the energy and bravery displayed in the battle."
- Marvin Harris, excerpted from the book "Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches" Vintage Books, 1989.
http://alobar.livejournal.com/1904889.html
no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 05:37 pm (UTC)http://alobar.livejournal.com/1905989.html